Capturing in VDub -> Superindex problems

[Benni]

hello folks,

i'm trying to capture some old vhs with virtual dub 1.9.11. but at some point, the capture stops with an error message:

"not enough superindex entries to index avi file". vdub says, that 256 are set right now and that it needs like 200.000 superindexes. i've read that those 256 would be enough to store a 500 gig avi file, so i'm a little bit confused here.

i tried setting the superindex entry that high but the capture wouldn't even start with that.

the point where it stops differs everytime but most of the time around 70 gig. the interesting thing is that the sound goes on with the capture for a while - but still not until the end.

any ideas what i could do?

version: vdub 1.9.11
cap. device: hauppauge wintv go
codec: huffyuv 2.1.1 + pcm sound
res: 768x576 (PAL)
image format: YUY2

thank you very much for your help.

cheers,
benni

[Mounir]

Try virtualvcr it's a good app for capturing vhs 768x576 is too large imo 720 x576 is enough

[fvisagie]

Generally speaking, have you tried reinstalling VirtualDub, updating the capture card's drivers etc.?

Failing that, I agree with Mounir's advice to try other capturing applications.

And you're probably capturing at 768x576 to get 4:3 display aspect ratio with square pixels, but if your capture device's native format really is 720x576 PAL, it's best to capture in that and do any resizing afterwards using VirtualDub's or Avisynth's specialised filters.

[Benni]

thank you very much for your answers.

as virtual vcr need a WDM driver, i could finally update my older VfW driver to a WDM and try virtual vcr.

but this program crashes after an undefined capture time :/ but i saw that the crash was in conjunction with huffyuv.dll.. i'll try some solutions when i'm back at home -- i just wanted to give you a feedback.

[manolito]

as virtual vcr need a WDM driver, i could finally update my older VfW driver to a WDM and try virtual vcr.

Are you saying that you previously captured with VDub using a VfW driver?:scared:

Don't do that. VDub originally (many years ago) only supported VfW drivers, but these days have long gone. VDub works much better with WDM drivers.

Virtual VCR is nice, but on my slow machine it always loses A/V sync after some time. VDub (very old version 1.6.19) always keeps A/V sync perfectly.

Using Huffyuv as your compressor is usually a good idea, though you might want to play with some of its settings (speed vs. filesize, and you should enable the Full Size Output Buffer). Other lossless options are Lagarith and UT codec. For slow machines I found that the PicVideo MJPEG codec does the best job.


Good luck
manolito

[Benni]

oh, thank you for the information - i really was stuck with the old requirement of a vfw-driver ;)
but now when i go to capture mode of vdub, it instantly says that it can't connect to the capture device.

it isn't even listed under the "devices" menu. only the vfw-version of it - and none of it works ;)

i tried to reinstall drivers + huffyuc codec but the crashs still happen with virtual vcr.
i'll try the other (lossless) codecs when i'm back home..

cheers,
benni

[Benni]

a little update :)

i should have listened to you before, manolito... the new huffyuv version has the option "full size output buffer (can fix crashes)" - why not check it then?! ;) now it works pretty fine with huffyuv as i was used to.

i also tried lagarith and UT and they are fine as well. i thought i had an asynchronous sound with them but now i think, that the source itself is async.

thank you very much for your help :)

cheers
benni

[Mounir]

@ Benni:
Out of curiosity try 32khz instead of 44khz for the sound, with my card 44khz gives me an A/V desync

[manolito]

Usually audio should be captured uncompressed (PCM) at 48kHz and 16 bit. But of course the specific hardware might work better with different settings...

@Benni
Glad to hear that you've got it working. I did spend a lot of time to make my analog captures work (I remember reading somewhere that analog capturing is more an art than a science).

There are so many things that can go wrong like A/V sync, aspect ratio, dropped frames and so on. It does take some effort and also a lot of trial and error until you get your procedure absolutely stable. But it can be done, even with a very slow computer.



Cheers
manolito