How to Capture with HSYNC

[jmac698]

This guide is designed to assist you in capturing video with HSYNC to use with the Software TBC (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=162726)

Capturing with BT8x8 Cards

You can use Virtualdub, Dscaler, or bttool for this purpose. The steps are tested in XP with the BtWinCap Drivers.
Capturing with Virtualdub
1 Get the Bt8x8 tweaker at http://sourceforge.net/projects/deinterlace/files/dTV/2.1.2/dTV212exe.zip/download.
2 Put the files in the Virtudaldub directory.
3 Start Virtudaldub
4 File->Capture AVI
5 Device->Conexant's BtPCI Capture
6 Video->Video Source->Video Composite
7 Video->Capture Filter, Video STandard=NTSC_M_J, Video Proc Amp->Brightness=a higher value, OK
8 Video->BT8x8 Tweaker
9 Move the panel out of the way so you can see the video, connect to a stable video signal through the composite connector
10 Adjust the Left border until you see a faint line at the left, keep going until the signal becomes unstable then move just to the right
11 Adjust the Right border until you see a black border, go as far as you can with a stable signal
12 Connect the VHS, play
You should see the HSYNC line moving back and forth, and always a black border to the right. You can adjust the brightness down to a reasonable value now. Capture. If the HSYNC area disappears, click Reassert in the tweaker panel. If you are curious about the other settings, look at http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/bt_tweaker.html

Capturing with CX2388x Cards

Follow the instructions that come with the software (see link below). It gives an example of how to calculate HDELAY but just decrease this value and test capture until you can see the line. I don't have a card to test.

Update:
There is software which can save the raw ADC data (this means with HSYNC) at http://www.geocities.ws/how_chee/cx23881fc6.htm. It has been tested with the PixelView PlayTV Pro Ultra TV+FM card, though others should work.

Capturing with SAA711x Cards

Try to see if Dscaler supports your card.

Links

General Tweaker
http://www.chris-pc.com/tweak/

Tweakers for Hauppage PVR
http://web.archive.org/web/20061108105149/http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_reg.html

Modified drivers and tweakers for CX2388x chip
http://midimaker.narod.ru/eng/index.html

Capture program with built in tweakers
http://www.virtualdub.org
http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/

Driver for BT8x8 Cards
http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/
Signed, Windows 7, 64 bit driver for BT8x8
http://pctuner.ru/page-al-btwdmdrv_signed.html

Raw ADC capture for CX2388x cards
http://www.geocities.ws/how_chee/cx23881fc6.htm

[Mounir]

Sounds complicated (as expected) plus i have a SAA7113 philips card so i think i'll wait a little to experiment.

The link pointing to dscaler.org is not working anymore, thought you should know

[ChiDragon]

Are these solutions limited to WinXP at the latest?

[jmac698]

I don't know, you can try? There are in fact 64bit BT8x8 drivers I know...

[jmac698]

Updated with win7 64bit drivers

[Perepandel]

Sorry to contradict you, but there is no evidence that those drivers work in Windows 7 x64. Even the the comments in the link you've posted confirm that, and I've haven't been able to find any success report with them. Have you really tried them?

Again, I'm talking about Windows 7 x64. Not Win Vista x64.

[jmac698]

I think it's a signing issue, you need ReadyDriverPlus

[markanini]

x64 drivers worked fine with my Pinnacle PCTV rage card in Win7.

[Buck746]

Does anyone have a driver for win7 64bit that can allow levels adjustment? Is there a trick to getting the dscaler tweaks to work when capturing in virtualdub in win7?

I can get the composite input to work but I have no controls for the levels as well as no way of turning off the coring function.

[JAMESE]

Well
I try it but there are some problem.
Thanks.

[jmac698]

I don't have win7 to test, sorry. The limitation may be in the dscaler files which allowed Virtualdub to tweak. Look for 64bit versions of these files.

[Mounir]

graphedit wouldn't be suited to try to capture the Hsync ?

