Now to my question -- Is it reasonable for this smaller AVI file that I downloaded to be of equivalent or even better quality than the analog mpeg2 file I record myself?
yes
Or is this more a function of the input signal (HDTV vs Analog) being so much better that video compression for the AVI file is more "efficient"? Jim Maki [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Recorded quality is a result of three things. The source, the capture device and encoding process used.
I have used all sorts of TV turners going back to the old Matrox Marvels. I am currently using a ATI All in Wonder with a TV Wonder dual tuner setup on my primary workstation = dual Xeon, and the Hauppauge PVR USB2 which I recently purchased for my Media box. I also use a ATI USB TV Wonder on my laptop.
In short, I have played around with video, for a lot of years, using a lot of different hardware. My best TV recording results have been on a Xeon box with the All in Wonder PRO. On that box I can capture at the highest quality video available and only use 12 percent CPU time .... total. Where as my Hauppauge pulls down around 50 percent CPU time on my Media Box.
My Hauppauge is on a P4 3.0 800Mhz with 2GB of DDR400 and a fast SATA Maxtor 300MB 16MB cache hard drive. The capture drive is a matching pair of WDs RAID 0. It is a very fast box, doesn't use a swap file and uses a RAM drive as a Temp folder. It is a slick and quick machine.
The ATI All in Wonder does a better capture job then the Hauppauge, not that much better, but it's enough to notice.... admittedly it is so close it is a personal preference call. The ATI software is more feature rich then Hauppauge's which is pretty basic. However, Hauppauge has one very big advantage. It doesn't need to use video overlay to work. That means I can use it with my old Matrox G450 ( the best Video OUT card around) at 1600 X 1200. If I have to support video overlay I max out at 1028 X 768 on the Matrox. This is the reason I bought the Haupppauge. It does capture better then the PCI ATI TV Wonder PRO, and it allows me to use my G450s at high resolution while watching TV.
Rather then just edit and burn, I prefer to edit, then clean up and re-encode everything using TMPEnc programs.The end result is always very good, regardless of what I record them with .... as good as it is going to get in a TV format.
m
