TV@nywhere master sync probs; tried several apps

[mg262]

Dear all,

I'm having real trouble with a/v sync drift problems and would really appreciate some help...

MSI tv@nywhere Master
P4 2600
ASUS P4C800-E motherboard with onboard Soundmax AD1985 chip
(I think this uses the system timer like the AD1980 on the ASUS P4PE...
I picked it specifically because that mboard+tv@nywhere was reported to give no a/v sync probs)
Serial ATA 120GB HDD (for capture only; OS+apps+capture utils on 40GB drive)

audio/video from PAL-I broadcast TV signal through VCR tuner into MSI card composite-input and Motherboard line-in respectively. (card has a passthrough, but it doesn't work - apparently because I'm using proprietary apps.)

It's a new machine with WinXP + contains v. little but capture apps at present. The 120 HD is always empty when I capture + I have tried formatting it first a couple of times.

I'm trying to capture at 768*576 Huffyuv YUY2; I've tried dropping the res, but iuVCR reports no frame drops (ever), so I don't think it's a resource problem. (I am quite keen to stick with lossless cap., because I want to try blind deconvoution on the output + the 'grid' used in compression is likely to mess with this... hence my avoiding the bundled software, )

Tried following apps:
VirtualVCR
iuVCR
FlyDS

VDub won't capture at this res;
AVI_IO just dies

in particular, messing with VVCR 'dynamic resample' doesn't fix it. The best results so far with iuVCR 'sync using stream offset'... but really I can't keep sync after 1hr.

I've tried framerates of 25.000 and 24.964 fps, having read that the latter is 'correct' (anyone confirm?)

I am new to this game, but I've read the forums for months before starting (and have solved a lot of my probs - thanks, all!) - sorry if I've missed out any important info. Any help at all would be really appreciated.

Mo.

[\AX]

most likely your sound card. I never got it to work for above i think it was the 40min mark. After 40min my system just couldnt handle it i guess and lost synch. However, later trying to capture a quick 30min i tried using my mobo's line-in, wouldnt keep synch right at all after 20min. Before i used to use a creative pci, worked for 40min.

Try a better soundcard.

[mg262]

Thanks for the reply...

The reason I picked the mboard was that I asked Owen about his system and he told me he could keep perfect sync with tv@nywhere and essentially the same sound chip (AD1980 not AD1985)... but it could still be the board. Possibly idiosyncracies in the manufacture of clock crystals?

My one VDubSync (lo-res) test kept sync... . I'm still not sure why VirtualVCR fails to keep sync, though; plus, sometimes it's much better than others. I'm still testing it, but I think it *may* be screwing up when the video-latency is non-zero.

Mohan

[Owen]

Hi there Mohan,
Sorry to here of your problems. I used to use an Asus P4PE (AD1980) main board but have now upgraded to the P4P800, not the “E” with AD1985, same as you.
As I told you previously I had absolutely no sound sync issues with the P4PE board.
I have done six hour continuous capture direct to Divx and Xvid with Radium MP3 sound at DVD complient 720x576 PAL with perfect sync.
I use FlyDS with master stream set to audio and sound is kept in sync even if frames are dropped. Capturing to Divx with MP3 sound takes lots of CPU power so HUFFYUV should be no problem. I have never done long captures using HUFFYUY so I can’t confirm that there are no problems.
When I installed the P4P800 I did a clean install of WinXP and my preferred applications. The new system works perfectly but I have not done a 6 hour capture to test it yet. I will do an overnight capture to test and report my findings.
I think I have capture about one hour on the new system without problems.

What drivers are you using for the TV@nywhere card? I had problems with the MSI driver and have always used the Xcapture drivers. The tuner is not supported but Svideo capture is perfect. I even purchased a Flyvideo 3000 but found it to be nowhere near as good as the MSI so I stuck with the MSI.

If all else fails with Huffyuv, I recommend you try using DIVX 5.1 set to maximum bit rate with all fancy encoding features disabled. The quality is really hard to fault.
If that is not good enough for you, try setting “Maximum key frame interval” to 1 so that every frame is a key frame.
You will need to disable the preview window under “Settings” button in DIVX control panel for capture to work.

