New to VideoStudio 8SE...Help/Advice appreciated

[miami]

First off, sorry for the long post. I have read many of the posts here and have learned so much so far. However I have a number of questions and would appreciate any help or referral to other posts that may address the questions. I am using VS8SE and wanting to copy many of my Family VHS onto DVD. I purchased a Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U to convert the video. The sticky for Avoiding Problems has been a great guide and I have followed it. My PC is a P3 800 with 1+GB of RAM and 60 GB hard drive (approximately 25GB free space), running Windows 2000 SP4. When I follow the recommended MPEG Capture properties, on the initial startup screen I cannot pick AVI format (won't allow me to) and if I pick MPEG it defaults the MPEG audio layer to 44.1 KHz. If I change this to 48KHz it changes the selection on the startup screen to DVD. If I keep the DVD setting and set all other capture properties as suggested, when I start to capture, it chops the project up into many 10 - 30 second files (similar issue was posted here earlier in month and this happens because of the DVD setting on the initial screen).

I have had to choose MPEG4 on the initial screen in order to set the Capture properties as suggested. Is this correct?

As you are more than likely aware, in Canada we use NTSC should I use MPEG audio or LPCM? (What is LPCM)? What are the differences?

Lastly, when I get to the Create Video File Phase of the process, I am using the MPEG captured instructions and when I hit the SAVE button it is taking forever (72 hours) to render. Is this correct? Is it taking so long because of my slow machine? Are there any settings to the Capturing/Edit phase or to my OS that I can make to speed this up? The movie is approximately 1 hr and 30 mins in length including pictures, titles, transitions and music inserted. Any help/advice gladly appreciated. Thanks.

[DVDDoug]

The Plextor device has a hardware encoder. That's why your capture options are limited. That means that the data is converted to MPEG format by a chip inside the capture device before going to the computer.

It is more common to send raw data into the computer where the conversion is done by codec software. (codec - Coder / Decoder)

The advantage to a hardware encoder is that is very little demand on your CPU. So, you are less likely to have dropped-frames or other problems related to the CPU keeping-up with the real-time video stream.

The disadvantage is that it's MPEG only. This is OK if you are not doing any editing. MPEGs are not meant to be edited, and you may need a special-purpose MPEG editor. I use Womble MPEG Video Wizard ($100. When i edited MPEGs with Video Studio, I sometimes ended-up with corrupted files that crashed Video Studio, and sometimes DVDs with "lip sync" problems.

Even with a special-purpose MPEG editor, your videos will degrade if you do any editing that requires an decode / re-code cycle.

I cannot pick AVI format (won't allow me to)...

I just checked the Plextor site, and it says it has a DV-AVI software encoder... I wonder if this is only after you capture.... Or, did it come with some other capture software, besides Ulead?

have had to choose MPEG4... it is taking forever (72 hours) to render.

That seems to be a common problem with MPEG-4. (DVDs are MPEG-2.) Since you can't seem to capture to AVI/DV, try the MPEG-2/DVD option.

...we use NTSC should I use MPEG audio or LPCM? (What is LPCM)? What are the differences?

Capture to LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation). This is uncompressed, similar to the CD format except DVDs use 48kHz and CDs use 44.1kHz. And on CDs, they just call it PCM.

if I pick MPEG it defaults the MPEG audio layer to 44.1 KHz.

I don't get that... but it must be the hardware encoder again. In any case, Video Studio will convert it to the 48kHz DVD standard when you make a DVD.

All NTSC players can play LPCM or Dolby AC3. (MPEG audio is optional for NTSC players.) Video Studio 9 and (and Movie Factory and DVD Workshop) can make Dolby stereo soundtracks. Dolby eats-up less space on your DVD than LPCM. So, with Dolby, you can have longer videos, or higher quality (less compressed) videos.

Digital video is compilcated, and there's a steep learning curve. Analog capture is the trickiest part. Everybody's set-up is different, so the trick is to find out what works for you. Once you get it working, it won't be to bad.

[Ken Berry]

Just to add to Doug's detailed reply, you should NOT be capturing to MPEG-4. VS8 cannot handle it (unless Plextor has fiddled with it to allow it, though I doubt it). The incredibly long rendering time you are experiencing is evidence of that -- renders should take no more than 4 - 5 times real time (i.e. a half hour project should take no more than about 2 to 2.5 hours to render. This varies with the power of your computer, of course.) The ability to handle mpeg-4 only appeared with VS9, and then only with a plug-in which is free to registered owners.

You should, as Doug suggested, be choosing mpeg-2/DVD -- and if you want to avoid the scene splitting (which, with mpeg-2/DVD, should only be possible after capture, so I am at a loss to explain it unless it is a setting built in to the Plextor set-up), then choose mpeg-2 and make sure the properties are the same as required for a DVD -- especially the frame format (720 x 480).

My own suggestion would be to avoid mpeg layer 2 audio as that is not part of the standard for NTSC DVDs and has been known to cause a variety of trouble for users, and to choose the larger LPCM. Unfortunately, VS8 could not handle Dolby without a $29.95 plug-in.

As a bitrate, with VHS source material, you probably don't need to capture at more than 4000 kbps, especially with a hardware encoder. This would also offset the larger audio file size with LPCM. But you should not bother going higher than 6000 kbps, which with a hardware encoder could possibly give you marginally better video quality, but of course, a larger file size.

[SFGREG]

I jut purchased this Plextor as well. My question is that it comes with video studio 8 SE (which is apparently a version that works with Plextor).
Now will video studio 9 also work, or is the fact that it does hardware encoding the bottleneck? Is it worth getting vs9, as it definitely looks to have a lot of features, but if I can't use with the plextor then it wouldn't be worth it. Please let me know your thoughts.

Thank you