Best method for Capture (Sky)..help please! resolution, determine, elsewhere, possible, digital

andy

Hi
I am trying to determine the best hw / sw to get to capture from Sky Digital at best possible resolution so I can burn to DVD.

dar1us informed me elsewhere  (thanks) that true digital capture is not possible, so what would be the best route to go in search of best quality analogue capture from my Digibox? I hope to be able to capture in MPEG2 best quality.

I have a relatively recent powerful PC (XP2600+, A7V333, 512mb PC2700 etc) ready to go, just don't know what hw / sw I need now to get moving on this. Currently I use either Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2 or Spruce Maestro to author DVD projects, would these apps be suitable for authoring compiled, captured episodes ready for burn to DVD (I usually make an image file and burn with Nero).

Hoping you can help...

JF

PS
I do not want to go the standalone DVD recorder route, so please no suggestions to do just that.

sky is generally noisy crap, you'd be better off (quality wise) by capturing lossless to huffyuv, then cleaning, then encoding to mpeg2 using cce or tmpgenc, meaning you only need an analogue capture card

but if you're determined to try and capture directly to mpeg2, then maybe look at something from canopus

US/Product..._2_capture.asp

wotef
Thanks for replying - I am trying to capture from Sky as  accurately as I can (despite their low bandwidth output) so I can archive multiple episodes to DVD+RW as I described above.

quot;...you'd be better off (quality wise) by capturing lossless to huffyuv, then cleaning, then encoding to mpeg2 using cce or tmpgenc, meaning you only need an analogue capture card...quot;

Is this process a really time consuming one? I have only just got away from the typical 16 hour TMPG routines when encoding DVD Mpeg2 ready for burn (thank you DVD2One  ) and I'd hate to go back to such efforts.

If I was to go this way, which cards would you recommend? I was thinking about the Adaptec AVC200 Vide-Oh! package - seems to have reasonable reviews.

Thanks again

JF

noisy - only blocknoise. the rest of it is blurry.

it isn't too bad, but they do broadcast at low bandwidth. bbc looks ok on sky.

any card will do but capturing to a lossless or a near lossless in avi will suffice sucly. re-coding to mpeg 2 isn't that time consuming. I can get about 2x speed when going to DVD-R.

to do with making blur look better, and good acisynth based noisers I should know about?

i am gonna go and watch Vanilla Sky on box office, wish me luck in the capture, shallow grave conked out after 25 mins. the card is dying, bring on the replacement. i have one already, but it doesn't work at all.dar1us

This is the problem with sky digital and videoguard in general. There is not CAM for this system (only in Italy and only for really - really old stream subscripters...)
Anyway, here is how I do it:

I have a win tv primio FM card from Hauppauge and I grabb with Virtualdub, using PicVideo Mjpeg codec @ 20 (highest) or 19 quality. Huffyuv is better if you have the HD space, but not THAT better..

You always need to post proccess your source. So, you load the avi to virtualdub again and you add some filters. Dynamic noise reduction and Static Noise Reduction are neccessary. Other filters you migh need is Smart Smoother, the optimised version of 2D cleaner, Cartoon Tool (fxtoon), msharpen and maybe delogo and logoaway filters.
For really, really noise sources, you also need a progressive restorer.

Now you frameserve to your favorite encoder and wait, wait, wait....
A 45 min episode of Jeremiah, needs about 8 hours with all those filters with tmpgenc plus, 2 Pass VBR. But the final mpeg, looks like the transmission itself!

I have a similar system to you and have found that if you use the latest
Ulead Media Studio Pro 7
And capture using their Built in mpeg encoder, the result can be quite good. Make sure the capture drive is a seperate drive from main drive. (give it every chance of working

I have only tested out VCD quillity, and found it was the same as if not better than the usual capture-reencode hassle.

Try it and see. I think the trial version has the encoder in it?