You can also try using Morgan Mjpeg 3.xx at 95% quality or higher in Floating point mode. It’s much easier on the CPU and gives great quality. Don’t bother with PicVideo Mjpeg. It’s just not in the same class.
If you can discern any significant difference in quality using DIVX or Morgan source in stead of Huffyuv after processing and re encoding then you have better eyes then me.
If you use Morgan you should have enough CPU power left to do noise filtering during capture using a direct show filter of your choice. Ffdshow is great.
For all you Huffyuv diehards out there. Give this a try before you knock it.


Regards,

Owen

P.S. I just captured 1 hour with perfect sync and 1 dropped frame.
It does work.

[mg262]

Owen,

Thanks for the (extensive) comments! I think I should probably try loading the XCapture drivers and repeating everything before I hassle you all further.
___________

In case anyone else is struggling with this card: the results of the tests I've run since last writing have been quite erratic. I've measured sync by changing channel in the input, extracting the audio and measuring a+v change points... often iuVCR with 'sync using stream offset' (and occasionally VVCR with dynamic resampling) will keep perfect sync (to less than one frame = 40ms over 100 mins) and sometimes they are wildly off. Other progs have worse results.

Very frequently the measured offsets in the AVI are wrong and should be zero (so VDub shows sync, WMP doesn't) but this isn't invariably the case.

Thanks for the help;
Mohan

[mg262]

Owen... you wouldn't heppen to remember which XCapture driver you loaded? When I click on the 'XCapture' link on

http://www.prolink-usa.com/english/download.html

it takes me to this page...

http://www.prolink-usa.com/english/driver/ctv1.html

and none of the drivers looks right.

[Owen]

Mohan,

Here is a link to the drivers:

http://www.prolink.com.tw/2003/english/download/protv_multimedia.htm

I am not curtain that the driver is your problem.
I always use FlyDS for capture. It just works.
iuVCR was never as good for me.
I have now tested the new system for 3 hours continuous capture without problems.
Try using FlyDS before anything else. Set to Master Stream = Audio.
I have even done captures where over 100 frames have been dropped but audio is still in sync. Fly seems to insert repeat frames to compensate. I work’s great. I just don’t have to worry about it. Audio sync is unconditionally perfect using FlyDS.

Today I tested a new codec for capture. FFWFW from Milan Catka the developer of the amazing FFDSHOW. See the Xvid thread for info.
Using the Mpeg4 codec in 1Pass Quality mode or 1 Pass Constant Bit Rate mode it works outstandingly. It combines the smooth macroblock free performance of DIVX5.1 with the clarity of Xvid.
I like the 1 Pass Quality mode best. It is true VBR. Set to 95% it gives near perfect quality at about 2000kbs or about 2Gigabytes per hour. It’s just what I need to put 2 hours of 720x576 PAL video with MP3 196kbs sound catured from digital satelite on a DVD without re encoding.I can even pre process using the inbuilt ffdshow filters.
Quality is so good I can’t tell I am watching a copy on my Toshiba rear projector. This is a real breakthrough as fare as I am concerned. I have been waiting for this kind of performance for years. All other codec's are now obsolete for me.

Regards,

Owen

P.S. I dont messure the audio offset but I can see anything above 100ms, so I consider anything under 100ms error acceptable.
Often satelite Mpeg streams of off by more then that.

[mg262]

Owen,

thank you again. I have tried playing with FlyDS quite a bit ... actually, I think it was the first program I tried, based on your forum posts. (Master Stream was always on Audio.) The results were generally bad - though it could be a minor setting. E.g. I never manage to get the 'link related streams' box under 'crossbar' to work... it seems to switch itself off.

I will try other codecs in a bit, but I'm pretty sure it's not a resource-shortage problem, so I don't know that it will make much difference. (I believe you about not being able to see the difference, by the way! FFWFW sounds like it will probably be my choice of codec for final enc... and I'm very glad to be told about it. My main reason for aiming for HuffYUV for capture that I want to try blind deconvolution and I'm worried that the DCT-blocks will create problems with that... I've found that sometimes blocks can be entirely invisible to the eye but will show up v. clearly after a transform, such as AVISynth Sharpen.) Anyway, thanks again for all your help - I'm off to try things.