History of sucess - capture with bt878a in dv format to make dvd

[Malow]

im here to tell my "history" on capture tests for 8 months, and finally, after all of this time , i found the way to perfect capture with bt878a (PixelView play tv pro) to author dvds.

fist, i use the btwincap drivers (btwincap.sourceforge.net) version 5.2.2 (the last bug free for me whit support dscaler) ,whit it, i can capture 720x480 in vfw apps, also make use of sharpness option, (few drivers support it) setting to 79 (sharp, but not too sharp)

using whit virtualdub_sync in yuy2, and MainConcept DV codec (also can use canopus, but mainconcept are faster, and canopus are too "instable" in cpu usage) whit "fast mode" option disabled, i capture whith 50 - 85 cpu usage in a XP2000+ , with 0 frames dropped in 2 hous of vhs capture and a very slow 30g hd whit ntfs (vdub is exelent in his write buffer dont?) and whit perfect sync. (capture in 44khz, and change to 48 after, do not capture in 48khz, i have some problems.)

i do not recomend use a fat32 hd, ntfs is slow but for capture is a good option, because the damn 4g fat32 limit.

after capture, i can convert directly the video to mpg2 whit cinema craft, but becareful, u must turn off the upper field option in cinema craft and set 000000000 timecode (i belive that the captured file has upper filed, but still has to disable it.) unless u have a terrible motion video in dvd.

u can edit too the file in any video editing program, (like premiere) but i recomend for more simple usage and speed, Sonicfoundry Video vegas 3c, its faster (whits 256megs of ram, hehe)
for simple editing, (cut bad parts, and make some effects)

bacareful again, after save the file as dv from vegas and premiere, it will change the field order, and u have to check the upper field in cinema craft (cinema craft still are the fatest and best, compared whit the mainconcept in vegas or premiere 6.5).

if u not edit the file, just extract the audio whit virtualdub and use the conversion option to make it have 48khz ,

if u edit, save whit vegas in 48khz also.

after have the audio and video stream, i use scenarist to make ac3 audio and author the dvd, in simple steps....

i hope this help some bt878 users, because i waste too days in my life to do this thing in a better way.

please, tell any othes ways tho make this too. i will apreciate. too, any comentaries and discussions.

Malow.

[cjaar]

@malow...

good to see that u also use pixelview tv pro, not much people use this tv tuner card :)
I do hv the same card and was fidling around with it to capture some tv programs with v-dub, but didnt hd any success!!!
My Tv std is PAL-B and this option i am not able to get in the video standard in V-dub, i see NTSC and other pal m/n but no pal b...
how do i see PAL-B option???
some time i do get the video but not clear and sound distorted!!!


I tried with iuvcr, well i was able to see the video(small amount of distortion) and noicy audio. afte capture, there was no audio...

can u give some input as to how i can successfully capture video with this card.. BTW i am using the WDM drivers which came with the card( pixelview tv pro v5.21 s/w)... do u recommend to upgrade to latest WDM ???

any suggestion/input will be apperciated!!!!

thanks in advance
cj :D

[Malow]

I really do not recomend u use the wdm drivers from pixelview...
the only advantage is the stability.
but is better u use the btwincap drivers avaliable from btwincap.sourceforge.net

the wdm driver from prolink is very poor, and btwincap enable u to use all tv standards....

to change the color format, i use dscaler, (www.dscaler.org) but i allways use ntsc, and after this, vdub will open the video whit last video format used... so, u change to pal-bgdhi (in dscaler, i belive that will be the right format) and vdub will open whit this color format. even if u reset.


iuvcr is good, but i don´t like it. :)

i dont now if u are familiar whit hardware conf, but some bios options, can result in freezes, audio cracking and video artefacts (i experience all of this) .
and also is good u tell me th specs of your pc, mb, sound card, procesor etc...

and u have the lastest bios? soundcard drivers? this can help.
i use a creative live soundcard and a ac97 too (onboard) and all works great.

all hope this help... keep in touch.

and sorry if u dont undertand something, i´m brazilian .. :)>

Malow .

[Malow]

i forgot! use the version 5.2.2 of btwincap drivers!
if not have in btwincap server, i send to you by mail or icq

icq 76087785

Malow

[cjaar]

@malow..

thanks for the reply :D..

My PC: 845wn Motherboard, p4, 1.5G, 512Mb SDRAM, GEforce MX200,(latest drv 41.9) SB live 5.1(latest drivers)+ soundmax on board 40Gb-7200rpm, winxp-sp1

i hv the latest btwdn drivers 5.35, i tried installing this, but autodetect dint work... dont knwo what to select in the auto detection window... can u help me on this????

so u say that if u use the latest wdm drv i will be able to see pal-b std????

mail the drv to cjaar@yahoo.com, if its small :D, i dont hv icq; am behind fwall :(

ta
cj

[Malow]

yes. you will able to set pal-b
in bt installer, u must select pixelview play tv pro, in the tunner, u must see your card tuner, un the board have a stamped adesive, whith the tunner model... in my case is a temic 4032

you will find if u look in the board.

if not, try using philips tunners, until u can right change channels.

u have a good pc, probably the problems u have is because the drivers, i belive who btwincap drivers will resolve almost all.