[Mounir]

We desperately need modified drivers for SAA71xx philips drivers so we could test this, if someone has the knowledge...

Edit:
On Xp with Dscaler and using the "Prime Tv 7133" device i can see the Vertical delay if i move the slider in "Image Shift adjustments" but no luck for the Horizontal delay it won't move one pixel

[jmac698]

Thanks for the tip. This can probably be done in linux, but documentation is hard to come by.

[Mounir]

Yeah, we're kinda stuck at the moment if someone has the knowledge and read this, then stop by!

[Perepandel]

Hi all! It's been a while since I last participated on this thread (heavy lack of free time), but I'm still interested on the subject and this weekend I've been able to make again some experiments.

First of all: I've been able to make work my old Avermedia TV Captura 98 in Windows 7 x64 with the auto-signed russian x64 drivers. It took me a while to a) follow the PROPER instructions to install them, that is: select the hardware from a list, and b) realize that no video was being shown on the screen because I had the wrong combination of colorspace and resolution (RGB24 and 720x576, which seems it's unsupported), which solved when I switched to YUY2. To realize b) I even had to install Win XP in a new partition, install the original btwincap drivers and note that I had the same sympthoms, something unusual knowing that I had previously my capture card working with that setup.

Unfortunately, the color/brigthness/etc sliders (of the driver) are greyed out and untouchable in Virtualdub (and/or any other programs I've tried), and by default they are set down to zero, so... image is displayed in B&W and I haven't found a way to change that to this date. I think it may be relatively easy to solve comparing configuration files between my Win XP and Win 7 setups, but I'll just stick with my working (Win XP) configuration for now.

Second thing is that I've been able to capture weith HSYNC. It's hilarious because I wasn't following jmac698's instructions; I was playing with VirttualDub's BT8x8 tweaker options and at one point I realyzed that I caught the HSYNC line. It's really easy! :) Now I can run the script and see if I can benefit from it.

A couple of notes:
- BT8x8 tweaker doesn't work, as expected, in x64 version of VirtualDub: since you need to grab 3 files from DTV (old version of DScaler) and it was only available for 32 bit, I thought it wouldn't work, and I got it confirmed.

- For capturing I'm using a JVC svhs machine with an integrated TBC which can be switched on/off. I really notice the difference with the same video when it is turned on or off: when on, the bar is perfectly vertically aligned.

- The hardware TBC integrated in my JVC machine improves a lot the image, but in this specific test tape it's introduccing a lot of vertical jitter, that is, vertical field jumping by one or two lines. So it's even better to have it turned off.

[jmac698]

That's great,
I'd like to see a capture with and without TBC. It's always been my theory that the capture card does line TBC anyhow; also the vertical jitter people complain about is really just dropped/duped fields.

[Perepandel]

Hi jmac689!

Wow, I was very sleepy last night while writing my post. I had a couple of screenshots of my "capture process", with and without TBC on. Also the process I followed was slightly different to the one you explained, so I wanted you to take a look at them.

- I'm capturing in PAL.
- 720x576, YUY2.
- Not doing any modifications on brigthness or whatever.

I just adjusted the left border until what I think HSYNC is appeared, and then the right border until I got the entire image "fitted" in the capture area, that is, to not lose any horizontal part of the image.

You see there are two vertical bars: starting from left, a green one, which I think is HSYNC. Then the red one, which I don't know at this moment (and I'm too lazy to investigate, too :D) what is.

In the non-TBC'd screenshot, you can see the vertical bars have very noticeable imperfections. In the other one, you can see the bars are almost straight (I would say it looks less "straight" when captured than in "live play"; could it have something to do with some "screen tearing" or whatever??).

For months, I thought the "vertical jumping" on this tape was due to tape damage or bad recording by itself, since it was the only one where it was happening. Yesterday was the 1st time that I tried playing it with TBC off and... surprise!! There is not "field jumping" anymore! Anyway I'm in a ugly situation now; image looks noticeably worse without TBC, but I cannot do any serious restoration of this tape with this annoying jumping. And I cannot think a way of removing that vertical jitter/field shifting. I previously tried http://compression.ru/video/old_film_recover/field_shift_en.html, with almost no success. I'm going to take a look at http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Stab, but, honestly, I don't enjoy applying such an ammount of processing to a clip just by a 1 or 2 line jump in one field randomly...

