Capturing at 640*480 with Virtual Dub

[danigon]

Hi all

I have a Pinnacle PCTV card and I can't capture at 640*480 with Virtual Dub. Any suggestions? Thanks

Daniel Gonçalves

[Swan]

Install Btwincap drivers. This will solve the issue.
http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

/Swan

[keito]

Or you can install the 4.02 drivers, 'cause the new ones don't work with this resolution.

[klona]

Btwincap drivers gives me the best result.

@Keito (or others): Concerning 5.01 & 5.1 drivers from pinnacle, do you manage to use it in Virtualdub ? It's like no drivers were installed.

Not a big issue, as I directly capture with btwincap to divx.

640/480 PAL 25fps Divx 5.02 900 kbit/sec + Mp3 joint stereo 112 Kbit with no frame skipped (or 3 to 5 per hour) (P4 2.85 Ghz, that helps)

[keito]

This is really interesting to me!:) So you're teling that Pinnacle's drivers don't work in Virtualdub?:confused: I'm using them 'cause of the pb of "deinterlacing", but if you think btwincap work better I'll try them too.
Thanks for the tip.:D :D

[Mike456]

I've the Pinnacle PCTV pro and the btwincap driver doesn't work!

[Swan]

@klona and Mike456
I have a Pinnacle PCTV Pro. Pinnacle's drivers are WDM drivers. VirtualDub is VFW software. To use VFW software with WDM drivers, a wrapper is needed (a "translator" from WDM to VFW) and Microsoft provides one. I believe it is installed with DirectX.

With the wrapper, you should be able to capture at half resolution (352 x 288 PAL or 352 x 240 NTSC) in VirtualDub. The PCTV Pro will show up as "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)" in VirtualDub and other VFW softwares like Avi_Io.

Pinnacle's 5.1 drivers (which I am using) does not work with full resolution in VFW software. This is a limitation of the driver, in combination with the wrapper. Installing Btwincap (which *does* work with the PCTV Pro card) takes care of that issue. The tuner part may or may not work, I have not tested that myself as I capture from a satellite receiver and not terrestial TV channels.

You can read more about why capturing with WDM drivers from the card manufacturer in a VFW software often is limited to half resolution on Btwincap's web site.

/Swan