Capturing NTSC HELP!!! [Archive]

FredThompson

13th May 2003, 08:19

You'll probably get better advice if you explain what you're really trying to do. What is the source material? How are you transfering it? What are the horsepower and storage available?

Can you return that card and get something more mainstream with better support?

Don't capture as MPEG-2. Use HuffYUV, DV, or an MJPEG codec. Those are in decending order of lossiness. If at all possible, capture at 720x480x29.97, even if your source is VHS. You're trying to digitize an analog signal which means you want as many samples per cycle as possible. If your source is VHS, this will give you about 2 per pixel from the tape. (Do you remember the concept of "fitting a curve" from geometry classes? That's what you're doing, essentially.) The idea is to oversample, just like with audio processing, then you mix down to your desired format.

VirtualDub or VirtualDubMod.

Look in the guides. There's a basic one on capturing with VirtualDub.

After capturing, do your cleanup, editing, etc. and either save as an intermediate file or frameserve to your encoder. DVD2SVCD is a fairly easy way to do multi-pass MPEG2 encoding.

DigitalfreakNYC

13th May 2003, 14:50

As far as horsepower is concerned...

P4 266
1 gig of ram

It was actually put together by a colleague of mine for the purpose of doing this editing and mixing and eventually burning.

The source is SVHS right now and will eventually be laserdisc.

I need something basic at this point and all the guides I find seem to be aimed at creating VCD's or SVCD's. I doubt I can return the card but i'm just concerned that the site says I can capture 720x640 but then the program tells me I can't.

Thanks for your advice. Any more would be appreciated.

FredThompson

13th May 2003, 15:16

VirtualDub for capture but not 1.5.2, it's got some bugs.

Try HuffYUV first because it's free or register a good DV or MJPEG codec. DV is slightly lossy but you'd be grabbing at a higher resolution than your S-VHS deck puts out so no big deal.

Use an S-Video cable.

If you can capture at 720x480, do it. It's not a perfect multiple but still good.

Calibrate your display then calibrate your settings for capture.

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~wvg/color%20bar.htm

Don't remember where I saw a tutorial on histogram while capturing. best captures will have some calibration first.

Use the various cleanup filters to reduce noise.

Crop and letterbox to get rid of jagged edges.

DigitalfreakNYC

13th May 2003, 16:24

OK so i'm using VirtualDub to capture using the HUFFYUV codec, correct? Which version of Virtualdub should I use?

Is there an online guide to VirtualDub? I gotta be honest. It was one of the first ones I downloaded and it seemed pretty crappy although everyone around here seems to use it. I guess it just doesn't seem user friendly.

So if I can't do 720, should I buy a card that can and complain to Lifeview? Is there going to be a noticeable loss in quality?

Thanks for all of your help!

FredThompson

13th May 2003, 21:08

use a search engine to match the two phrases "VirtualDub" and "capture".

You probably nixed VirtualDub because it isn't a big pretty composition package.

The problem is probably your software.

Notable loss? Probably not much.

720x640 is not a standard resolution. 720x480 is what you probably meant.

BaronVlad

13th May 2003, 22:19

Hi,

you can have a look at the "beta" of the capture guide, there some NTSC things are explained (in the online version it is not atm)

Download it here: http://members.tripod.de/stefanstrobl/download.htm

Thanks steVe for putting this online. :)

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 03:26

Thanks for the help guys.

Tried capturing using the manual and all I get is a black screen when I hit "capture." Dunno what i'm doing wrong but it's not capturing anything. I have picture before that happens tho. I have to say it's a pretty crappy picture. Doesn't look nearly as good as the other capture devices I've used...and it's much smaller at the moment. I shudder to think of how it would look blown up. Does it get better after it's captured...if i ever get that far?

Any advice?

FredThompson

14th May 2003, 03:51

I can't test until tomorrow but I think the size of the window while capturing is selectable, just like when editing, so it's probably at 50%.

Quality could be anything. Maybe you have a poor source. Maybe you're realizing the difference between a computer's sampling and display ability and the persistance of a TV screen. Probably a combination of both.

I remember having that same problem with black screen. Don't remember if it was a driver issue. The first Radeon driver didn't support VFW standard in Win2K so I had to get a wrapper. There's one linked in the "Miscellaneous" section of my links list, probably also one here at doom9. It will be called something like VFWWDM wrapper.

There's also some kind of setting about overlay which needs to be enabled and maybe you don't have the video source set for S-Video. Maybe it's trying to pull from composite.

I've never heard of that card you have, btw. If it's got a Brooktree TV componenet, you might want to try to generic driver for capture. Look on my links list under "Television."

FWIW, I don't use my All-in-Wonder Radeon for capture any more. I do passthrough with a DV camcorder or use an ADS USB MPEG-2 encoder. If you've got a LOT of stuff and plan to do this frequently, now's the time to consider how important quality is. If you're looking for a digital version of a VCR and want it done right, uh, probably best to get other hardware.

Not trying to be snotty. You're going to pay one way or the other. My opinion is it is far better to have the cleanest source coming into a high-performance capture device. There are a slew of ways to clean up and enhance captured video. However, you can only wipe mud away so much and it obscures the original signal. Movies show "removing" noise to get pristine versions of what was obscured. It doesn't work that way.

Oh, I started soapboxing. Sorry.

