** moved ** ELMO-How do you record???

Just curious to know that your video clarity is the best and I record in VCR and later convert to AVI using Dr.Divx  using my TV tuner in the laptop either 604*480 or 756*512.

I am not able to make it on MP4. The clarity is poor that is why I hate even putting here.

Could you put in some tips or give a link where and How I can make it to MP4.

By the way, you completely stopped putting Malena videos.

To me the linelup is : Adora, Malena , Alexa followed by the rest

Allow me to expand on this.

elmo uses the ideal method of transfer as it is entirely digital. When you have a VCR source or even record with a dvd-recorder(better)  there is some analogue conversion involved.

The probable reason why your VCR tranfers look poor when compared to others is down to the signal noise in the picture. This can be cleaned up with the right equipment if you want to be serious about this. I don't profess to be an expert in this but if you want to see what can be achieved with a VHS transfer then look at the Bionce/Bionce & Alexa clips that I posted last week.

Clarification

LNB - > PVR box (card)+ software -> PC Hard drive
not a dreambox type solution.

One point for clarification. When you say "Straight to HDD through a PVR" is the Hard Drive part of the satellite receiver or inside the PC ?

MP4 is really just a container for audio and video with appropiate codecs. As elmo says, the preferred codec for that is H264 but there are is no reason why another codec such as 3ivx cannot be used.

Quality comes from 3 things. Firstly, how good the original recording is. Secondly, if it has to be captured to a PC, the quality of the capture and finally the codecs used to make the clip.

An avi is also nothing more than a container using codecs such as xVID for the video and mp3 for the audio.

I record the broadcast signal straight to hard drive through a PVR. (There are very many on the market.) edit the ts  or MPEG file using MPEG streamclip, freeware from [Versteckter Link - Registrierung notwendig]

(download quicktime alternative and install after removing Quicktime - only valid for Win machines) - which you have, and export to mp4 using the H.264 codec. This is newer and supposedly more efficient than the H.263 used by Xvid.
NOTE, encoding with H.264 takes a lot of CPU resources and requires a lot of RAM, it also takes a LOT more time compared to other codecs.

for the creative stuff I use iMovie '08 or final cut express, Mac only that takes hours !
(for Windows you could use - Sony Vegas or Pinnacle studio, there are many other software solutions available)

re Malena, I haven't seen so much good stuff lately.
correction - [Versteckter Link - Registrierung notwendig]
more of this later ;-)