I would like to take a quick poll of favorite ATI MMC capture settigs for minimum file size at "decent" quality (slightly better than VHS). MMC7.7 or 7.8 is assumed. The target is DVD (of course).

Since I ask I go fist:

COMPRESSION: MPG2
RES: 352x480
AUDIO: 48Khz
INTERLEAVE: yes
CROP: yes
DATA RATE: 3.00 MB/s
VARIABLE RATE: yes
I/P FRAMES: 4/2
MOTION EST: 100
MAX FILE SIZE: windows limit ( I use NTFS)

A FEW OTHER CAPTURE RELATED PROCEDURAL STEPS:

DEFRAG BEFORE: always
SPLIT AUDIO VIDEO AFTER: allways

Whew... there you go, I spilled my guts..

Sorry I meant P and B frames..!

I also forgot to mention that this setting would produce 52-ish minute files that are about 1.2GB. About 3.5 hrs per DVD. Quality for converting new VHS tapes is high - essentially no discernable difference on a new high-end 32" monitor.

The QUALITY scale is almost inverse-exponential. There is a HUGE difference from 1 to 3MB but very little from 7 to 9MB. Where on the curve is the most bang-for-Buck, and this is hardware dependant and source dependant.

My source spans from slow Nature to Action but I rec with the same settings (too lazy). So for not disapointed.

Seems pretty good for MMC 7.7.
With MMC 8.0 (AIW 9700), you can also specify the maximum bitrate as well as the target bitrate.
I use about the same: 352x480, IBBP, 100% ME, MPEG2-DVD, and I use Max bitrate=6Mbps and target=3Mbps. This actually produces noticeably better results than MMC 7.x in fast motion scenes.

I love ATI - they get better and better. I wonder what the "secret" max bit rate is for MMC7.8 users??

The ATI web site still offers MMC v7.8 as latest for my AIW. Their official acceptance of a new MMC working on old boards usually lags its release by a few months. Chances are that it will work on older AIW boards.

Think about it. We might be taking this for granted but this is a HUGE benefit of being an ATI owner. No other company (video or otherwise) offers this.

Even after years ATI cards are not obsolete but rather constantly get better and better with each new SW release. Becuase of this I will continue to buy ATI cards for all my computers, will recommend ATI to all my customers and when the boards die I will replace them with another ATI. They are not angels but rather the best devils out there since they don't totally re-design every ckt every time, reliability skyrockets and drivers get tighter with customer needs.

Imagine if we are all stuck to the MMC ver that shipped with our boards.... <oh my god!>

Nap, I respect you a lot and you are entitled to your opinions like anyone else, but you seem to have a short memory. I got into making my own SVCDs in late 2000 and I started out with the ATI All-in-Wonder. I can tell you that ATI's tech support is awful. There was a known problem with their DVD playing software at the time and AMD based systems and I gave up trying to get them to look into it after 2 email attempts resulted in a canned response advising me to check some PC settings. ATI neglected to make changes to MMC that were desperately needed until last year. Have you forgotten that the SVCD template did not exist until recently? Have you forgotten that until recently NOBODY could capture full frame DVD video because that $#%^$ MMC would drop frames as soon as you tried to do it? ATI always treated their video customers as an afterthought until recently. I will give them credit that they seem to have done a good job finally with MMC, but they probably lost me forever as a customer. I switched to the Dazzle DVC II in the summer of 2001 because I got tired of ATI's crap and I have abandoned my ATI card for recording since then. I hope they continue to treat you guys who have the cards well, but I remember all too well their lack of concern for all of us in the recent past and I probably won't ever go back.

Guess I missed all the fun - since then though the MMCs have been upgrading faster than I was learning.

I came from the MIRO camp (aquired by Pinnacle) and I can show you the scars! Talk about incommpatibility! They thought they were the HOT stuff so the market should follow them (not the other ways around). Miro Tsup was the best I've ever encountered at the time. By "best" I mean they were almost totally useless like any other Tsup but you were not on hold long.

Matrox (yikes..!)

And before Matrox there was REVEAL <...groan...>

In between I've tried dozens of junk that are not worth mentioning (thank god for 30 day return).

I'm too nauseated to continue... Its a wonder why I'm not a Ludite Fundamentalist !

From the ATI website:

Q14: Will Multimedia Center 8.0 be made available for owners of the older ALL-IN-WONDER cards?


A14: Multimedia Center 8.0 will only support the new product release. However, MMC 8.1 will bring all the new functionality of MMC 8.0 to support legacy cards. Therefore owners of the older ALL-IN-WONDER cards can look forward to having MMC 8.1 made available to them in spring 2003.


Re: your question, I go for "dvd quality" for home movie transfers (also helps having more bandwidth for camera shake and noise from low-light Hi8 video) so my settings are a tad higher:

half frame, interlaced, 5.7mb/sec VBR, mp2, 48khz audio (mono - for older camcorder source) ME 99 - that's about 100 minutes of video per disk.

If I'm grabbing TV programs, 4.5mbit/sec half frame vbr stereo - after editing out commercials I can get two hours + programs no problem. TV source (CABLE) is usually cleaner than my Hi-8 source.