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 04:16

Well...quality is VERY important to me...but I just bought a $1500 computer and as an actor on a limited budget, that's about all I can spend. ;)

It has nothing to do with my screen. As I said, it looked a helluva lot better in ANY of the programs that I used to capture before. It's this program where it looks like crap. I have no idea what the end product will look like. All I'm saying is that what I saw on the screen looked pretty bad. It's NOT the source. I already burned a demo dvd and was very happy with the results going right to mpeg2. Just didn't like the audio...

That's part of my problem with this "guide" to capturing and burning. It assumes that MP3 quality is a passable quality for burning and also talks about those nasty black bars on the top and the bottom of the screen. Is it just me or is all of this just a TAD bit uneducated??? *sigh*

I have it set to S-video.

Wrappers? What? Huh? ;)

I got the flyvideo off of the recommendations from A LOT of people at Home Theater Forum and people on this very board. Everyone seemed to be more than pleased with its performance.

So here we are..

I, too, step off my soapbox.

And only to let you know that I am now encountering yet ANOTHER error with the program where it's telling me that the card is in use with something else...yet i just started up my computer and nothing else is on! *sigh*

FredThompson

14th May 2003, 05:32

I understand your frustration but, try to see it from mine. YOU understand what you're doing, I can only guess based on what is somewhat limited information. Kind of like going to the doctor ;)

The $ question with regard to hardware is because there are a lot of people who explode because their $30 bargain bin card won't give them DVD-like quality. Partly, marketing is to blame but, to make an analogy to the show business world, there's a big difference between a home stereo that sounds good and the sound system in a performance hall.

OK, having said that, the quality issues you are complaining about have nothing to do with VirtualDub. If anything, it is probably the most accurate capture software you'll find UNLESS there is something unique about your hardware. My USB devices, for example, don't work with VirtualDub and that's just fine. It's not designed for that.

There must be something in the settings that is messing things up or giving that appearance.

The guide is a start, it's not the perfect collection of how-tos and it's still in development.

A wrapper is a piece of software that is kind of like an adapter. Thing is, Win2K and XP use one method of talking with video sources, Win9x uses another. Early video drivers for Win2K didn't always properly support programs that want to use the old format. Given that you've trid the fly thing, it's not an issue. (I know YOU know which OS you're running, haven't told me.)

I'm not sure what you mean about black bars. My guess is you want full-screen video and that's what you had before? If so, it sounds like the other packages did some cropping and possibly re-sizing. Also, VirtualDub isn't going to do any deinterlacing while it captures. A TV shows only part of the picture and the capture cards grab the entire signal, including the extra space on the edges which looks raggedy with an analog signal (DirecTV has ugly compression artifacts on the top, similar issue.)

Here's a good example of what I was trying to explain. I have no idea what other software you might have used. I know it's frustrating, partly because you don't have the knowledge to fully explain what the problem really is. (But...if you had the knowledge, you probably would have figured it out by now.)

Try this: http://www.digtv.ws and tell me the results.

Are you wanting time shifting that you use once on that computer and throw away or archival storage?

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 14:42

Fred,

I appreciate ALL of your help and please do not think for a moment that I'm aggravated with you at all. On the contrary, you're the only person in the last month that has come forward to help me out.

First off...I'm running Windows XP.

Secondly, my comment about the "black bars" was that there is a section of the guide where it tells how to get rid of those. To me, that is complete blasphemy and the work of someone who doesn't know much about movies or how they are filmed and how essential those black bars are. I guess i'm assuming a "technical" person would understand their importance...but I guess not.

Again, I was amazed that a $50 piece of hardware came so highly recommended as well. And to tell you the truth, I haven't had much of a problem. I actually burned a test DVD just to see what the quality would be and I was very impressed with the video but not the audio. But if it can be better, then I obviously would like that. It wasn't cleaned up and wasn't edited because I don't have software to edit and manipulate MPEG2's. But again...wanted to make sure that my burner actually worked as I got this computer a couple of weeks ago.

Bottom line is that i'm not using this as a home theater PC. I'm using it to back up my SVHS and laserdisc. To make menus and archive this stuff and not worry about it deteriorating. That is my purpose. I purchased a stand alone machine but was really annoyed when it was a Panasonic and had the "black level" bug which has since been fixed. But I would like to learn how to do this via computer as it obviously has the ability to do more. I just have to figure out the best way of doing this.

When I click the capture button, the screen goes black. Totally black and says that no frames have been captured. I don't know what went wrong. I tried tweaking it last night but nothing helped. Then I started having another error during that which said that the device was already in use and to shut the programs down which were using the device and retry. I shut down the whole computer and restarted. Same error. I don't know what's going on at this point.

Honestly, it would be really sweet to purchase (if i have to) one program which does everything that I need to do which doesn't have any of these problems. I guess that's ideal and you never know what's going to work with what. But is there something that would be better suited to someone who doesn't want to go crazy with this but obviously wants to do more than menu/edit-free simplistic stuff?

Thanks again...

Wilbert

14th May 2003, 15:02

That's part of my problem with this "guide" to capturing and burning. It assumes that MP3 quality is a passable quality for burning and also talks about those nasty black bars on the top and the bottom of the screen. Is it just me or is all of this just a TAD bit uneducated??? *sigh*

Secondly, my comment about the "black bars" was that there is a section of the guide where it tells how to get rid of those. To me, that is complete blasphemy and the work of someone who doesn't know much about movies or how they are filmed and how essential those black bars are. I guess i'm assuming a "technical" person would understand their importance...but I guess not.
1) What do you mean with "MP3 quality is a passable quality for burning"? I ask, because I don't know what passable means.