I'll try to upload a video capture too!

PS: I really wanted to upload the screenshots in png but was impossible due to file size limitations.

http://saformedia.net/imatges/notbc.PNG
http://saformedia.net/imatges/tbc.png

[Perepandel]

Interesting experiment! While writing the prior post, I was trying to make a couple of new caps from the same tape. I almost became made 'cause today, with the same test scenes I used yesterd, I was getting "jumping" images with and without TBC on...

I've just realized that it was due that I was capturing in "HSYNC visible mode" --- so maybe it could be that top, left, right borders... and/on other parameters are affecting image stabilization. Or maybe my VCR TBC is generating bad sync? Or something that disturbs my capture card? I even could try with my WinTV HVR 900H card, which has a different chipset. Will keek you informed in any progress!

[jmac698]

Hi,
In my experience there is a certain point, that if you capture too much of the left obrder, the image will lose sync because, if all of the HSYNC is visible there is none left for the capture card to process! So it's a balance, between visible HSYNC, and missing HSYNC due to the jitter. It may be, that the occassional jitter was so bad as to cause the jump. See if using less border fixes this problem.
Also I think I found that the green line is controlled by AGC delay and is not the HSYNC. The HSYNC is a very black area. In fact you can move the green line out of the way to see it better.
It is only necessary to turn up the brightness in preview to see the black line. In capture, there just has to be a clear area of black and dark grey, at the beginning of the picture.
Also did you try my script yet?

Also as I said, the jumping is not actual movement but missing an odd field. I think I can fix it.

[Mounir]

I even could try with my WinTV HVR 900H card, which has a different chipset. Will keek you informed in any progress!


That's interesting this card use CX2388x chipset.

Any idea if there are drivers available for the SAA713x chipsets ?

[Perepandel]

Ok, I had a very extense reply and it disappeared, so while I get the inspiration back, I'll be very brief:

jmac698, how di you think you could fix the "jumping" or "vertical jigger"? I was thinking about it while taking naps this morning at the train in my way to work. It don't seems an easy thing to me: it doesn't seem to follow a pattern. I would say it is (at least in my case) random jumping of about one field or two once here and there in a field.

I have almost no experience writing scripts for AviSynth, but I think something like this would work: compare the expected no. of lines in the field and, if it's always "eating" the line in the same place (let's say at the top of the field), then add one there, or duplicate the 1st one, etc.

I'm rambling about this because I cannot test it properly until 9 pm or so, which I expect to do.

[Perepandel]

About the WinTV HVR 900H:

I really hate that card. I thought Hauppauge made good hardware but it seems I was wrong. I own it since about 2-3 years now and I've only used it to tune a couple of DTV channels. I don't like it to capture analog video even though it's fully supported in Win 7 x64. It is so buggy that it hangs very often, plus the default settings make ugly captures: too much brightness, poor contrast, washed colors, lots of noise - surely I could play with the settings but I like far more how it looks, by default, with my old bt878. I definitly rather my old PCI companion.

Another question is that I just realized I cannot capture in RGB in any of my two cards. In WinTV HVR 900H there's no option for it in the driver settings; with my TV Capture 98 (bt878) with btwincap in theory it's possible (yeah, I know it's an upsample of YUY2 - anyway, that's ok for me 'cause my sources are not better than 4:2:2, but I prefer to capture directly in RGB 'cause I'm going to apply filters that work better in that colorspace/full resolution and I want to avoid one step/pass, that is, one conversion, if I can "capture" it directly). It appears in the driver options, but it crashes VirtualDub when selecting it, thus making it possible only to capture in YUY2. Any suggestions? Would it be better to open a new thread? :P

[NTCT]

What you guys are seeing at the very left edge is not HSYNC. I guess it is the color burst. HSYNC is below the black level, so you probably won't see it.

