Dr Weed
23rd May 2006, 18:52
I've been lurking in this group on and off for a few months and finally decided to post because I've got a serious capture problem I'm hoping one of you guys can help me with. I'm on a deadline because I only have a week and a half left to return my latest capture card, so I'm in a bit of a hurry. Any help would be appreciated.
Basically, I've gotten really bad results with two top-of-the-line capture cards in a row because of jagged lines that wreck the picture. A few months ago I tried a Turtle Beach card and had to return it because the results were simply too poor to watch, by any standards. Now I've got one of those Video Magician cards and it's giving me essentially the same problem. Ironically, this dirt cheap Philips card that I got a year and a half ago actually gives me better results, because even though it has no comb filter and is too chock full of dot crawl to make usable DVDs, there are no jagged lines interrupting the picture.
After reading this forum it looks like it might be an interlacing problem. I've seen a few examples of interlacing posted on the Web and one variation looks like the slightly different but similar effect I got with the Turtle Beach card and another looks much like what I've gotten from the Video Magician. In both cases, the effect is diminished slightly but still present even when I switch from coax or composite to S-video. I can't figure out why I should be getting such bad results with either card, since the scores of reviews I've seen of both are overwhelmingly positive. No one mentioned anything remotely like this. I can see why both cards have gotten good reviews, because the quality seems like it *would* be quite good and nearly free of the dot crawl I get with my old Philips card - if only it weren't for the jagged lines surrounding the outlines of every object. It's so bad I don't see how anyone could bear it; it's not that I'm a video quality fanatic. It is impossible to even take vidcaps with either card, because the jagged lines literally remove chunks from the faces of the people on the screen that are big enough to be fatal, hah hah.
I want to stress that am getting this problem right in the preview window, before any recording is done; I can get good, faithful reproductions of whatever I see in the screen in any video clips I record or vidcaps I take, but unfortunately the interlacing (if that's what it is) is perfectly preserved as well. I have seen examples of interlacing produced in recordings by using improper settings with my old Philips card, but that's not the issue, because I'm getting good reproductions of bad input, not bad reproductions of good input. Changing my recording settings is unlikely to do any good for that reason.
The only thing I can think of is that there is some sort of unusual hardware or software conflict, but everything I have is supposed to be well above the minimum requirements for both the Turtle Beach and Video Magician cards:
My Hardware
------------------------
Athlon 2400
1.5 GB of 333 Mhz RAM
128 MB Rage Pro Ultra 4x AGP video card
Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra motherboard
brand-new top of the line case (eliminated occasional minor ground looping)
One 80-gig drive and one 160-gig drive (space is not an issue)
Software
-----------------------
Windows XP Pro SP2
Direct X 9 (I ran the DXDiag diagnostic utility for tech support at Turtle Beach and they found nothing wrong)
Cyber Director 3.0, Power VCR II (I've tried PowerView Plus and VirtualDub and they both crashed my computer)
I've tried moving both cards to other PCI slots, with no success. I've also kept a careful eye on my Windows performance counters and my processor and memory usage rarely maxes out even when I record.
Sorry for the long initial post but I wanted to be as detailed as possible. I think my goose is probably cooked and I'll probably have to return the card, but I figured I'd see if one of the video capture geniuses here could suggest a solution first. The tech support at both companies has been fairly useless and most of you guys here seem to be far more knowledgeable.
Is there anything else I can try with this Video Magician card? Do you think it might be interlacing and if so, is there anything I can do to fix it? Why would I get that effect on two expensive cards, but not on the dirt cheap Philips one I own? If I can't fix it, what other card out on the market might suit my hardware and software better, and eliminate this interlacing problem while giving me better control over the dot crawl that plagued my Philips card (disclaimer: I didn't ask which card was "best", LOL)? After a year and a half of trying to get halfway decent capture capabilities on my computer so I can burn video backups, I'm pretty exasperated. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
-- Steve
Basically, I've gotten really bad results with two top-of-the-line capture cards in a row because of jagged lines that wreck the picture. A few months ago I tried a Turtle Beach card and had to return it because the results were simply too poor to watch, by any standards. Now I've got one of those Video Magician cards and it's giving me essentially the same problem. Ironically, this dirt cheap Philips card that I got a year and a half ago actually gives me better results, because even though it has no comb filter and is too chock full of dot crawl to make usable DVDs, there are no jagged lines interrupting the picture.
After reading this forum it looks like it might be an interlacing problem. I've seen a few examples of interlacing posted on the Web and one variation looks like the slightly different but similar effect I got with the Turtle Beach card and another looks much like what I've gotten from the Video Magician. In both cases, the effect is diminished slightly but still present even when I switch from coax or composite to S-video. I can't figure out why I should be getting such bad results with either card, since the scores of reviews I've seen of both are overwhelmingly positive. No one mentioned anything remotely like this. I can see why both cards have gotten good reviews, because the quality seems like it *would* be quite good and nearly free of the dot crawl I get with my old Philips card - if only it weren't for the jagged lines surrounding the outlines of every object. It's so bad I don't see how anyone could bear it; it's not that I'm a video quality fanatic. It is impossible to even take vidcaps with either card, because the jagged lines literally remove chunks from the faces of the people on the screen that are big enough to be fatal, hah hah.
I want to stress that am getting this problem right in the preview window, before any recording is done; I can get good, faithful reproductions of whatever I see in the screen in any video clips I record or vidcaps I take, but unfortunately the interlacing (if that's what it is) is perfectly preserved as well. I have seen examples of interlacing produced in recordings by using improper settings with my old Philips card, but that's not the issue, because I'm getting good reproductions of bad input, not bad reproductions of good input. Changing my recording settings is unlikely to do any good for that reason.
The only thing I can think of is that there is some sort of unusual hardware or software conflict, but everything I have is supposed to be well above the minimum requirements for both the Turtle Beach and Video Magician cards:
My Hardware
------------------------
Athlon 2400
1.5 GB of 333 Mhz RAM
128 MB Rage Pro Ultra 4x AGP video card
Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra motherboard
brand-new top of the line case (eliminated occasional minor ground looping)
One 80-gig drive and one 160-gig drive (space is not an issue)
Software
-----------------------
Windows XP Pro SP2
Direct X 9 (I ran the DXDiag diagnostic utility for tech support at Turtle Beach and they found nothing wrong)
Cyber Director 3.0, Power VCR II (I've tried PowerView Plus and VirtualDub and they both crashed my computer)
I've tried moving both cards to other PCI slots, with no success. I've also kept a careful eye on my Windows performance counters and my processor and memory usage rarely maxes out even when I record.
Sorry for the long initial post but I wanted to be as detailed as possible. I think my goose is probably cooked and I'll probably have to return the card, but I figured I'd see if one of the video capture geniuses here could suggest a solution first. The tech support at both companies has been fairly useless and most of you guys here seem to be far more knowledgeable.
Is there anything else I can try with this Video Magician card? Do you think it might be interlacing and if so, is there anything I can do to fix it? Why would I get that effect on two expensive cards, but not on the dirt cheap Philips one I own? If I can't fix it, what other card out on the market might suit my hardware and software better, and eliminate this interlacing problem while giving me better control over the dot crawl that plagued my Philips card (disclaimer: I didn't ask which card was "best", LOL)? After a year and a half of trying to get halfway decent capture capabilities on my computer so I can burn video backups, I'm pretty exasperated. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
-- Steve