2) About the black bars: They can be cropped after resizing and encoding to a 1:1 format. Before calling anyone dumb (uneducated, a-technical and other stuff), what's your problem with this?

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 17:08

Cropping black bars?

it's called widescreen and it's a GOOD thing. It's a typical reaction to refer to anyone who doesn't understand this as a J6P=Joe 6 Pack.

Wilbert

14th May 2003, 17:31

It's typical that you didn't answer my questions.

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 17:38

Typical??? lol

i answered one of the two. Sorry.

MP3's are shit quality...to put it bluntly. They're horrible and compressed. And I would hope that people who care about quality wouldn't want to use it.

Does that satisfy you?

Wilbert

14th May 2003, 17:42

In both cases you are talking nonsense.

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 17:46

OK...then please go listen to your low quality MP3's and full screen movies and stay out of my thread unless you're going to help.

It's called thread crapping and you're doing it.

FredThompson

14th May 2003, 18:16

Chill. There's a difference between being frustrated and the tone of your last posts.

You're asking for advice but not fully articulating what is happening. As with learning any non-trivial task, you don't know what you don't know.

"black bars at the top and bottom" sounds like the overscan area. You never said you have letterboxed source. There is also overscan on the sides of analog source.

There are 4 options:

1) Do nothing
2) Crop the image to a standard 4:3 size
3) Crop the letterbox bars then recreate them. Donald Graft's Smart Resize does this in VirtualDub (Learn how this works)
4 Crop the bars and save an intermediate file to be encoded as a proper anamorphic.

MP3 can have good or bad quality depending on the source, how it's encoded and how its played back. MP3 has better compression than MP2 which is used on DVDs but with a high bitrate.

If you want DVD-level encoding, you can fit about 15 minutes of 3500 rate on a CDR, something like that. If you want more on a CDR, you'll have to cut somewhere. Given your source, I suggest CVD, not SVCD. You'll get higher bandwidth per pixel and it's part of the DVD spec.

I think you should do some more research.

Go to my links site and search for the following:

Ross McLennan's site
Donald Graft's site - Smart Resize filter for VirtualDub
CVD - DVDRHelp and maybe a few others.

wrt the black screen, that is really odd. It sounds like you have something running that won't let overlay work. I would uninstall the Fly and all the software that came with the capture card then install just the drivers then try using VirtualDub again. My suspicion is Flyvideo is creating a conflict. The best way to tell is to go back to the begining and take one step at a time.

Oh, I'd actually use VirtualDubMod but, in any event, don't use VirtualDub 1.5.2 because of the bugs mentioned on its home page.

segfault

14th May 2003, 18:26

@DigitalfreakNYC:

You might want to back off and do a little investigation before getting quite so cocky. After all, you are the one asking for help, and you are calling the people trying to give it to you uneducated and J6P. You might want to rethink that just a bit....

Secondly, my comment about the "black bars" was that there is a section of the guide where it tells how to get rid of those. To me, that is complete blasphemy and the work of someone who doesn't know much about movies or how they are filmed and how essential those black bars are. I guess i'm assuming a "technical" person would understand their importance...but I guess not... it's called widescreen and it's a GOOD thing. It's a typical reaction to refer to anyone who doesn't understand this as a J6P=Joe 6 Pack.
If anything, YOU are the Joe Six Pack here, because you obviously understand little about postprocessing and video compression. Cropping the black areas from a widescreen is *NOT* the same as changing the aspect ratio of the video. On a 2.35:1 aspect ratio movie, something like 40% of the screen is occupied by nothing but black space that contributes nothing to the image. The majority of people here encode with one of the MPEG-4 codecs, which typically do not handle large black areas very efficiently. Those black areas will add nothing to your movie consume valuable encoding bits, make the final file larger, and reduce the amount of data that can be stored on a CD.

MPEG-2 for SVCDs and DVDs handles black much better, but the black areas in your capture are unlikely to be true black because they will contain chroma noise from the analog source. So you crop them off and create some new borders with truly black areas that will both look better and compress better with MPEG-2.

THAT is why you crop the borders, and the aspect ratio of the film frame remains unchanged. You might want to be a little more cautious about calling people uneducated.

And about MP3, it can be shit quality, but it can be phenomenal too. It depends on the quality of the codec used, the encoding options, and the knowledge of the encoder. Have a look at http://www.r3mix.net and then come back and tell us how mp3 is shit quality.

DigitalfreakNYC

14th May 2003, 18:48

OK woah...

i think this got totally out of hand.

First off...Fred...Dunno how i can articulate it any better. Black screen when I click capture. I will definitely try what you suggested and I greatly appreciate your input and advice. I actually got a copy of Adobe today so I'm going to try that product as well. I'll let you know how it works out.

As for the black bars debate, perhaps I was misunderstanding what the guide was telling me to do. I apologize for that but it seemed like it was saying to do away with them and change the aspect ratio AS THE PICTURE showed. That's all i can say about that.

Jeez...funny how only 1 person is willing to help me until I say something "wrong." Then ya'll come outta the woodworks to knock me down. :(

jggimi

14th May 2003, 19:23

...i think this got totally out of hand... And I think you're right. Everyone, please remember: 4) Be nice to each other....Profanity and insults will not be tolerated.

