I am capturing from VHS and have been using TMPEG to encode to 480x480 for SVCD burning. Trouble is I am unsure of the optimal bitrate settings to use in Powervcr II. Ranges from 192kbps to 10,000kbps. Are bitrates over a certain threshhold doing more harm than good or useless for better quality? I encode my captured MPEG2 file to 480x480 and seems like I notice more frame drops and choppy play with 10,000kbps capture. Also, is it better to capture to, say 720x480 and "crunch" the file down to 480x480 with TMPEG as opposed to direct capture to 480x480? Sorry to be long-winded guys, I appreciate the help!

If you are Re-encodeing with Tmpgenc then You will get Better Quality from Useing the Highest Bitrate and Resolution Possible(Without Dropping too many Frames), I use WinDVR 2.0 to Capture to Mpeg2 at 14600kbs and 720+480 then I use CCE to encode the File to Mpeg2 for SVCD and the Quality is Pretty good, I used PowerVCR for a While but Quickly realized that it wasn"t produceing Very good Quality compared to some other Mpeg capture Programs..I Probably own every mpeg capture Program there is and have allways come back to useing WinDVR 2.0 for it"s ease of use and Superior Quality..

I have WinDVR 2.0 but it won't run on my WINXP system. Keep getting an error message - Overlay is not available, close app and lower resolution/color depth/refresh rate. My monitor resolution is already set low 800x600, 24 bit color. This happens whenever I hit record and then the program locks up. Seems to work okay when using low bitrate profiles but this is no good as I am interested in quality SVCD's. Interesting note is sometimes I can preview a playing tape through WinDVR in the higher bitrate profiles (though not able to record) and the picture in the preview window is backward, like looking through a mirror from the other side?? This is why I kinda am stuck with Powervcr II.

It sounds like your Video card Doesn"t Support Overlay, Which is wierd Cuz even the Cheapest Video cards support Overlay, unless you are useing Integrated Video of which I have run into a Few that didn"t support it...If this is the Case then you should really get a Video card that supports overlay as most Direct Show Capture Programs need a Video card with Overlay support, you Can get a Video card with overlay support on EBay for probably less than $20+ Shipping...There is One other Program that I have used to capture Full resolution Mpeg2 and gotten Really good Quality with and it is a Cheapo Program called "Cyberlink Power Producer" (Not Power Director), it only has a Few templates and not many settings but when useing the High Quality DVD profile I have gotten really high Quality Mpeg2 captures..Lately since I upgraded to a Faster CPU (from a 1.7ghz to a 2.53ghz) I have been captureing to DV useing a VFW DV Codec and have been getting Exelent results, then I add a few filters and Encode it to SVCD useing CCE and AVISynth and Have been getting Better Quality this way as opposed to Captureing to Mpeg2, even captureing to something like HuffYUV then encodeing to Mpeg2/SVCD gives much better results than captureing to Mpeg2 and re-encodeing to SVCD accept you need a Lot of Disk space, luckily I have an extra 160gb laying arround...Anyways Good Luck...Cheers