Help with wdm capture

[McQuaid]

I've been capturing for over 2 years and have been very happy with my results. But now, I've switched to a new system and I am forced to use WDM capture drivers as my soundcard only has wdm drivers.

I'm running win98se P4 1.6ghz, zoltrix tv genie and onboard soundmax soundcard.

I realize that by the specs, wdm is superior to vfw, but in practice it's been frustrating.

Can't cap any higher than 320x240 in avi_io or virtualdub. I realize these are vfw apps but I've read some people have been able to cap higher than 320x240 (ntsc) in vdub and avi_io with wdm.

I tried virtualvcr and can cap at 640x480 but not a custom res like 352x480 which i've used alot for going to vcd. Also with virtualvcr it doesn't have a multisegment cap so I was going to go with win2000 but I'm having other difficulties with it.

There are audio sync issues with virtualvcr. I tried the feature 'resample audio to match video' and 'master stream in avi file' set as video. And the sync issues seemed to have cleared up, but if I load the captured avi in virtualdub and go to the framerate section where it says change so video and audio durations match, its says a framerate of 29.95 or 30.00 or some value close to that. This is with 0 frames dropped during various test captures. Whereas with avi_io it would always say 29.97.

I tried the BTwincap drivers, but could not get them to install successfully even though my cap card is supported. I tried the manual method as well. After 3 failed attempts of installing the driver, I tried to reinstall my zoltrix drivers but when I remove the drivers and reboot, it finds my zoltrix and automatically reinstalls the drivers without prompting me to cancel or point to another source for drivers (with the zoltrix I"m supposed to cancel and run their .exe to update the drivers). So right now, I'm not even entirely sure if I have the btwincap drivers installed or my zoltrix drivers.

Any other capture apps I should try?

For people who have successfully installed the btwincap drivers, Are you able to cap in vdub and avi_io at resolutions higher than 320x240?

I'm at the point where I'm going to buy a soundcard just to have vfw drivers again.
Any help anyone can offer would be appreciated as right now my capturing as come to a halt. :(

[McQuaid]

Ok, maybe I rambled on a little too much....

Who here has switched from vfw to wdm and found it better?

What are you using to cap under wdm and are you having audio sync/ frame rate issues (i.e. can you load the captured file in vdub and have it report the correct frame rate?)

Has anyone found btwincap drivers solve any wdm issues like full frame capping in vdub?

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by McQuaid
I've been capturing for over 2 years and have been very happy with my results. But now, I've switched to a new system and I am forced to use WDM capture drivers as my soundcard only has wdm drivers.

Can't cap any higher than 320x240 in avi_io or virtualdub. I realize these are vfw apps but I've read some people have been able to cap higher than 320x240 (ntsc) in vdub and avi_io with wdm.

I'm at the point where I'm going to buy a soundcard just to have vfw drivers again.
Any help anyone can offer would be appreciated as right now my capturing as come to a halt. :(

_few things i experienced on w2k&sourceforge drivers (they are listed as "Driver provider:IllusionHope version: 5.2.2.0" on my dev.manager in 2k..)
"iuvcr" works fine( at 704x576):virtualvcr indeed has problems stabilising framerate!(and miscounts drops at 768x576...)
(i've mentioned that also in thread "drop frame:what cause it?"(read that also)
shouldn't be any problems with vdub (and wdm-vfw wrapper) with such a fast CPU...avi_io also (although i don't prefer avi_io:it has LOUSY management of free space:it nags and nags!vdub is silent and records until ther's no more free space....))

sourceforge installer has utility to firstly UNINSTALL all the previous drivers (there'll be problems if old drivers aren't uninstalled!)_can you just go to dev manager(update driver) & serve the system sourceforge .inf file?(modified as needed for your card)

on your other question:btwincap solve the fullres problem,but wrapper is introduced so my cel600 strugles....on 700 though CAN DO!
(vdub,win2k,btwincap,mjpeg at "17",704x576...)

also:soundcards aren't expensive!(hehe)

cheers

[Zhnujm]

maybe not very useful for your problem but why are you forced to use wdm capture drivers because of your soundcard ?
im still using vfw drivers for my wintv card (winxp) and cant see a problem with my wdm sound drivers and vdub.

or am i missing something ? :confused:

[McQuaid]

Thanks for the replies.