12)...Once somebody replies to your thread but doesn't give you exactly the answer you've been expecting you insult them.

12) ...Do not ask "what's best" because this question cannot be answered objectively...
Thanks!

Now, to the issues at hand: Blank screen during capture can be caused by overlay on or overlay off; it will depend on the chipset on the card.

If (and only if) the chipset on the card is Conexant/Brooktree BT8x8, you can use the BTWinCap drivers. (And Overlay must be off.)

One document (out of the many you've been reading through) you may have missed is the Capture FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32575) right here in this forum, which has links to wrappers, drivers, and lots of recommendations. BaronVlad wrote it (and updates it), and it might be helpful.

segfault

14th May 2003, 19:53

It's cool.... I wasn't trying to be mean or anything, but you don't understand that you don't understand. The thing to remember is that these forums are filled with people who have probably forgotten more about digital video than you or I will ever know. So be cool, and learn what they have to offer.

As for the black bars debate, perhaps I was misunderstanding what the guide was telling me to do.
Well, that was sort of my point. You jumped to a conclusion and started calling people dumb and non-technical without bothering to find out. But anyhoo.... it's water under the bridge. Just chalk it up to experience. ;)
it seemed like it was saying to do away with them and change the aspect ratio AS THE PICTURE showed.
I looked at the guide linked to in this thread and I didn't see a picture that showed cropping from widescreen to pan & scan. Were you looking at a different guide?

Anyhoo... we now return you to your regularly scheduled help thread. ;)

FredThompson

14th May 2003, 21:51

Maybe "articulate" wasn't the most accurate single word.

I was trying to explain that you've been leaving important information out of your posts. That's why I used the doctor analogy. I'm sure you think you're telling all the relevant information but since you're new to the activity, you're missing some things.

In any event, the best option I can suggest is to reduce the number of possible conflicts and that means removing all the software except the drivers for the card itself. It would also be a good idea to check the manufacturer's website for updated drivers.

Um...ok...you're familiar with the analogy of teaching to fish vs. giving a fish.

Better to learn how to fish even though it takes longer to get the first one.

There are a number of good reference sources. doom9 has a heavy emphasis on MPEG4 encoding and image processing. Many people who write the free software hang out here. DVDRHelp is more focussed on MPEG1 and MPEG2. There is some really good stuff there but the average knowledge level seems to be notably less than doom9. There are also a lot of resources listed in my links lists.

wrt aspect ratio: read Ross' site and also Essential Video Resources at http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/ which has a nice conversion table.

Avery Lee's VirtualDub and the variant called VirtualDubMod are incredibly powerful, especially for taking analog to digital with cleanup. AviSynth is also something you should learn about.

Regarding capture, I'm personally skeptical about a $50 capture card. Every card like that I've tried doesn't do well on the visual extremes so detail gets washed out. Currently, I use two methods, DV passthrough and an ADS external MPEG2 encoder.

The new ADS Instant DVD 2.0 arrived on Monday and I was hoping to test it today. It's got 2x oversampling, 4-line comb filter, 9bit sampling and some cleanup filters. It's entirely possible this will be very useful but I don't know until I test it. Can't do that just yet, I accidently formatted a large hard drive and am trying to recover the data right now. I AM planning to create a proper review of this device and submit it to doom9. However, that will take a couple of weeks. If it turns out to be as good as I suspect, it could be a real boon for capturing. More on that later. Oh, FWIW, it lists at $200 and has the Cirrus Logic 2288 DVD Encoder chip which is used in quite a few hardware encoders and players. I'm not sure how to research that but I'll try to find some references. This new version also has in integrated sound sampler with sampling rate synched to the video.

Regarding sound, I've used an iMic ($30 USB from Griffing Technology) because that puts the sound capture outside the box and it uses the same chip that Roland has in their $300 pro external USB sampling device. This eliminates system noise. You can also use Audacity and the free VST noise gate listed on my site to set a lower volume threshold. I haven't tested it and don't know how powerful it is. Maybe it's a simple yes/no, maybe it looks at ASDR.

There are a lot of things that can be done to improve the quality of your captured video. In the AviSynth forum you will find a number of "dust" filters. If your VCR has stabilization and enhancements, great. If not, you'll probably want to scrub the video. There are (S)VHS-specific filters to account for color smear and also a very good one for dropouts by Konstantin Khlopenkov.

I assume you meant Adobe Premiere. Well, that's essentially a fancy front end for an AviSynth-like engine. Don't get me wrong, the compositing is something we can't match...yet.

I've lost the URL but there is a thread in the AviSynth area about oversampling and combining them to reduce noise. The results are pretty darn good and, I would contend, more efficient than most of the filters alone.

Having said all of that, read up and get some experience. Your results will be worth the effort.

DigitalfreakNYC

16th May 2003, 21:21

OK let's start here. I did some tinkering and looked at different websites.

I can actually get into VirtualDub at this point. I can view the picture incoming if i turn on "overlay." I don't know if this is right or not. In any case, I can't capture. It won't let me. When i click capture, nothing happens. When i click escape, it tells me no frames were captured. "Make sure your capture card is functioning correctly and that a valid video source is connected. You might also try turning off overlay, reducing the image size or the image depth to 24 or 16bit." If I turn off overlay, then I can't see a picture. Tried changing the size and to 24 or 16 and doesn't work.

