PCA Forums

i recently got into editing home movies and such. unfortunately my current setup is only able to "capture" Mpeg-1 format. while recording back to a vhs tape or burning on a cd, the quality obviously isn't too good. it's somewhat comparable to a "VCD".

so basically how big a difference is there between mpeg-1 and mpeg-2. is it like comparing a vhs tape or vcd to a dvd???

i'm prolly sure it is but i just want to make sure... :-) (it's about $100 more to upgrade my current capture card to mpeg-2 format)

MPEG-1 is inherently lower quality. All of the MPEG video compression algorithms use extremely time consuming mathematical conversions known as transforms. With MPEG-1, the transforms are simpler, as hardware was not as advanced when it came out. With MPEG-2, the transforms are much more complex, as more modern hardware was able to do more complex things. There are other differences, as well. MPEG-2 has more advanced post processing, for instance. So MPEG-2 players generally do more to improve image quality when playing than an MPEG-1 decoder.

The basic difference is that MPEG-2 is by far superior, because it was designed with more modern electronics in mind.

thanks for replying... i was aslo able to get some info on the net.

i went ahead and "upgraded" my card to capture mpeg-2. hopefully it was worth the $$$$