Try capturing at 23.976fps for NTSC, or 25fps for PAL.
You can then use pulldown (pullup) during encoding (for NTSC only) so the video plays normally at 29.97fps.
The lower fps capture may help speed things up a bit.
Most set-top players support both PAL and NTSC, if you want to try 25fps PAL even.
Check yours in the list at
www.videohelp.com (left menu, look under Players).