I also tried the huffyuv. I installed it but it's not showing up in my list as an option.

I downloaded Virtual VCR and can't get it to record above 320.

I downloaded freevcr. I can get the preview with that as well but when i try to capture it says that it can't capture and to "confirm that virtual sync interrupts are configured and enabled." any idea what that means? Similar problem to VirtualDub.

I love TMPGE and can't wait to use it...if i can just find a capturing tool that works.

I tried to capture with the software that Lifeview came with. I figured out how to do 720x480 but it looks slightly wider than it should be. In other words, it doesn't look to have an aspect ratio of a tv but more 1.78:1 if that makes any sense. It also split the short file (about 3-4 minutes) into two different avi files.

Any more ideas?

We're getting closer guys. Thanks for all of your help!

FredThompson

17th May 2003, 00:05

HuffYUV is under Video | Compression.

It will only support 24-bit which is, conveniently, what your card will probably grab.

I have to test some things later tonight and will try an analog capture with my card so I can see what's going on.

VirtualVCR is built on VirtualDub. Since it runs we can be pretty sure your problem is with the setting in VirtualDub.

I can't test this until later tonight.

jggimi

17th May 2003, 03:00

720x480 is 1.5:1, in the square pixels used on PCs. In order to view it on a PC with the proper aspect ratio, one typically crops for overscan and resizes to 4:3 in post process encoding.

720x480 is often used for NTSC analog capture, as it is typically the largest resolution possible with the most commonly available capture cards. (It's also the same resolution used with NTSC DVDs.)

DigitalfreakNYC

17th May 2003, 05:28

How about 720x576? That seems to be in the proper aspect ratio for 1.33:1...no? I could be off. I may end up just using 640x480.

Fred....virtual vcr does WORK for capturing...just doesn't do the resolution I need. :( So does that matter as far as them being linked??

Thanks for the advice on Huffy...found it.

One thing I find odd...when I go to "Capture preferences" it says "default capture driver" is "microsoft WDM Image Capture (win32) no change." Also, under per driver settings it says the same thing. Is this what it's supposed to be? I assumed it should have been something with Lifeview.

I encountered a similar problem when trying to use Windows Movie Maker. Same file getting in the way. Is that supposed to be there?

Thanks again!

DigitalfreakNYC

17th May 2003, 06:21

One other point...

Just downloaded AVI_IO and gotta say that I LOVE that program.

Only problem...it TOO doesn't work. You click capture and nothing happens. I'm thinking it's that same problem: when i go to devices list, it ONLY Microsoft WDM Image Capture and says nothing about Lifeview. What could the problem be?? :(

FredThompson

17th May 2003, 07:25

WDM Capture is correct. The data is ... uh ... piped through the OS. That gives a consistent way for programs to do the task and it hides the specific hardware peculiarities.

wrt DigitalVCR/VirtualDub: no, the fact it captures shows you have something wrong in the settings in VirtulaDub. DigitalVCR is VirtualDub with some timing stuff added.

576 vertical is PAL.

Why no 720x480? Dunno. Still seems like a config issue.

You ARE trying to set resolution in VirtualDub | Capture | Video | Format, correct? If not, you've got a driver issue. The card should work with 720x480 because that's full NTSC D1 (DVD) resolution.

It's always defaulted to 15 fps on my systems. You'll need to change that default also.

DigitalfreakNYC

17th May 2003, 13:44

The reason why I'm questioning the 720x480 is because as I said before...the aspect ratio has been compromised. I'm not worried about overscan. In fact, I kinda like it considering my DVD player lets me expand to all that material that isn't viewable on most tv's. So i'm never going to crop the image. Thus, that's why i'd like to keep it in the same aspect ratio. Does that make sense? :) Sorry if I'm speaking in Home Theater terms...just what I know best.

"You ARE trying to set resolution in VirtualDub | Capture | Video | Format, correct? If not, you've got a driver issue. The card should work with 720x480 because that's full NTSC D1 (DVD) resolution."

Yeah....but i'm not "trying"...i actually am. I don't have a problem setting it. Again, it's completely a problem with the recording itself. It just doesn't happen. Nothing does.

Again, DigitalVCR DOES capture but it doesn't go above 320.

FredThompson

17th May 2003, 21:19

You are confusing resolution with pixel geometry. 720x480 is NTSC D1. Widescreen is either letterboxed or more rectangular pixels.

The point is DigitalVCR records. Therefore, capture works, it's just a configuration issue.

Although, maybe you're right, maybe the card IS incapable of 720x480. That would stink. What kind of card is this, anyhow?

DigitalfreakNYC

17th May 2003, 23:40

Originally posted by FredThompson
You are confusing resolution with pixel geometry. 720x480 is NTSC D1. Widescreen is either letterboxed or more rectangular pixels.

The point is DigitalVCR records. Therefore, capture works, it's just a configuration issue.

Although, maybe you're right, maybe the card IS incapable of 720x480. That would stink. What kind of card is this, anyhow?

As I said it's a Flyvideo2000FM. It IS capable of 720x480 but what i'm telling you is that the aspect ratio changes when I record in 720x480. It stays the same when I record with 640x480. It's totally an aspect ratio change.

But i'm confused as to what configuration could be the problem. The only software that actually works with this damn card is the one it came with. That means there must be a problem with the way it handles other software, correct?

