Capturing NTSC HELP!!!

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Hey all,

OK...so i need a final answer on this. I got the Flyvideo2000 and it can only capture 640x480 tops for mpeg2 and avi. Now....the big question is....shouldn't I have gotten a card that can do 720x640 to do proper mpeg2's for dvd burning? It refuses to do this for me even though the website says it is capable. Any ideas folks? The support sucks and i'm stuck. ;(

I need to get past this stage if i ever hope to move on to....*GASP*....editing and eventually burning.

[FredThompson]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[DigitalfreakNYC]

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]

In both cases you are talking nonsense.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

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]

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]

@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]

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]

...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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

...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]

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.

[FredThompson]

Those are good explanations.

I didn't even think about the file system and drive space. Guess I should have. Video capture is what finally made me leave Win9X. Win2K and NTFS ATA100 or ATA133 120G drives is what I'm using now. That's ALL the drives are used for. As soon as a file is done being processed, all the "residue" is deleted to ensure the space is as defragmented as possible.

Thanks for bringing that up. It will make a heck of a performance difference.

I think we've talked about S-VHS and videodisc. Don't know anything about what discs give but the tapes will most likely have a somewhat ragged black border all around. At least, everything I've sampled looks like that. Broadcast always does, even from a digital source.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

I am using and ATA133.

I'm not worried about the "black bands" any more so much as the AVI situation. Any way to help that? Will there always be that jump cut no matter what program I'm using?

[jggimi]

No, I think your software is "unique" -- Vdub doesn't do that, for example, and I capture in 2G chunks. When I was capturing in MPEG2, in 4G chunks, the tool (it came with my AverTV card) didn't do that either.

Of course, with the latter, I might not have noticed it, considering the frame drops I was getting.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

*sigh*

ok...so i guess i'm back to square one..:( :( :(

What video card should i get that will suit my needs?

[DigitalfreakNYC]

What I meant by that was...

What video card should I get that will work correctly with the tools I am using (AVI_IO, TMPGE, Vdub) and will also capture in high quality (720x480) AVI?

Just want to make sure I don't screw it up this time...

[FredThompson]

It all depends on how much you want to spend. As I've said, most internal cards that people commonly use WILL wash out things like sand and caucasian skin. Forget trying to do a good capture from Lawrence of Arabia with those.

If you can hold for a few days I'll put together some samples to illustrate this. I'll use my ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon, DV passthru (which is more expensive, obviously), Instant DVD, and Instant DVD 2.0.

Another thing you might want to investigate is system noise. On my links page are Audacity and a free noise gate filter. Try them and see if your internal sound card will give sufficient performance. The dynamic range of videotape can be quite large. It would be a real shame to do a large colume of captures only to later decide you can't stand the squiggly underlying noise.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

thanks fred.

I guess i'm just a simple guy. At this point, i'd be thrilled if the damn thing WORKED like it's supposed to.

Don't get me wrong...i was very impressed with the resulting picture from the AVI->mpeg2. The ONLY Problem was that it dropped frames when it switched files. Which is a BIG problem obviously...
leading to my dropping the damn thing altogether.

Do all external devices go to MPEG2 immediately?

[FredThompson]

Thing is, you'll get frustrated watching a Caucasian face fade into the background when they're by concrete, a water surface getting whited out, that sort of thing.

I don't know about ALL external devices. The reason for doing it externally is the developer can control the interface (USB instead of PCI) and be free of the radio noise inside the box. Can't imagine why there would be such a device that DIDN'T have an encoder chip. They aren't all the same, however. MPEG2 is a standard with many different parts. You can have cruddy MPEG2 just like cruddy MP3s. Personally, I'd rather have lossless but the image quality of internal cards isn't as good as the external devices with dedicated encoders. At least, that's the way it is now. My guess is ATI, Matrox and other combo card manufacturers have to take a guess at what people will really pay. Most people would be just fine with a TV tuner and occasional sampling so they use cheap components.

[ooops!]

Hi Fred,

You mentioned in an earlier post that you've got your hands on the new ADS 2.0.

