This guide is made for capturing directly to dvd-format MPEG-2 with a Cinergy 400 TV Capture card, capturing danish TV standard wich is PAL, 25 fps. To capture from other TV-standards, remember to set the apropriate values for PAL/NTSC, fps and resolution.
First start Mainconcept MPEG Encoder
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Then start the capture program by selecting: Tools > Capture
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You should now have a window with the title "Capture" and you can now close Mainconcept MPEG Encoder
First make sure Video Capture Device is set to "Cinergy 400 TV Capture".
Make sure Audio Capture Device is set to soundcard device and not the Cinergy 400 TV Capture.
Set the volume here to all the way down. Else you will get echo on your recording.
Then click Setup to get to the setup window.
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Click the tab Video Capture Device.
Under Video Input select Video Tuner if recording from tv-tuner, or select Video Composite or SVideo if using AV or SVideo input.
Frame Rate: 25
Color Space/Compression: YUY2 (Other choices might be as good, but the RGBxx ones seem to work too slow to capture without dropped frames).
Output Size: 704 x 576
Other output sizes can be used. You might for example sometimes want to capture in half size. But you must make sure that you select the same size under the capture settings later on. 720 x 576 may also be correct but seems to cause dropped frames.
If capturing from tv-tuner, click TV Tuner to set up channals.
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Just type the channel number under Channel: and click Enter, if you know the channel number already, or click "Auto Scan Channels" to scan for channels. Don't bother naming the channels though, since they will be forgotten next time you run it.
Click OK to return to the setup window.
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Click the tab Audio Capture Device.
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Under Audio Mixer Input, select the source you connected the audio to (most likely Line In).
Format should be "48000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, 187.500k kB/sec".
Experiment with the volume, until you get a recording that sounds correct. This volume control can only be set in certain steps, so you may want to use the The Windows Volume Control instead, to set it more precisely.
Now click the tab Capture.
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Under Compression and Video select "MainConcept MPEG Encoder".
Click "Config" button to the right of that.
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Under the tab Basic Settings set the following:
Format type: "DVD"
Format sub-type: "PAL MPEG-2"
Fields: Lower "Upper Field First"
Upper field seems to be the right one for this capture card. If you experience a lot of flickering on the result, you may want to try lower field.
Deinterlacing: "Disabled"
Set the Video bitrate (kbps) according to how large you want your file to be, or what quality you want.
If you want a movie to fit on a DVD, first find the length of the movie and use a bitrate calculator to calculate the maximum bitrate you can use.
Experiment with setting the Video encoder quality. If you set it too high, you will get dropped frames. It doesn't need to be high.
Now click the Video Settings tab.
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Make sure the Frame size is set to 704 x 576. Horisontal will probably be 720. Make sure to change it to 704.
Other frame sizes can be used, but they must match the Output Size chosen under Setup > Video Capture Device > Output Size.
Click ok and ok until you are back to the main window.
Click Set capture file and select the filename and location to save to.
Click Start Capture
At the bottom of the window you can see the progress of frames, time, dropped frames, frame rate, etc.
If you get a lot of dropped frames, you can try to close all other programs and everything that might slow the computer down. If it doesn't help you need to change the capture settings.
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Now you just need to author and burn the video onto a DVD. There are links to guides on how to do that below.
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