FredThompson

18th May 2003, 02:45

Sigh, you're just a hairs' breadth away from understanding the resolution issue.

Your computer monitor has a display based on square pixels. The captured video is rectangular. There is no 1:1 correlation. When you capture at 640x480 it will look fairly good on your computer screen but it's a less accurate depiction of the analog signal and will have more distortion than if you captured at the analog signal's characteristics.

I really doubt the capture circuitry behaves any differently, the support stuff probably filters and converts before feeding 640x480 out.

I can't seem to find much about that card. Here's an online vendor:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/lifeview-usa/flyvideo2000fm.html

There are also some Russian pages but I don't read that. Can you give me a link to the manufacturer?

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 03:06

LOL

so you're basically saying that if i capture in 720x480, it's not going to change the aspect ratio of my capture? because right now it is, i can assure you. I've captured in this and ended up with a more rectangular picture than I would in 640x480.

the link to the manufacturer is at www.lifeview.com

One other thing...i just connected to a page about capturing with the Virtualdub and they TOO said that I must have the name of my capture device listed under the video section as well as under default capture driver. As I said, it ONLY lists Microsoft WDM

thanks again!
Guess we scared the other guys away :)

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 03:49

And just to prove I'm not crazy...

here's a thread that talks about what my problem could be...

http://pub30.ezboard.com/flukesvideoboardfrm3.showMessage?topicID=86.topic

FredThompson

18th May 2003, 03:51

quick answer: read Ross McLennan's site for pixel and color model explanations.

long answer: I don't have time for this right now. I'm putting some things togheter for a how-to site with lots of "why-to" but this is too complex to explain with words only since you don't seem to have grasped the differences between the two standards.

You will have the best quality if you capture in the video "environment" and do all your processing there as well. 720x480 for NTSC (forget about the color model for now, it's too much until you've got the rest down.)

Capture at 720x480, do all your processing, then, as the final process, reduce to the destination size. It's not different than decent audio. Serious audio engineers do everything in 96hz then downsample to 22 (or 20, I don't remember, whatever a CD is.)

--

OK, that leaves the capture issue

Look at this page:

http://www.lifeview.com/Sales/Catalog/Products/products_2.html

Is this a capture card only with no video output? It sure looks that way to me.

Look at this page:

http://www.lifeview.com/Service/Download/download.html

You DID download the 20.51 WHQL drivers and install them, yes?

(geez, what kind of idiot designed their left-hand menu? It's almost as bad as yellow text on a white background.)

The last question on this page may very well support your impression that 640x480 is the only option AND why you're getting a black screen:

http://www.lifeview.com/Service/FAQ/Fly2k_3k.html

That would really suck.

Um...answer these then I'll give you the best educated guess I can without having one of those cards to work with.

(How did you get this again? It's a Taiwanese company with one office in California.)

FredThompson

18th May 2003, 03:54

Umm...I found some more technical specs on this card:

http://www.ecsca.com/lifeview.htm#FlyVideo%202000%20/%202100

It looks, to me, to be more of a PAL card that's got a little support for NTSC.

You may be stuck with the option of 640x480 or get different hardware. If that's the case, how do you feel about it?

You could capture at 640x480 as long as you realize it will not be as accurate as 720x480 and there will be some video distortion.

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 04:01

Fred,

That's the capture card I have.

I have the receipt somewhere for the company I got it from. As I said, I went off of the recommendations of MANY people in AVSforum.com who had this and said it was fantastic. Of course, those are the same people who aren't giving me any help with this situation.

As I said, I CAN capture at 720x480 but only when the screen is wider on the Lifeview program. I know it may seem like i'm not understanding something but that's what i'm telling you. There are two different settings and the one that gives the option of 720x480 is the wider setting. Strange but true.

As far as getting new hardware, I'm ready to throw this thing out the window. I've sat here for days screwing around with it and you're the only person who has helped me out. For that I am eternally grateful. I'm downloading the most recent set of drivers from lifeview at the moment. It's not even on their website and I got it from one of the guys that works at the company. I'm going to try that but if it doesn't work, i'm going to contact the company I got it from and see what I can do about a refund.

Any comments about that other thread I led you to? or about the Microsoft WDM but no Lifeview option?

FredThompson

18th May 2003, 04:14

You musxt have been typing while I had the compose window open.

That thread talks about the VFWWDM wrapper and also links to Luke's old page. There's some good stuff there, I especially like the tuning instruction pages. That kind of thing with a reference disc would be nice.

Part of that site are very outdated. He hasn't really updated it in many, many months other than to move it to labdv (which went pay-only about a year ago.)

Umm...if it were me, I'd get rid of that card and get something that's more mainstream. If you absolutely MUST have an internal card, I'd got with an ATI All-in-Wonder or a Matrox as they have consistently been very good performers. A lot of the less expensive cards use the standard Brooktree hardware which really isn't that great.

If you're willing to go external, I'd go with one of the USB MPEG encoders. I've got the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 which just came out about a week ago. I've also got the 1.0 version and I'm trying to decide if I want it or if it will go up on ebay. I'm putting together computer for my AV system (found a smokin' cool all-black mid-tower case for $50) and it might go there. I also use the iMic USB audio devices.

The advantage to an internal device is you don't have "stuff" hanging everywhere. The disadvantage is system noise and the quality of the capture can't compare to a dedicated device at the same price.

