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Old 26th September 2004, 08:29   #1  |  Link
CCEncoder
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Best hardware & software combination for capturing analog

I would like to capture tv or vhs to my computer to them edit them and burn them as dvd, I would like to know the best method in terms of quality.
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Old 6th October 2004, 11:31   #2  |  Link
ReinerSchweinlin
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u should use a s-vhs recorder with a digital TBC and some enhancement-techniques, such as newer JVC oder Panasonic do have. those get rid of some noise and re-allign the jitter in the picture.
Using a good TV-Card with s-video input, u can capture using vble codec in 704/720x576 resolution (480, if itīs NTSC). Then crop, filter with avisynth and re-encode using a very good mpeg2-encoder such as cce (expensive!!), tmpgenc oder maybe a variant of ffmpeg (such as in ffdshow/ffvfw oder quenc).
This should give best results.
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Old 6th October 2004, 11:49   #3  |  Link
Wilbert
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u can capture using vble codec
I wouldn't do that. It assumes progressive video.
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Old 6th October 2004, 11:53   #4  |  Link
ReinerSchweinlin
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uups, u are right. better use huffyuf or some other interlaced-capable losless-codec (is ffv1 interlaced-capable) ???
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Old 6th October 2004, 11:58   #5  |  Link
Wilbert
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(is ffv1 interlaced-capable) ???
Yes, you can also use that one. But it is slower than huffyuv (at least that was the case a while ago).
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Old 6th October 2004, 12:02   #6  |  Link
ReinerSchweinlin
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yes, it still is, but it is capable of storing in yu12, so the filesize is much smaller Although it might be a quality-issue keeping more of the chroma information for further filtering, so to be on the "safe side", Iīd use huffyuf as well.
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Old 6th October 2004, 13:21   #7  |  Link
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Originally posted by Wilbert
I wouldn't do that. It assumes progressive video.
What if you're capping, say, a PAL movie, so that combining the 2 fields together makes a full frame? Is that classed as progressive?

And could you clarify, the advantage of using VBLE is that it captures in yu12(?) colourspace which is the same as avisynth uses, so if you are using avisynth to filter your raw capture before encoding, there is no loss in quality because there is no conversion from one colourspace to another?

I currently use huffyuv for the capture codec and VirtualDub to do the filtering, but I really want to learn avisynth.
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Old 6th October 2004, 13:56   #8  |  Link
Wilbert
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What if you're capping, say, a PAL movie, so that combining the 2 fields together makes a full frame? Is that classed as progressive?
No, that's interlaced (or combed if you prefer). As you probably know the codec has to downsample: YUY2 -> YV12, because it gets YUY2 from the capture device. VBLE downsamples assuming progressive video. Implying you will get the chroma "downsampling" bug artefacts.

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the advantage of using VBLE is that it captures in yu12(?) colourspace which is the same as avisynth uses, so if you are using avisynth to filter your raw capture before encoding, there is no loss in quality because there is no conversion from one colourspace to another?
See above. Your cap device delivers YUY2, even though you request YV12 or RGB (so, there's always a conversion unless huffyuv is your end format ).

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I currently use huffyuv for the capture codec and VirtualDub to do the filtering, but I really want to learn avisynth.
Regardless, you should learn AviSynth asap

Last edited by Wilbert; 6th October 2004 at 14:00.
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Old 6th October 2004, 14:06   #9  |  Link
ReinerSchweinlin
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Originally posted by FlimsyFeet

And could you clarify, the advantage of using VBLE is that it captures in yu12(?) colourspace which is the same as avisynth uses, so if you are using avisynth to filter your raw capture before encoding, there is no loss in quality because there is no conversion from one colourspace to another?
The processing is much faster in Avisynth, as there is less data to compute. Also, space used is less.
Even if u capture a movie-source from a vhs-tape, it still is interlaced. Of course, if u have a "perfect" source and a very good TBC, the picture visually looks porgressive. I accidently captured some Material as progrssive and it went well, but as soon as u have some jitter left or itīs a bad film transfer (NTSC->PAL), u have the interlaced-artefacts again. One "tweak" could be to restore the progressive frames via ffvfw before compressing, but this takes up a lot of cpu-power and in case something goes wrong, u have to do it all again.
So I recommend capturing as interlaced an process it later.
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Old 6th October 2004, 14:31   #10  |  Link
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Of course, if u have a "perfect" source and a very good TBC, the picture visually looks porgressive.
No. It looks progressive if the original source (the broadcast itself) comes from progressive material. So, if you know in advance that it is really progressive material, then of course you can use VBLE.