Malow

[cjaar]

hi...

ok i will try to use the latest btwdm drivers.....
however i am able to get channels clearly with iuvcr(this has an option in tuner, to scan with channel nunmbers or using frequency(10khz step)and tv stds pal-b, which helped me alot in fine tuning channels which had noise in audio and video :), but iuvcr has problem with audio compress with mp3, it behaves very erratically and lots of violations!!!!

TA
cj :D

[Malow]

hehe... yes, i had problems too with iuvcr... but u can use too the lame acm encoder, instead the fraunhofer acm codec.. :)> its faster and better....

u can use too for every day recordings windvr.. :)> ,
with vcd quality, or u can use too mpeg2 configured whith high quality to convert in xvid.

Malow

[cjaar]

hi..

No luck with btwdm 535 drvs!!!!... most of the channels had noise in them. btw in device manager, i see wdm video, wdm audio, wdm tuner and wdm crossbar, tuner and crossbar showed me the latest ver 5.3.5, but wdm audio and video still showed me the old ver i hd 5.0.0135... something like this!!!!...

i hd deleted all the drvs/file related to this, but still the same as above!!!! look like i hv to re-install OS :(.

were u able to cap mp3 on the fily with lame acm???... id didnt try this!!!!
ok fine let me try this windvr

TA
cj

[Malow]

problably still have somethigs about olders drivers, because btwincap only install a wdm video capture device and audio device.

wdm tuner and wdm crossbar will not exist. (will not in device mananger, but will be on any capture app)

in my way , i have this problem too, and the old drivers are doing this damn....

u can delete some hardware references form registry in the " enum "
registry folder.... but, reinstal a OS is a good idea.

yes, i have normal caps whit xvid+mp3 by lame and whit divx audio (wma) from old divx 3.11 in vdub...... works nice...

and windvr is really the best, others like power vcr and much others appz that do "all" are not so good...

i belive from my personal tests that windvr are the best in image quality...

[cjaar]

hi..

looks like this discussion is going to be lengthy:)

I hv noticed that all the channels are clear without noise in audio and video, when using pixelview tv application, but the same is not true if u see the same channel in iuvcr/windvr or any other cap application, i hv lot of auido noise in some channels.... fine tuning the channel makes auido ok, but video will be distorted

Hv u noticed this problem????

Ta
cj

[Malow]

i never had a problem like this, but i have vertical lines (strong lines in video) but the cause is low power antenna....

i don´t now if the pal-b or your country has a good tv signal....

what is the model of your tunner?

Malow

[cjaar]

hi...

i dont think it to be problem as i am able see all the channel with pixelview s/w clearly...
I using cable not tv transmission.
my tv std is PAL-B (country code 91)
My tuner is Samsung(with a lengthy number)i dont remember it now :)

ta
cj

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

why DV?
have you done mjpeg vs. DV test and established that
DV is superior?
[although i think this stuff is quite off-topic for many guys with slower cpu's here...me being one of them....]

[Malow]

to cjaar,
well... if i was you, i probably be crazy now... hehe...

under my mountain of capture appz, the descaler is the one who make a perfect fine-tunning of decoder, but it was made just to watch.... tha capture is crappy...

i think u must do tests... hehe... lot of tests.... i dont see any "hole" to make possible te solution of your problem...

btwincap is the salvation of bt users, but i not see any sansung tunner under btwincap lists... stranger your tunner dont?? ?):>

------------------------------------------------------------

To ^^-+I4004+-^^

i post this message to show another way to use bt cards... is just a idea... i preffer dv because i have another machine whit matrox x100 card, and now i can "share" video capture files, (both dv codecs and are compatible)
edit the clip and sabe under mjpeg i belive is not the best way.... may be the most simple and easy (or faster) but is not the best.... and dv are more compatible and pratice with some editing appz (premiere and vegas) and the compression is the middle of size and quality, due the dv is not a really "lossless" compression, but keep files really GOOD after 3 compressions.

i use too a ag-dvc15 to store videos in minidv type, and dv format is required...

huffyuv os bad to me, because are lossless and make too big files....

and to finalize, i really belive who iam is the more poor man in this forum.. hehe... i buy a xp2000+ just to capture in dv format ( impossible whit my old athlon 1G)

and i can´t capture huffyuv in a slow 30g hard disk ...

mjpeg is not for me.... make too blocks in motion after compress to dvd or recompress if needed.. :)


(sorry again if u dont undertand something, i really don´t speak english)

and soon i will post pictures about the quality of bt8x8 with dv (compared with firewire-captured files in a agdvc15)

is good to much!! :)>


keep in touch!

Malow

[cjaar]

malow..

Dose ur vdub recognises ur pixelview playtv pro card???? in video menue when u enter capture mode???

i see only one as " 0 MS wdm image capture driver (win32) "....
or u see a saperate one like " 1 Pixelview play tv pro ...." ?????
what os ur using???