Have you managed to do any tests yet compared to your previous device. I also wondered if the audio sync issues had been resolved with the Mk2.

Apparently I've got to wait until July before the Mk2 is available in England.

Nice to see your still dishing out good advice.

Cheers for now.

[FredThompson]

No, haven't tested it yet. I've been working ~20 hours a day on business stuff which included rebuilding my server. Blech!! Haven't had mroe than 5 hours sleep since Sat night and I'm just a little pooped right now.

Audio sync shouldn't be any problem because there's an audio digitizer in the box. I'm interested to see what the filters can do. 2x oversampling and the comb filter seem really nice but they talk about additional filters. Been playing with some post processing stuff. I've found anything that gets rid of dropouts shouldn't be used for night shots of tracer fire or some rainy scenes ;)

As it happens, I got a multi-format VCR the other day and I'm going to test PAL and NTSC captures.
I think the sync problems were caused by the wide range of hardware and people using ... uh ... inefficient computers. (that's a nice way of say they weren't up to the task.) Granted, you could use USB1.1 but it WAS a stretch. Oh, a lot of people also wouldn't keep up to date on drivers. Duh.

The only problems I ever had were related to a computer that kept trying to share the IRQ with the scanner and some other stuff. It was only USB1.1 and that screwed everything up.
I've got to finish some stuff up and make a PAL tape tonight so will have some results soon.

[ooops!]

Thanks Fred

You better go get some sleep!

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Hey guys,

an update.

I got a hauppauge card yesterday and installed it today. It was a hit and miss situation. The good news is that Vdub and others now work and I can get picture. The bad news is that it won't let me capture 720x480 AND the picture I do get is really red and has lots of interferance coming in. I see differences in the way some of the programs are handling this card as opposed to my other card. But I do have to say that the quality of the Flyvideo was MUCH better. I may try and reinstall it and see what happens. Gonna have to return this Hauppauge to J&R music tomorrow.

The journey to capturing continues...

[FredThompson]

Well, could have told you about the Hauppage quality. They're using very low quality circuits.

ATI, Matrox or a dedicated external are know good quality. However, the first 2 won't do that great on the visual extremes.

If you want to digitize an analog signal, you need at least 2x and prefereably 4x the maximum frequency to accurately map it.

There's a LOT of electrical noise inside a computer, especially running at the speed you've got.

There's no two ways around it, if you want quality, you've got to shield from the noise which means an expensive card because the engineering and manufacturing must be better or go external.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

So if you were to go internal, what would you suggest?

At this point, i'm beyond believing that ANYTHING is going to work with what I have. :(

[FredThompson]

My preference for sub-$$$$ is ATI. Matrox is also supposed to be good but ATI seems a little more popular. If you've got $$$$, Canopus, no question.

Thing is, any internal card is subject to the system interference (which you noted with the Hauppage) and a combo also has video display circuitry and a tuner. All that costs $ so it's not fair to compare a $200 internal card to a $200 external encoder. The external one will almost always win.

If you'll wait another day I can make some samples to show what I mean. I'll just go from DV to ATI All-in-Wonder and ADS2. Guess I'll have to do a framegrab and post it somehow.

The only benefits I personally see to an internal card are:

1) no external power supply
2) typically a TV tuner (but I've got DirecTV so it's useless)
3) no need for USB2

The drawback is:

1) lousy quality (in my opinion)

Just give me a couple of days and I'll have some samples to show you. If the ADS works as well as I expect, it should be very easy and more accurate than using the "normal" methods typically described here.

I know you're anxious, so am I, does this thing perform as well as they say? Dunno yet, I've literally been working 18-20 hours a day all week.

If it does, the process should be very simple and quick.

Having said all of that, you might want to consider buying a REALLY CHEAP capture card to use as a way to learn and in a little while buy something better. Even if you decide to spend $200 for an external device, if it works properly it should save a LOT of time doing cleanup that you'll have to do with the "normal" methods.

If you can wait a little while, I'll have a review done. Don't know how I'm going to handle video clips because that's an important aspect and, I suspect, any clip posted here will be a monstrous bandwidth hog.