Perepandel: In most cases you can only capture in modes that are native to your capture card. There is little point in capturing in RGB unless your source comes in 4:4:4, otherwise it is just a waste of disk space. Capturing in YUY2 is the way to go. What software do you intend to use for further processing? Pretty much any video processing package can handle YUY2 to RGB conversion internally with no hassle. If you plan on extensive video restoration, Avisynth would serve you best. And with Avisynth you seldom need RGB, mostly YV12 and YUY2.

[Perepandel]

NTCT, I explained it in my previous message.

I know PAL footage is YUY2, or 4:2:2, at most. But there are reasons for capturing in RGB.

Many editing software uses only RGB internally. For instance: Adobe Premiere (which I'm not using) or VirtualDub (I am using it).

Also, there are certain operations/transformations/processing that are best done in RGB. A simple resize, for instance. Or more illustrative: cropping. If I want to crop one line or two at the sides (if I'm not wrong), Avisynth won't let me unless I crop by a factor of two. Why do I have to lose twice the lines I wanted to? Or crop less than I intended and leave, let's say, one pixel width of black?

I know that I can convert it after capturing, but... why do I have to take that extra step, time-consuming and maybe space consuming if I make an intermediate file, when I can do it at capture time? Not to count that the process of converting and "deconverting" between color spaces is not lossless. Oh, and don't tell me my capture card cannot do it - I've read the 878 chip datasheet and it clearly states that can deliver RGB data (a mere upsamble of 4:2:2 to 4:4:4).

By the way, that's something that has always bugged me out about Avisynth: why, if it's intended for professional video restoration, most of its plugins operate only in YV12? Unless the final format is going to be DVD or DV, it implies loss of color quality in most of the other cases.

[Perepandel]

Oh, jmac698 - I haven't been able to locate the proper "HSYNC" even after following in detail your instructions. Maybe the fact that I'm capturing from SVIDEO source, and not composite, has something to do?
Also, I'm going to try your script for case #2, since I've captured my VHS tape without hardware TBC to avoid the vertical jigger. Let's see if I can benefit from it in some way!

[Perepandel]

jma698:

Last night I tested your software TBC with my already-without-HSYNC captured video. It was not tuned to have the best "black left margin" but it was visible enough.

Well, I have to say that it's stunning. I have a couple of stills where it clearly alligned the "wavy" edges and lines. And I'm talking about a sample without not a great amount of jitter.

Unfortunately, it's not usable for a real job: "radom" displaced lines appear here and there, caused by those areas close to the side borders where the "genuine" color of the image gets confused with the black border.

If it wasn't because of that, I'd be applying it to my captured video, as where it works it really improves the quality of the image. Maybe I'll post a capture showing it. Even if it took weeks to complete (it's reeeeeeally slow!).

I'm more and more tempted to recapture WITH HSYNC and try it seriously. Unfortunately, my attempts to this moment have been unsuccessfull. Also, I don't understand the process at all. If each line has to be pulled or stretched, and also we are using "resolution" to store the sync signals -that otherwise would be used to store image information- then I guess the capture size should be bigger than 720... am I wrong?

There must be another way to capture the VBI and/or the raw video to let us process it more "matematically", not like at "eye's sight".

[Perepandel]

Also, I've found that the CX2388x chipset can be used in pure "raw" mode, that is, like a high-speed ADC:

http://www.geocities.ws/how_chee/cx23881fc6.htm

That's something I've been looking for some time for the bt878, but unfortunately there are a lot of references in the internet asking for the same question but with no evidence of being possible:

http://www.itlisting.org/1-windows-media/0cb5426fbdab8b15.aspx

That all is related to our goals. Anyway, even if the 878 cannot operate in those modes, I'm almost sure that we can benefit fro accessing to the "VBI mode" or so. But I get lost even with the terminology: clamping, DC restoration, ADC crush, factoring...