For AV playback, you might want to make sure any combo card can do simultaneous monitor and HD output. I know the ATI's over 7500 can, don't know about others.

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 04:57

Fred,

Thanks again for all of your help. As I said, I'm downloading the newest drivers. Should they not work, this flyvideo is either going on ebay or back the seller. I am completely fed up with it.

So the ADS eh? Best way to go? I might just buy that 1.0 off of you. ;) It will work with all of the programs I'm speaking about? No problems?

FredThompson

18th May 2003, 05:02

The ADS devices capture as MPEG2 so it's compressed but you can bump the data rate very high. Inherently, that means some loss of quality due to data compression but for an analog source and a high bitrate, it's not noticeable. Probably not much more difference than would be seen on different reads from a magnetic tape. These aren't tuners, just in/out boxes. There's also the inherent advantage of file size and speed of re-compression. I'm using them to convert my VHS and S-VHS stuff to CVD and also to get accurate reads from PAL VHS for my business.

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 05:15

But i'm confused then...everything I'm seeing says to capture to AVI first.

I can't say I have a huge problem with it as the one program I got to work went right to MPEG2 and I was very happy with the results. What programs do you use with this?

I took a look at the box on ebay and I don't see an S-video in. Does it have it? That's a must for me.

Also says it only does 704x480. Don't I need 720x480? :)

FredThompson

18th May 2003, 07:12

AVI is a catch-all file format. There's a number of different storage methods, some are "lossy", some are not.

MPEG-2 at a high data rate is going to be just fine for sampling analog video. Note, it MUST be a high data rate and a quality encoder. There will be some image loss but, as I've said, at a high data rate that "loss" isn't visible because the data you are sampling has a quality level, too. As long as your "read" process is equal to or better resolution that what you are "reading", you're ok.

Make sense?

Don't confuse hardware MPEG2 encoding with the built-in encoders in most capture aps. There's a big difference in performance.

As long as your source has a much higher amount of information than your end product, you should be ok. For example, if I shoot DV for an hour, it's roughly 13G. DV is also a somewhat "lossy" compression but it's lossy within each frame. Say I take that and compress it to fit on an SVCD of 700M. The lossiness is, essentially, irrelevant.

Same thing with sampling video. I agree that for a pure sample, it's best to use non-lossy compression IF the other variables are good. In my case, the performance of all the internal cards I tried does not compare to the MPEG2 stream from the external device. So...the option was $1000 for a Canopus card with lots of real-time layered production capabilities I don't care about, an external encoder, or captures that don't meet my quality standards.

You COULD get the Canopus ADVC-100 external DV encoder if you want but it will cost quite a bit more and DV files are HUGE to work with. I've got 2 hours of it on one of my boxes now. There was only about 15 minutes of good footage but by the time I'd run it through cleanup, it was taking up 38G. (frame serving wasn't an option.)

Plus, it took a LOT longer to compress to MPEG1 for the final product than an MPEG source would have.

Most of what you see about capturing says AVI because that's more available. MPEG2 is licensed. VirtualDubMod will read MPEG2 just fine, so will VirtualDub with some of the plugins. AviSynth will work on MPEG2 WITHOUT changing the color model so it's more accurate.

--

You probably only saw the front of the device. Yes, it has S-video in and out. http://www.adstech.com

Quite frankly, I think most people don't really know the state of MPEG2 capturing and the software support and they're picking up PC cards thinking it's a bargain or the only option.

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 16:12

ok so i've installed the latest driver/software update.

The good news:
1) AVI's are now a little over 3 minutes long before they split
2) I can record directly to MPEG2

So the questions are:
A) How long should the AVI's be before they split?
B) Should I just record directly to MPEG2 or should I use AVI and then merge them?

The bad news:
None of those other programs work still.

I'm debating whether I should just get rid of the thing altogether. I am happy with the two pieces of good news I've encountered...but now I have to learn how to join AVI's. If they were too big while recording, why is it fine to join out of recording? I'm a bit confused.

Advice? Should I just get the ADS on Ebay?

Also, should I use Overlay mode when recording? What is its purpose?

jggimi

18th May 2003, 21:04

DF-NYC:

I've been gone a couple of days, and have some comments ...

Fred is recommending that NTSC be captured at 720x480. Yes, it doesn't look like it's the correct aspect ratio when played back on a PC. But as he recommends, it is the typical recommendation for analog -> digital capture, and your capture is not designed to be played back without resizing.

You'll also see lots of recommendations to capture into an .avi file, and a discussion of codecs such as HuffYUV and MJPEG often ensues.

AVI is not a codec; it is a container format, that can house many different types of audio and video streams. The reason that HuffYUV and MJPEG are recommended video codecs for capture, is 1) they are either lossless (Huf) or nearly lossless (MJPEG), and 2) they consume very little in the way of computing resources (except for disk space), so that your PC can keep up with the incoming data. At the same time, the recommendation is usually to capture the audio in Linear PCM (.wav) format, usually into the same .avi. It consumes lots of space, but is lossless and consumes little in the way of computing resources (excepting, of course, disk space).

Because these capture techniques consume lots and lots of disk space, we then transcode the video and audio using compression techniques that are lossy, but look and sound well, and consume much less space. You can easily consume a Gigabyte of disk space every few minutes using the HuffYUV video codec.

