How to capture a perfect video?

[peterhuh]

Hi! I live in Singapore. All the broadcast here is aired in PAL. I have a Huappuage PCI WinTV card. (the cheapest version :p )

Currently the problem is, the hauppauge card captures video using the full luma space 0-255, instead of 16-235. I guess the WinTV driver automagically 'enchance' the video during capture. I can tweak with the settings or post-process with AVISynth, but i can never tell when is the video 'correct'.
Also, the newer WinTV driver is only able to capture at half resolution un-interlaced. The older driver is able to capture at full resolution interlaced but tends to crash my system during capturing.

So my question is, izzit possible to capture exactly as it was broadcasted?
CCIR 601 standerd, interlaced, correct PAR, 16-235...
I don't mind getting another card.
Any comments are greatly appricated!!!

[E-Male]

you might wanna edit your title to avoid violating rule 9

(and in real life nothing is perfect)

[Arachnotron]

Hi there,

The presence of signal below y=16 does not necesarily mean the capture is wrong. Pure black should end up at y=16 and pure white at y=235 for pal, but an analogue signal may contain signal levels below black ( 0 IRE) which result in luma values below 16 and signal levels above whitelevel are possible too.

So the thing to check is where black and white are.

See this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84397) thread for a discussion of these issues.