[Perepandel]

That's interesting this card use CX2388x chipset.

Any idea if there are drivers available for the SAA713x chipsets ?

Uh-oh... unfortunately for me, I've discovered that you're wrong: my WinTV HVR 900H (note the "H") doesn't have a CX2388x. It has the shitty, buggy Trident TM6000. :(

[jmac698]

Update,
I've always known there's a way to get the raw capture data out of some cards, but messing with driver code is beyond me. Now I finally found out it has been done 5 years ago and I didn't realize how to search for it.
http://www.geocities.ws/how_chee/cx23881fc6.htm

This is software to extract raw 8 bit video data for the entire signal from CX323888x, such as WinTV HVR 900H or PixelView PlayTV Pro Ultra TV+FM card. I know some people here have compatible hardware.

Please use the software on that page (no need to do the hardware mod), and capture at least 4 fields of raw VCR signal. I am capable of writing a software-only TV decoder, and I even know how to do the BBC PAL decoder, which avoids most dot crawl. I also know how to decode PALplus, and I recently found a utility that does a Quadrature Mirror Filter that I can use for testing.

ps it would help if you record a known signal like colorbars you've recorded.

[Perepandel]

That's funny... After assuring my WinTV HVR900H didn't have a CX2388x, I went to a local store where I know they have some old hardware at budget prices, and... bingo! They had a couple of them with the required chip and video inputs for capturing. So I picked up a Leadtek PVR2000, which also have FM radio and a hardware MPEG2 encoder and is well supported in Linux.

I'll try to make some tests this week and provide you with some material, jmac!

[jmac698]

P,
I've been thinking of this for years! I've always wanted a raw signal capture to decode fully in software. I can learn so much about jitter from this, too.

ps if it works I might get you to buy me one, saves me the hassle of dealing with ebay etc. and I can know it's tested.

[Alex-Kid]

This certainly is a very interesting thread. I've been reviewing it periodically to see if software TBC can be done, and every time I realize it gets closer to achieve. I have several VHS tapes I would like to transfer to DVD, many of them with almost 20 years.

I would like to test but I have a USB device (MyGica U6813) that comes with Trident TM6010 chipset (Is it as buggy as TM6000?). Do you know if there are drivers or tweakers for this chipset?

Thanks and keep on going

[JK1974]

@jmac698:
Did you already get a raw CX2388x sample?
If no, is there anybody out there who already tried to compile the alternate drivers and get this linux tool working on a current Ubuntu with Kernel 3.x? If yes, 32 or 64 bit linux? How did you determine if you recorded from the right VMUX input?

[jmac698]

No sample yet. I'm even looking into building my own digitizer. I looked at some video decoder chips and they're only $8, but I need to capture a lot of data at 27MHz. It's gonna take a 32bit uprocessor and interfacing ram. And that's just to get a couple frames to look at. Sending to a pc is even more complex. I can build a TBC quite easily, but it will always have the same problem, of dropping frames anytime it gets out of sync (even though it's very close).

[JK1974]

Unfortunately, my time is very limited due to real life business. However, after having bought a defective JVC S-VHS with TBC on ebay recently that does not seem to repairable (at least at a reasonable price), this raw data digitizing idea with software TBC and image correction sounds really great.

If I once find the time (no promise here), I would try to install a newer Ubuntu on an USB stick and try to compile the drivers from the site mentioned above, to see, if this can be done at all. As I am neither a (driver) programmer nor a linux guru, the chances of getting it working for me are not really very high as long as there is no further support if I get compiler errors.

Furthermore, my testing hardware would be a Hauppauge HVR-4000 which is a multi-tuner DVB card with analogue inputs - there might be other settings necessary to get the right channel even if I get the drivers installed and loaded, so don´t get your hopes too high...

[jmac698]

You can also do raw capturing with RTL tuner http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr#SupportedHardware
Brands include ezcap, terratec, Compro, GTek, Lifeview, Twintech, Dextech, Genius, Gigabyte, Dikom, Peak, Sveon

You will get a general oscilloscope up to 3MHz bandwidth, which will let you see sync but not really any clear images.