The problem with using a YV12 codec for capping is that you have to know in advance whether it is interlaced or "progressive".
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Old 6th October 2004, 14:44   #11  |  Link
ReinerSchweinlin
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Even if u capture a movie-source
with movie source i meant "film" Material, which, of course, is progressive......
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Old 6th October 2004, 22:30   #12  |  Link
Wilbert
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with movie source i meant "film" Material, which, of course, is progressive......
You are talking about telecined stuff right?

I never have really thought about it (because I'm a pal guy), but it seems to me, that it is not possible to do a proper YUY2->YV12 subsampling on telecined material. If you do progressive subsampling then two out of every five are subsampled incorrectly (ie averaging chroma of different fields).

Comments anyone?
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Old 12th October 2004, 23:52   #13  |  Link
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I heard that the best affordable capture card for getting out the best quality possible, are the Canopus ADVC-100 and the Canopus ACEDVio because these are DV encoders. Also they use Hardware digital compression, what do you think?
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Old 13th October 2004, 05:41   #14  |  Link
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Originally posted by A380
You've to decide what "looks" best for you. I'm using Pinnacle's DC10plus. It has an hardware MJPEG encoder. The quality is really good.
I used to encode to MPEG2 with TMPGEnc, but switched to ProCoder.
I wouldn't go for a TV-Card. And I wouldn't use any card with hardware MPEG2 encoder.
AS in terms of best Quality, I wouldnīt use a hardware-encoder, too.
Using a MJPEG encoder like the DC-Series oder Fasts Capture-Card, u donīt have the possibility to capture "lossless", so youīll always have to deal with JPEG-Artefacts (which of course, are not that big a deal when using low compression levels).
In need of max. quality, Iīd still recommend a TV-Card with very-good A/D-section and capturing in hufyuf.
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Old 13th October 2004, 05:49   #15  |  Link
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Originally posted by CCEncoder
I heard that the best affordable capture card for getting out the best quality possible, are the Canopus ADVC-100 and the Canopus ACEDVio because these are DV encoders. Also they use Hardware digital compression, what do you think?
DV is a variant of MJEPG, which is NOT losless!!!
"hardware digital compression" is not a very technical term, imho, itīs just like: "computers have digital power"... hrm.... I guess all Canopus wants to try to say, that compression is done in hardware, not software, so this is noc quality Issue, itīs just an advantage for LOW-Power-CPUs.

After trying for years, I figured the Source to be the most "difficult" Part in the whole process. Using a TBC and the proper S-VHS Player for my Material gave so much quality back, using MJPEG oder hufyuf oder DV doesnīt even compare in terms of "making a difference". So get a very good Playback-machine, thatīs the most important part.

In most casese, u should do some filtering (this oneīs the most tricky part of all!!). Using DV or MJPEG introduces too many artifacts, so if u filter after capture, stick to hufyuv. If u donīt filter at all an encode with procoder, cce, ffmpeg oder tmpgenc (all decent encoders), then using DV or MJPEG doesnīt make that much of a difference to a hufyuf-source.
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Old 13th October 2004, 13:31   #16  |  Link
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Remember Rule 12, folks. Asking "what's best?" can be divisive. Let's keep this discussion calm, please.
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With a TV card you need to go through the receiver that is on the card, right?
PCI capture cards may have a variety of video inputs, such as composite and S-Video, and may have RF tuners as well. Mine has all three. I've never used the tuner.
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Old 13th October 2004, 16:31   #17  |  Link
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OF course, as i wrote before, u have to use the s-video input, not the rf (tuner) one. using the tuner, the quality is the worst u can get out of a vcr.
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