I've just installed both my VoodooTV FM card and the latest download of Visual Reality onto my Windows 98 system.

The purpose of this is similar to what ProphetZarquon had in mind.  I would like to play my VHS tapes and record them digitally into any preferrable movie type to store onto my PC, then hopefully convert them to be a playable VCD.

I had to purchase an S-Video to SCART cable, as there is no composite support on my VCR (it's old).

Upon plugging them in, launching VR and switching to S-Video while the tape is playing, I still have a blue screen.  What else needs to be set up?

I don't see such a channel in the selection list.

On the 3dfx desktop GUI remote, there are two buttons to switch to the S-Video or Composite ports, as well as the TV tuner.

But switching to S-Video gives nothing.

Success!  

It seems that the S-Video to SCART cable was indeed S-Video TO SCART, in that the signal was only going the wrong way, and the opposite way of what I needed.  

So I purchased a switch box that has a SCART socket on one end, with a , S-Video, Audio & sockets on the other.

I plugged the SCART adapter into the back of the VCR, then plugged all four cables into the other ends, with the   and S-Video connections going into the back of the VoodooTV FM, and the Audio & connectors joining up to a single 3.5mm jack, which plugs into the LINE IN on my sound card. SORTED!  

Now I am tinkering with the digital editing and wondering what is best to encode my movies into, so they are of the best quality to play, yet they can fit onto a CD-R as a VCD, or failing that the best quality available and burn them onto a DVD.

If anyone has tried this before, what encoding do you recommend as the best quality:size ratio?

VisualReality will only encode movies in MPEG-1 format and that averages around 12Mb per minute, which means roughly, a 2 hour film would take up 1.44Gb!    I'd hate to think what AVI format takes.  

How would it be possible to keep good quality, yet fit a 2 hour film onto a CD-R (700Mb)?  What encoding is used for that?  ???

Well I gave XVid a whirl, although I'm not entirely impressed of its speed compared to DivX.  I find my encoding rate is a lot faster, and the playback of the actual movie is also faster too.

I did try Intel Indeo amongst a few others but they were terrible!