[Perepandel]

Hi all! It's been quite a lot of time since my last post here; been very busy with many personal matters but hopefully now I'll have a bit of free time to peep here more often...

Also sorry to jmac698 for missing his latest posts...

ps if it works I might get you to buy me one, saves me the hassle of dealing with ebay etc. and I can know it's tested.

Are you still interested on this? If you are, I can for sure pick you one. When I bought mine, there where 2 models and I picked one of them. There still was the other one available the last time I visited the store, a couple of weeks ago. The model is TVSAT HAUPPAUGE WINTV-NOVA-S PCI (product page: http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_novasplus.html), the price is 20.71 € (yeah, a bit pricy considering it's totally outdatetd, but that is), and I confirm it works because they allowed me to test both cards and I ended up picking the other one because it could do hardware MPEG2 capture.

Unfortunately, to this moment I haven't done any capture tests yet, but I'd like to do some in the following days.

[jmac698]

This is what I've found.
Hauppauge WinTV Nova-S-Plus 92001 Rev B1B1 LF
Chipsets: Broadcast decoder CX23883-19
QPSK Demod CX24123-11Z
--
The link you gave lists this:
model 00790: WinTV-NOVA-S Plus with DVB-S support and English manual

However, it's probably ok - since you can just take a look at it, the chip marking should be obvious. It's a product wih the CX23883 that I'm interested in. I can also try to compile the driver to make it easier for you to do your own tests.
---
You may be interested to know that I've made a plugin of my TBC technique, so it's fast now. Feel free to script your own border detection techniques, as the plugin just resizes to edges above a fixed threshold.

There's definitely more that can be extracted from this approach. I have some more ideas about using ntsc pulldown and motion tracking, so the black borders aren't so much of an issue.

[jmac698]

There is a way to get raw samples from an 878, but it's using the audio demod input and was only usable up to 896KHz, which is not quite fast enough to get a good look at the hysnc signal.
By all means try it, it will show up as a soundcard in Linux and you can simply record with a ridiculously high sample-rate ;)
http://www.domenech.org/bt878a-adc/index-e.htm

Send me the signal to analyze. As for, how would you get any video out of this, you can't - but, if you connect a normal video card at the same time, and find some way to line up the raw and the video capture, you can use the raw capture's hsync to get a 'hint' of how to line-up the video capture.

Most of these experiments are done in Fedora Core, older version - you can run this as a live cd from usb possibly, which makes it as simple as a reboot and a few minutes compiling and installing the driver. A non-programmer should be able to do this, if you're fairly familiar with computers.

There's no need for me to decode raw video in software in fact, all I need are the line-up values from the sync signals, and another capture can provide the video. Of course, for convenience, I could add that later. I'm thinking you already have a working capture card with good quality, but want to add one of these raw sample cards as a cheap, used card, just for seeing hsync.

I could detect hsync with a simple circuit that detects a level, but I think the problem requires a better look at it, certainly for the analysis phase of the problem.

[Perepandel]

Oops, sorry but I didn't express myself well. I was meaning there where two different models at the store with CX2388x. In fact mine is a LeadTek WinPVR2000 XP or so. So I choosed it because it has FM and MPEG2 hardware encoding. But after pincking it up, I discovered it has CX23882, I think, and it lacks some feature that is found in the CX23883 from the Hauppauge (that I hope won't interfere with the raw capturing mode). Anyway, one or other cards are almost unuseful for any purpose other than experimenting. Well, you could still watch free-to-air MPEG2 satellite channels with the WinTV-Nova-S :D

[zerowalker]

can someone use CX2388x with Virtualdub and choose settings like, White Crush and such?
Cause i can´t do a thing with the standard drivers, only with Dscaler, but they are limited to Dscaler:(

[Perepandel]

Zerowalker, as far as I know, in Virtualdub those options where on "bt878 tweaks" options or so. As CX2388x is not bt878 (althought it is its successor), you probably won't be able to make that work.

