AVerMedia AVerTV Hybrid Volar HX capturing

[kiraly.andras]

System: Windows XP SP3
Device: AVerMedia AVerTV Hybrid Volar HX
Record source: cable, composite vhs
Record format: preset called DVD

Windows Media Player 11: plays the result perfectly
Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0: plays the result perfectly
AVIcodec info: video (MPEG-2 720x576 8191kbps 25fps) and audio (MPEG-1 Layer 2 48khz 224kbps) are supported
GSpot info: video (MPEG-2 720x576 8191kbps 25fps) and audio (MPEG-1 Layer 2 48khz 224kbps) are supported

Adobe Encore CS3: starts to import but at the end of the long process says: "The file type is not supported"
Adobe Premiere Pro CS3: imports, indexes, but shows a totally corrupted stuff mainly with green lines and squares
Pegasys TMPGEnc MPEG Editor 1.0.1.59: freezes during open (must terminate process)
Pegasys TMPGEnc XPress 4.4.2.238: imports but looks corrupted (view here: http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/5845/digitmxpac0.jpg)
Windows Movie Maker 5.1 (just try for curiosity): imports without any errors, can handle
VirtualDub MPEG2 1.6.19.24586: opens and handle
Adobe After Effects CS3: imports, recognizes the parameters of the file, but "media pending"
eRightSoft SUPER 2008.25: opens and can convert

And! After this pointless conversion (DVD format to DVD format) Adobe Premiere can read the file, index once, conforming once, and no more pending just the full errorfree content. BTW the mentioned conversion increase the bitrate to 9000kbps and changed the audio format to AC3. The filesize reduced from 634Mb to 488Mb.

1.) What is the problem with the original file? What causes the behaviour in Premiere and TMPGEnc MPEG Editor?
2.) Is it really true that i can not create a fully customized preset for recording with the Volar HX? Like a 720x576 WMV? Or like a DVD resolution with a different audio format? Anybody else use this new device here?

Thanks in advance!

[jeffy]

OT: Do you want to just cut a file? If yes, then please try these tools (one free; the other one commercial, but frame accurate):
Mpg2Cut2: http://www.geocities.com/rocketjet4/
VideoReDo: http://www.videoredo.com/en/ProductPlus.htm

Try first just resaving the file with Mpg2Cut2. Maybe it will import successfully.

[kiraly.andras]

Thanks for your fast reply! I am trying to be fast, too :-)

1.) Mpg2Cut2: the result is opened successfully in every previously mentioned editing application, like Premiere and Encore, but the audio is out of sync. Media Player Classic plays it and the audio is in sync.
2.) VideoReDo: makes a cut without any notification, so the result is shorter than the source. Tried it with to different movie: once cut from the start, once from the end.

After it i've tried two others:

3.) PVAStrumento (recommended by the author of Mpg2Cut2): the result contains a bigger delay in audio than with Mpg2Cut2, but still played perfectly with MPC. During the process notified me about many GOP problems, and resynching.
4.) ProjectX (recommended by the author of Mpg2Cut2): whoooo!!! finally it produces something that seems OK in Premiere and Encore. Not too strange that MPC plays it with out of sync. But in this case i am not interested in the player, just the editors, so this one is the solution.

The whole thing is a very deep water for me and i feel very lucky that found a solution, becase i was so close to that i go to my friend who has a hardware DVD recorder and which is produce a problem free result (tried it in the past). But this little extra step is acceptable and now i can do the whole thing myself, at home, in my style, in my rhythm :-)

So thanks again,
bye.

[kiraly.andras]

A few weeks later...

I have bad news. The final DVD came out from Encore is not acceptable, because there are missing video frames and corrupted (bubbling?) zones in the audio. It seems that the previously mentioned application turned the source material to an absolutely DVD compliant piece but for the price of dropping/cutting both from the video and audio tracks. Naturally it is not an acceptable solution.

So i am still confused how to make the recorded stuff perfectly DVD compliant and therefore importable to Premiere or Encore. I've read that Encore is much more strict than the DVD rules, but as i wrote Pegasys TMPGEnc MPEG Editor was unable to import these file neither, so maybe it isn't Adobe's fault (but it's a strong suspicion).

