NT video capture

[johnt]

Hi, I’m having a lot of problems getting video capture set up under NT4 (I’ve got to stay with this OS because of work).

The PC is a SCSI workstation with twin 450mHz P3s, and Accelstar II graphics card and FlyVideo 3000 TV tuner.

I can watch videos without problem in Overlay mode (using VirtualDub and others), but there is no picture in Preview mode, just a black screen (and nothing is captured by any program). I think the problem is the capture driver – the only one listed is Lx25.dll. I can’t use any updated drivers from FlyVideo because they need DirectX 8 (and NT only goes to DirectX6), and their technical support hasn’t responded to several emails.

So I guess my first step is to add another capture driver, but with what, from where, and how?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[tiki4]

Well,

I don't know your capture card but I guess you have to find out what chipset the card is using. The Brooktree chipsets are very common and you find different drivers in the net.

I mean, there are not many different tuner chipsets available and if you are using one of the more common chipsets you should be able to find other drivers for them. I guess you cannot rely on the manufacturer of your card, maybe they don't support Windows NT anymore. It's an OS that is not very well known for multimedia support.But for example Hauppauge provides drivers for the Brooktree based cards that also work in Windows NT (the magic term seems to be Video for Windows (VFW) drivers and NOT WDM).

I hope this helped a little.

Regards,

tiki4

[johnt]

Thanks for your help. I loaded the suggested drivers and am getting some results - even though VirtualDub seems to be now using the original driver! There's like 40% dropped frames, but at least I have something to work with. Thanks again.

[tiki4]

Hi,

take a look in VirtualDub -> Capture AVI -> Video menu which Capture Card you are using. Maybe there are two showing up now. For example if I installed once a WDM driver (of course not in Windows NT, it does not support WDM) and then a VfW driver then the Microsoft wrapper driver for the WDM capture device still shows up in VirtualDub. I had to choose the second capture device now. Also check the menu Preferences where you get more detailed options for the capture devices.

Maybe you have to play around a little bit until you find a good resolution and a suitable format to capture with your machine.

tiki4

[johnt]

Thanks once again. I will investigate that soon. In the meantime, I got permission and bought Windows 2000 Prof - only to discover that my graphics card is NOT SUPPORTED! One possible substitute driver supports OpenGL, but not DirectX; the other supports DirectX (and not OpenGL) but so far is only running in 16 colours @ 640 x 480. I kind of makes me want to cry! :(
On the positive side, video capture is a dream (in 16 colours!)

[tiki4]

You must have either a really old card or a card from a very strange manufacturer. I never found any reason to complain about hardware support in Win2K. I guess before WinXP it was the Windows OS with the widest range of supported hardware. I don't remember, but wasn't that a company PC you were using? Well, maybe you need a new graphic card as well ;-(

It's strange to me that there are drivers that only support OpenGL or only support DirectX. Anyway you don't need support for OpenGL in order to capture video.

tiki4

[johnt]

Hi,

My progress report... in a late-night raid on the office server, I swapped graphics cards (no one will notice the difference!), so I'm now using a Voodoo Banshee 16Mb card which works fine under Win2K. Interestingly, as a byproduct of doing a 'clean' install of the Win2K upgrade on my NT4 machine, I ended up with a dual-boot PC. But for some reason none of the Banshee drivers I've tried will install properly in NT4, so now I've got 16 colors and a max of 800 x 600 in that OS (for the moment)! Fortunately, video capture is working well in Win2K (in full colour), so once I tweak a few things and sort out some minor issues I should be on the way. Thanks again for your advice.

[johnt]

BTW, just following up on the graphics card issue, as far as I can discover there is no Win2K driver available for the Accelstar II, which is (was) a high-end OpenGL card for CAD applications. Under Win2K, you have to use the Permedia2 drivers with it, and from reading various posts it appears that the drivers from the 3D labs site have no support for DirectX while the drivers from the Win2K CD don't support OpenGL (or vice versa). I got one driver working sort of OK but not the other, and as there was another graphics card nearby . . .

[tiki4]

Shame on you ;-)

O.K., now I understand that there is a driver only supporting OpenGL. That's quite usual for HighEnd OpenGL boards. By the way, why are you capturing video on your working place? However, much fun with your 'robbed' graphics card.

tiki4

[johnt]

Actually, it's my extended home office, with about 7 PCs - so it's not really something that could be a problem! :D However, I did need budget approval for the OS upgrade!

[tiki4]

So what about this nightly raid? You rob yourself? Man, you're funny.


tiki4