AVI is a common container format, but it does have size limits, typically 2GB, though there are AVI standards that can allow more space per AVI file. In addition, on FAT32 file systems (Windows 9x based systems, or NT/2000/XP systems that have not converted to NTFS), individual files are limited to 4GB in size. You should expect lots of "splits" during AVI capture.

It is possible you're getting lots of splits because you are capturing uncompressed video, which consumes much more space than HuffYUV. Even capturing at 640x480, which you want to do ... well, each frame has 307,200 pixels, and at 29.97 fps, that's 9,206,784 pixels every second. And that doesn't include the color encoding, now, does it? That's why HuffYUV is often recommended. It compresses, without losing any data.

Most of us who capture this way, due to the Petabytes we'd need at home to keep things as originally captured .. transcode the audio and video into lossy formats as a second step. Those of us who capture at 720x480 or 720x576, if not going to DVD, resize the video during that process. If we're going to play the video back on PCs, we pick a resolution that restores the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original, analog signal.

Now, if you capture directly to a lossy codec, rather than encoding to one, you save on disk space. But you can run into the problem of insufficient computing resources to do the encoding and capture at the same time. I began capturing in MPEG-2, and capturing audio in MPEG-1 Layer II (often called MP2), which are lossy codecs. But to capture sufficient detail, I had to increase the bitrate to the point where my computer couldn't keep up, and I dropped frames, giving the results a very choppy look.

There are cards and outboard products that can do "hardware" MPEG-2 encoding, avoiding having the PC do it along with the capture. If I recall correctly, Fred both uses and recommends the outboard method.

DigitalfreakNYC

18th May 2003, 21:31

jggimi,

Thank you VERY much for your comments. Totally understood all of it.

I think what I'm going to try is using the Lifeview software to capture in AVI and then use TMPEG and the rest to create MPEG2 and burn and whatknot. I guess my biggest concern right now is that the Lifeview software doesn't allow me to use any codecs as far as I know. At least, there is no option for it. Therefore, I guess I can't use HuffyUV and I can't use any other programs. So I guess I should capture in AVI and transfer to MPEG2 as soon as possible correct?

Another...
I was talking about the aspect ratio changing and whatknot when I capture to 720x480. It actually doesn't change. It only changes when i put the Lifeview into Overlay mode. When that happens, I get black bars (like widescreen) on the top and bottom but ONLY when I am capturing at 720x480. Not when I am doing 640x480. Is there a reason for this? Obviously I'm just going to use 720 but thought it rather odd.

I'd rather not jump into buying another capture device if I can help it. I'd like to make sure it's hopeless with this one first.
Thanks for all your help.

jggimi

19th May 2003, 00:26

...Totally understood all of it...Well, then, you're the first to make that claim. I'm often not as clear as I want to be.... I guess my biggest concern right now is that the Lifeview software doesn't allow me to use any codecs as far as I know. ...I'm guessing, of course, but unless the Lifeview software came with some sort of built-in capture codec, such as a DV codec, then it is capturing uncompressed AVIs.

You can check the codecs in an AVI file by using the GSpot (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Editing/gspot22.zip) tool. ... I think what I'm going to try is using the Lifeview software to capture in AVI and then use TMPEG and the rest to create MPEG2 and burn and whatknot.If you are creating MPEG-2s, will these be for TV display with a standalone player? If so, Doom9 has some excellent guides to get you from AVI to MPEG-2 formats such as SVCD. Depending on your final format, and the encoding process you choose, you may have some manual steps you'll need to add to account for a captured AVI that isn't in its final aspect ratio. I can't give you any particular guidance since I'm not sure of your intended format and procedures....I was talking about the aspect ratio changing and whatknot when I capture to 720x480. It actually doesn't change.The aspect ratio changes when I capture at 720x480. Circles become oval, for example. And resizing later corrects it very well. But then, I'm not using the same hardware and software you're using, and our experiences will differ....It only changes when i put the Lifeview into Overlay mode. When that happens, I get black bars (like widescreen) on the top and bottom but ONLY when I am capturing at 720x480. Not when I am doing 640x480. Is there a reason for this? Obviously I'm just going to use 720 but thought it rather odd.I don't know anything about your capture software. And I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're seeing. In my case, I get little or no overscanning. You may have overscanning, or, your software may be letterboxing. If attachments worked (which I don't think they do right now) I'd recommend attaching an image from your capture, but if you have access to a place you could put an image, it might help me (and Fred, and anyone else) understand more clearly what you're seeing. If you open an .avi file in VirtualDub (or one of it's many variants), you can copy a frame-image to the clipboard with the ctrl-1 keys.

DigitalfreakNYC

19th May 2003, 01:28

Here's an update on today's work:

I'm capturing in 720x480. YAY!

I'm capturing in the right aspect ratio. YAY!

When I capture as an uncompressed AVI which I then transfer to MPEG2 in TMPGE, I think the picture is absolutely fantastic! YAY!

PROBLEM is that when I capture in AVI, I have to join the avi files and guess what? There's a jump in the resulting file. They don't match up exactly and it's not TMPGE's fault. It's Flyvideo. :( BOO!
I have no idea how to fix this. Are all cards that capture in AVI have this jump cut problem?
Honestly, I'm not happy with the way Lifeview does MPEG2 on the fly. It can't compete with TMPGEnc. But, again, I can't just use AVI because I'll get jumps wherever the AVI's end and begin.

So I'm not sure what I can do now.

Oh...and I'm doing this to burn to DVD and DVD only.