Any other recommended tool for making a video file more compliant, correcting the uncompliant parameters (maybe without recompressing, so losslessly)?

[jeffy]

And! After this pointless conversion (DVD format to DVD format) Adobe Premiere can read the file, index once, conforming once, and no more pending just the full errorfree content. BTW the mentioned conversion increase the bitrate to 9000kbps and changed the audio format to AC3. The filesize reduced from 634Mb to 488Mb.


Is it really error free? Have you used the PC for something else when recording? How powerful CPU does your PC have? Does it meet the specifications? http://www.avermedia.com/avertv/Upload/ProductImages/DS_AVerTV%20Hybrid%20Volar%20HX_A827__200808.pdf

After all the things I've read so far, I would suspect the file is either corrupt OR became corrupt when it was written. Could you please post the log of PVAStrumento?

[kiraly.andras]

I don't know if it's really error free (what does really means?), i've only used this word from that point of view. After the mentioned conversion (with SUPER) the file turned importable in Premiere, and has the full content without corrupted frames and the audio was in sync. This means "no error" in that situation.

And yes, generally I used to do other tasks during the recording. But don't feel any resource insufficiency, everything runs seamlessly, as i can see. I have Intel Core 2 Duo 2,66GHz (E8200) and 4Gb RAM, so it is much more powerful what recommended for MPEG-2 recording (P4 2,4GHz with 512Mb RAM). This is why i so brave to do other things, but these just only small ones, like browser, email client, notepad. The CPU is more than enough. Do you think that the HDD can't handle perfectly the recording because of other running tasks?

I've deleted those previous projects, but have a new recording. It is a little bit better, because Premiere can import it and work with it, Pegasys TMPGEnc can import and work with it, but Encore say the same "file type is not supported", so no way to import. After ran it through PVAStrumento, Encore can import it, and this time the audio is perfectly synced to video, so no corruption made in this last step. Here is the log (merged the "Scan" and "Make PS" parts):

***
*** PVAStrumento 2.1.0.17
*** running at 10-04-2008 00:12
***
Pre-Scanning input. May take some time.

Stream info for
E:\temp\avertvtemp\Presszó_01.mpg

Found 1 video stream.
Found 1 MPEG audio stream.

VIDEO #1
Resolution 720 x 576 (full D1)
Aspect ratio is 4:3
Frame rate 25.00 fps
Nominal bitrate 4096000 bps
First PTS: 00:00:00.922

MPEG AUDIO #1
MPEG1, Layer 2
stereo, sampled at 48.0 kHz.
Bitrate 224 kbps
Each frame contains 24.0 ms audio (672 bytes)
First PTS: 00:00:00.801

==SCANNING==

Input: E:\temp\avertvtemp\Presszó_01.mpg
Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:01.002
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:00.993
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:01.002
Last fileset:
1941381389 total bytes written
Video 1: 89878 frames, 00:59:55.120
Audio 1: 149797 frames, 00:59:55.128

Sync estimate at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : sync

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
13 / 14 / 15 [frames]
283445 / 307161 / 318487 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
3901 / 4095 / 4360 [kbps]

<<Make PS>>

Input: E:\temp\avertvtemp\Presszó_01.mpg
Options
.. fixing startup delay.
.. fixing stream synch.
.. keeping track of audio offset accumulation.
.. strict checking of audio framing.
.. falling back to relaxed semantics on TS
.. dropping GOPs longer than 980 KB
.. splitting on change of video format.
.. splitting on change of audio format.
.. splitting on number of audio tracks.
.. clearing CDF
.. creating new GOP timecodes.

Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:01.002
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:00.993
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:01.002
New program stream : E:\temp\avertvtemp\Presszó_01PVAS_00.mpg
Last fileset:
1941129725 total bytes written
Video 1: 89878 frames, 00:59:55.120
Audio 1: 149797 frames, 00:59:55.128

Sync estimate at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : sync

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
13 / 14 / 15 [frames]
283445 / 307161 / 318487 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
3901 / 4095 / 4360 [kbps]

**********************************************************

The confusion is bigger in my mind. Not because of the log (what does it say to you? nothing for me!), but because of the success. It seems that this hardware is not reliable and can produce various results.