TA
cj

[Malow]

0 MS wdm image capture driver (win32)

only this appears to me whith btwincap...

and works nice....

[cjv]

@Malow:
Hi,

In your first post, you mention that you can use the Canopus DV codec for capturing. I can't figure out how do do this..all I can find on the web is the Canopus DV codec (freeware) for playback only. This can't be the one, is it?

I can use the Mainconcept one (demo with watermark) via iuVCR/VDub/etc, and it works well, but I'd like to also try for myself the Canopus one, even though you say it doesn't work that well.

I'd prefer not to install something if I'm not positive, as I recently reformatted and my system is relatively clean. Thus, I'm asking first. Can you point me in the right direction.
Thanks,

cjv
EDIT: you mention that you bought a new pc for DV capture because Athlon 1000 wasn't enough? I tested 720x480 Mainconcept, and barely reached 30-40% CPU useage on Athlon 1400 (not much difference in CPU).

[Malow]

The Canopus dv codec come whit procoder software, (at last, my one)

are u using preview during capture? because preview whit virtualdub (whit ddraw acc.) uses a medium cpu, and i also use some times noise reduction.... who improves cpu utilization.... and you don´t tell your souce hardware, is a bt878? whit btwincap? cpu usage can be diferent whit diferent drivers.

and canopus i belive form my use, are better to edit, the decompression are so fast as mainconcept, but are more "compatible"
because mainconcept dv have sometimes problems whit vdub and premiere (even whit some fixes)

any question that i can help (and you understand my english), im here... hehe.. :)

Malow

[Malow]

i forgot, canopus dv works under yuy2 mode too

Malow

[cjv]

Thanks for the reply,

Unfortunately, I don't have procoder and have no use for it, so I don't want to install the whole demo app just to try the dv codec. I guess I'm stuck with Mainconcept, but it puts these weird artifacts on my captures, as compared to MJPEG. If you find a standalone demo version of Canopus DV encoding codec around the net, or another solution, please let me know.
Thanks,

cjv

[Malow]

send me your mail and i send a demo of codec... because i dont find it on net...

Malow

[Malow]

i forgot again, if the mainconcept codec are configured for "fast compress" in options, the image are worst whith artifacts... are not cheched this option?

Malow

[cjv]

@Malow:

You have a PM.

Yes, I unchecked "fast" for the Mainconcept one. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't look terrible, but for a 5:1 compression I was expecting a better quality image...better than Picvideo MJPEG at least which is approx 10:1.

cjv

[Malow]

well.... stranger, because dv are a compression almost lossless, and all dv codecs appears to make really good image, (somes more shrap and some more "blur") but the quality are really good... well, test canopus and keep informed.. :)>

Malow

[cjv]

@Malow:

I've installed the Canopus demo, but no vfw interface shows up, so unfortunately I cannot use it for capturing.

To test it, I captured something in huffyuv, then encoded it to DV using both the Mainconcept and the Canopus codec from VDub. In my opinion, the Canopus one looked much better. I'd love to get this working...maybe you can explain how you get the vfw interface to show up, but I'm guessing it just "worked" right out of the box for you.
Thanks,

cjv

[Malow]

well man, what u mean video for windows interface? bacause it work an show vfw interface in vdub, and any video app... and capture too of course... config dialog work too... ??? and i nly install the codec too... not procoder (i reinstall this week)

The codec are 100% vfw, not dshow...

works any way in any app....


please... explain more... hehe... im hard to understand.. ):>

Malow

[cjv]

Hmm, here is what I can choose from when I load VDub and choose Video->Compression...
http://members.shaw.ca/cjv99/Compressor.jpg

here is what I can choose from when I go File->Capture AVI...->Compression...
http://members.shaw.ca/cjv99/Capture.jpg

and here is what iuVCR allows me to choose as a compressor
http://members.shaw.ca/cjv99/iuvcr.jpg

From those screenshots, you can see that I can choose it as a compressor, but cannot choose it for realtime capture. I reinstalled it, but it didn't change anything.
Any ideas?
Thanks,

cjv

[Malow]

u are capturing under uyvy format, u must use yuy2 or rgb32...

o do not have this color space (but i belive, are same as yuy2)

Malow

[Malow]

ops!! rgb24 not rgb32

Malow

[cjv]

Success..sort of!

I do not use VDub for capture, so VDub wasn't configured properly. So, yes, when I choose YUY2 as source format, the canopus appears in the compressor menu like it should. Thanks.

However, I don't/cannot use VDub for capture, because my card is limited to 320x240. I must use iuVCR, and I do use YUY2 mode there, and it is still not showing up. I changed it to RGB24, and it still did not show up. It does not show up in Amcap either.
Hmmm, this is weird. Must be something about the WDM drivers, but HuffYUV and PicVideo are both VFW codecs, and they are both selectable.
I appreciate your help..any more ideas?

cjv

[Malow]

well, you are right, problably is a driver... my bt878a are too ,limited to XXXx240 in vfw, and only btwincap driver remove this limit....

your card has a new model chip (more features don´t?)

for your chip i belive are not an "generic" driver for there....
but will appears...

:)

Malow