I was having a problem installing the vfw drivers with a wdm soundcard. Maybe its just an issue with this onboard sound but I'll try again. Or I'll try btwincap drivers again cause as it stands vdub won't go any higher than 320x240.

Zhnujm: I thought I read from a few places that any OS above win98se is wdm only, so I was surprised that you say your using vfw drivers under winxp.

[McQuaid]

Ok, I reinstalled the vfw drivers. The problem I'm having is overlay mode is not working. At first I assumed it was something to do with the soundcard but its not that. My card is an old tnt card. Do they have problems with overlay?

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

you should use "preview" mode when using bt on higher res.
bt chip cannot send both fields to GPU at once(at hi res.)
(read the info on virtualdub.org->section "capturing")

wdm app's have "smart tee" preview which takes video to screen
only if CPU can handle it....

(& also have tnt(2) & no problems:just no direct overlay while capturing_for viewing purposes use DScaler.....)

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by McQuaid

Zhnujm: I thought I read from a few places that any OS above win98se is wdm only, so I was surprised that you say your using vfw drivers under winxp.

you can use vfw drivers in winxp, i think the problem is that there is not much support for such a thing. you cannot use the win9x drivers, you need special nt/2000/xp vfw drivers.
hauppauge has a nt4.0 vfw driver (also no longer supported) that works perfect in xp.

[McQuaid]

Hmmm, good to know about the xp vfw thing.

Well, I'm back on vfw and probably going to stay there. I can capture fine but overlay is not working. My card is an old tnt card. From what I've read, there is an overlay problem with some (all?) nvidia cards.

I've tried the 2 reg fixes but it didn't fix it.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by McQuaid
Hmmm, good to know about the xp vfw thing.

Well, I'm back on vfw and probably going to stay there. I can capture fine but overlay is not working. My card is an old tnt card. From what I've read, there is an overlay problem with some (all?) nvidia cards.

I've tried the 2 reg fixes but it didn't fix it.

overlay ( during capturing ) CANNOT work on res. higher than 384x288
(especially with vfw drivers)
are you saying that you could get overlay to work on 98se/vfw drivers & hires?when & how was this?

as i told you bt chip cannot send both fields (if res is higher than 384x288) to GPU at once

if chip (bt) cannot do it no reg.patch will help...

you can just get preview or at wdm systems "smart tee" preview....

what "overlay on nvidia" problem are you talking about?
can we hear more about this?
i think something was mentioned (somewhere sometime) in some sence related to newer (geforce2 or so) cards but don't know the details & if it applies to capturing at all...

you didn't mention in what res you can't get overlay to work?
if it won't work at all (at any res) reinstall drivers for graphic card & capture device & try again...off course check settings for both first....

and again:go to virtualdub.org->documentation-capture for more...

[McQuaid]

Sorry, I wasn't clear about it.


Yes, I realize you can't have overlay on with full frame capturing with bt chipsets.

I never leave overlay or even preview on when I capture.

Capturing right now, with vfw drivers is fine.

What I was referring to is overlay when actually watching tv with the the tv tuners software or even with dscaler. Right now, when trying to use overlay within the tv viewing software, it's just a frozen frame with overlay enabled, whether in a window or fullscreen. I must use preview mode or use an option in my tv software to disable overlay, which works, but looks kinda choppy and in fullscreen mode it won't stretch the image, so a 640x480 image is in the corner in fullscreen. I can drop to 640x480 before hand (I believe there is an option for this in dscaler) but its not the greatest workaround, and playback still suffers regardless.

I found a few threads on deja about this and it is a definite issue with tnt cards. Not sure if it's just early ones or later nvidia cards like geforce. Though I would think that if this affected modern nvidia cards, a solution would be much easier to find.

On the deja thread there was mention of a couple of reg fixes for this but it didn't work for me.

This is a little off topic now from the original thread so maybe I'll start another thread on overlay issues.