New btwincap drivers! :)

[Koepi]

Ahoy,

I just installed the latest drivers (5.2.9) from http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/ and to my surprise, I see a big difference in the quality of my capture!

Is it me who is just dreaming this or can anybody confirm that there is a gain in quality?
(It looks like the field separation works better now resulting in a more crispy picture).

Regards,
Koepi

[Belgabor]

Can't really confirm that, because, and thats why I'm posting, every driver newer than 5.2.5 doesn't really work on my system. .8 and .9 partially work, only some apps (I suspect those accessing the chip directly, e.g. DScaler) lock up my system totally (= not even the mouse curser moves anymore). .6 (and .7? I dun remember exacly) dont work at all (= same lockup on install).

Alas capturing with VDub should work with .9, so I'll gonna check if I can confirm your observation.

Belgabor

P.S: Which TV card do you use? Has it a bt848 or 878?

[Koepi]

I use a relabelled AverMedia TVPhone 98 w/VCR.

Apps like dscaler indeed access the chip directly through own drivers. I didn't encounter lockups using them yet. But I'm on win2k, maybe that makes a difference

Best regards,
Koepi

[Belgabor]

Heh, I'm using Micro$ofts least misarable excuse of a OS, too. So thats not the trouble. Most prolly its either my pretty full PCI bus or Hauppauges 'brilliant' TV card

[VILLA21]

Anyone test it with Haouppauge"s WinTV card and FlyDS 1.2.5, the WDM based capture program i use to ?

[Belgabor]

Nope. I only use VirtualVCR and VDub with the syncro patch. Both work fine, although my TV card kinda garbles the frame order (I dunno whose fault this is, prolly the cards)

Belgabor

[VILLA21]

By the way, i know it"s not the subject, does Vdub work with WDM drivers??...In the official site claims that it works only with VFM...

[jako77]

I have the same problem as Belgabor. I can't test newer versions than 5.2.5 since I use Dscaler to tune the card.

And under XP vdub caps fine using these wdm drivers.

[Belgabor]

@VILLA21
Windows has a vfw wrapper for wdm drivers, its not entierly perfect (preview not really working) but it does the capture stuff fine.

@jako77
I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one suffering from those problems. I'm gonna write a mail to the author of the drivers describing this problem, perhaps he can solve it.
EDIT: Can't you tune your card with the driver?

@koepi
After rereading the news section of the drivers I kinda suspect your improved quality stems either from caputring the stream field instead of frame based or some wierd colorspace converting that was necessary before all formats where enabled with the new drivers.

Regards
Belgabor

[jako77]

I have tried to tune my card with these drivers to no avail using flyDS.

Now, I only install the part of drivers that does not tune.
When I make a full install launching FlyDs is painful long.

In fact, to use these drivers, I first launch Dscaler to tune, then flyDS to activate the drivers and preview TV (I must cycle TV->AV->TV again to make it work), and then only I can use vdub to capture.

Do you know a simpler method ?

[Belgabor]

New drivers out, which (at least according to the changelog) should fix this issue.

Regards
Belgabor

[jako77]

Unfortunately version 5.2.30 does not fix the problem with my config.

[Belgabor]

Neither does it on mine

[Koepi]

Well, I can only say these drivers work way better than the manufacturer's drivers on my system.
On win98, I didn't really succeed with them, but on win2k it's a pleasure to use them.

Mybe it's time to upgrade your OSes?

Btw., I'm using vdub_sync directly without hassles here (ok, I _have_ to activate directX acceleration [both fields] in vdub to make the capture work flawlessly, but that's no real problem IMHO. If I don't do that, I get ugly green "stripes" or false copied lines in the image.).

Regards,
Koepi

[ookzDVD]

@Koepi,

sure... I think it's time to upgrade my Win98Se to WinXp,
too many problems with Win98 recently.... especially the
ogg subtitles

and... last night, my WinTV2000 wouldn't play if I use
the WDM driver, hmmmm... only VFW version work for me
on my Win98SE....grrrr.

thank you.

[jako77]

I am afraid upgrading is not an option for me since I already use WIN XP... which I appreciate much except for capturing.
In addition to the problem I share with Belgabor, I also have some sudden, totally unexpected and random, important frame droppping when I capture on one HD (7200 rpm, ATA 100, Maxtor 80 giga), but not on the other (7200 rpm, ATA 100, IBM 40 giga). I have tried every suggestion posted elsewhere to no avail up to now...

[chemmajik]

Anyone using the btwincapture with a voodootv200, and able to do 640x480 captures? I havent tried them yet, afraid it may mess up what works. I'm wondering if it officially worked good with tuner support.
Its prob no biggy since I don't think I want to reinstall visualreality, when I can use deinterlacer now.

[avih]

regarding voodootv.
1. btwincap supports voodootv out of the box, so i guess it's tested enough and should work pretty good.

2. btwincap has the best uninstaller in the world , and it COMPLETELY removes itself, including all it's inf files, registry settings and other stuff, so after you'll uninstall it (if indeed you won't like it), i think you'd stay with a system that's really clean from bt8xx drivers.

imho, worth a try.

cheers
avi.

[Belgabor]

Regarding the DScaler issue, I wrote a mail to the author of the btwincap drivers. He told me its the fault of DScaler as it assumes the card being on, which is as it seems with bt878a based cards not the case.
DScaler 4.0 uses btWincap as source (he told me) and should work.

Regards
Belgabor

P.S.: I dont know how 'official' DScaler 4.0 is, as its not on the homepage. I only found it using google.

P.P.S.: @Koepi: As i (clumsily i admit ) tried to say, i'm using w2k, too.

[chemmajik]

Hmm avih I may just have to try it then, since you say it has a good uninstaller. Well I should have known since when you are developing you have to make sure old builds are gone, thats the way it was for me. Might have to test out full frame capture for a test, over odd even. Hopefully my hd isnt to slow...