Ok, I've just googled a little about the matter, 'cause I remember you had to copy some files from Dscaler to Virtualdub in order to make it work:

http://neuron2.net/LVG/highrescapvdub.html


VirtualDub 1.4d introduced the BT8X8 Tweaker. This utility enables you to tweak certain settings on your capture card if it's based on a BT8X8 chipset. In order to use the BT8X8 Tweaker, you must download DScaler and copy the following files into your VirtualDub directory: 'dTVdrv.dll', 'dTVdrv95.vxd', and 'dTVdrvNT.sys'.


Again, I haven't tried that but sincerely I'm almost it won't work with CX2388x.

Anyway, the source code for Virtualdub and Dscaler is there, so probably it won't be that difficult to adapt it for the CX2388x... Anyone wanna try? :D

[zerowalker]

Yeah i know, though i didn´t know it was it´s successor.

And can tell you, it doesn´t work, it says (No bt878 card, or something).

Yeah would be really neat if someone could, if i was good and understood any of this programming, i would do it, but sadly, i don´t, even if i try, i can´t learn it, it´s to hard;P

[Perepandel]

Well, I've compiled successfully VirtualDub 1.10 "experimental". Then I changed a couple of lines to try to accept CX2388x cards as valid card for the tweaker, and was going to try if it works, without even checking if CX2388x has those registers :P. But I haven't been able to, since I get the infamous "Unable to start video capture" in VirtualDub.

You can see in another message in the forum I revived some minutes ago more about my sympthoms.

By the way, as I also have a bt878 based card in my system, VirtualDub allows me to use the tweak options, and it shows me the dialog, even with my WinFast PVR2000 (cx2388x) selected as my capture device, altought I can see if it does anything since I cannot capture nor preview.

Anyway, I can put the files online so you can test it, to see if it's of any use for you, buy I'm not very confident it's going to work... PS: it's a 32 bit version. I can try to compile it for 64 bit but probably it gives me more headaches.

[jmac698]

Good efforts people. I got my card so can join sometime, but I have other projects to attend as well. I should enough enough tools now to totally beat this problem, it's just a matter of effort now.

I need to learn C++ and how to write drivers. I bought a driver development book a long time ago as thinking ahead; unfortunately that driver model is obsolete now (I think it's the old vfw, vxd now wdm).

I think all new development should go to win7 x64, as that's what ppl consider the "ideal" OS now. I don't think Windows 8 is going anywhere.

[zerowalker]

Nice!

Hope you can make something of it, as i myself can´t program anything, even though i did programming in school:(

And it would be lovely for it to be able to work in Todays OS, as you said win7 x64 is the "ideal", and Windows 8 is sadly a "failure" if they don´t fix it up for many many users who prefer the Desktop Windows.

But what are you going to be able to do with the Card?
I understand that it´s able to capture Raw Data (please explain this*), but what can you do with that?

[jmac698]

It's to fix horizontal jitter, to produce the proper aspect ratio, to record the full 486 lines, line 21 signal decoding, and to capture not standard signals, like old consoles or even HD in some quality. It's possible also to restore weak color, to capture even half frames. Maybe something else, you have to use your imagination.

[zerowalker]

Sounds amazing:)

So in other words, you want to break free from all the Limits that the systems are bound to(Video systems, PAL NTSC and all the lines etc):)

[jmac698]

There's already TBC you can buy, not all of them work well, but if all you want is the TBC function just buy it, and this is a waste of time. For me, it's more about research. There's a possibility I can make my own TBC that works in the cases the other ones fail.
There's also completely different uses, to use the card like an oscilloscope. I can watch different communication protocols, for testing my electronic designs.
I'm also wondering if there would be much improvement if I took the signal directly off the video heads and processed the rest digitally.
There's also a timecode in laserdisc that no software can decoded. I can use that to make sure there's no dropped frames.

I'm just being creative here.