Oh, I know, I'll post to alt.binaries.multimedia.utilities

Uh...if you don't know how to use a news reader, learn. I'll post some sample clips in the next couple of days. Will start a new thread to make it visible so people can grab them. Maybe I can also get a GeoCities account. I'll look into that while I'm running some compress jobs tonight.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

I will wait for your comparisons. As I said, I just want something that will actually WORK on my computer. Thus far, neither did. Oddly enough, if you combine the good things about both, I'd have a winner. ;)

I can't really get a "cheap" capture card at this point to screw around with because A) i think most would agree that both of the ones I've gotten ARE cheap and B) there's nothing really to screw around with since i'm not going to bother burning dvd's of stuff i'll never watch. It's all slightly agitating.

I guess the biggest reason why i was "set" on the internal was the avi-mpeg switch. I was really thrilled with the difference that I saw from TMPGE and I was hoping to go through that again. I may try the lifeview one more time as a fresh start tomorrow in the hopes that it may work out but i'm still doubting it.

I'm just warnin' ya, Freddie-boy. If i get this external card, you may just become my official capture babysitter. :) :) :)

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by DigitalfreakNYC
I'm just warnin' ya, Freddie-boy. If i get this external card, you may just become my official capture babysitter. :) :) :) I suspect you're not the only one. Take a look at the number of "reads" for this thread. That's another reason I want to do a review properly.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Any updates, boys and girls? :) Just curious...

i'm trying to hold off on buyin' an ATI ;)

[FredThompson]

Probably this afternoon. I had four DV tapes on the drives and needed to get them cleaned.

Think I've also found a tape with a guy walking through sand which should illustrate what I meant about things getting washed out.

Tape will be played on VHS into DV then I'll be able to show some comparison. Tape deck is a good JVC S-VHS with genlock and digital stabilization/cleaning. I don't own a DV player so this is the best you'll get from me.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

It's all good fred.

I speak for myself when I say that I appreciate all the help you've given me and thank you.

Looking forward to the comparisons and finally making my decision!

[FredThompson]

Well, I didn't test the hardware today, sorry.

I've been struggling to figure out how to properly recover film from a progressive NTSC stream that's been processed.

The goal, of course, is to restore the film frame rate so your file is smaller and accurately matches the film. Smaller file means more data available per frame and an accurate match means to don't get extra goofy smearing.

Well, I've figured it out. It's fiendishly simple. I was trying to do it from inside, while the file is being created. Wrongo, write the file then go back and corrupt the frames that need to be replaced.

You might not understand all of that. Suffice it to say one of the biggest bugaboos of working with film that was moved to NTSC has just gotten a lot smaller.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Just postin' for a check-up.

What video cards is everyone else using? Is everyone using this external one?

[markrb]

I hope I am right on this one. I am just as new to Capturing as many of you here, but I have been reading up on some other boards.
Most on these other boards really like that FlyVideo card and I am considering replacing my X-Capture with it since the X-Capture has some picture flaws from noise on the card.

I think I might be able to shed some light on the original situation of not being able to use Vdub any higher then 352 or so.

Vdub uses a Windows wrapper with these newer cards since I believe it doesn't know these cards. The Windows wrapper forces the resolution lower. If you use a program like IUVCR then it can directly attach to the drivers and use any supported resolution of the card. It does not use a wrapper if the card is internally supported. I have the X-Capture card and Vdub does the same thing. If I use IUVCR (commercial) it works at the full 720x480/576.
The problem comes in that IUVCR doesn't hold 29.97 very well. It will often stray by a few decimal points.
I just use Vdub to adjust the frame rate to a real 29.97 from something like 29.963 or the like.

I have not gotten to the joining of files yet. I use NTFS, but since I am doing Laserdisc I decided to make each side a seperate file and join them later. I happen to have a fairly large (240GB) partition for this. I am almost at that stage. Right now I am adjusting the framerate of the last file to match. Hopefully it will combine and everything will be nice. Then it's on to CCE for some DVD conversion.

Mark

[FredThompson]

You shouldn't have any problems with Win2K or XP and a decent card with VirtualDub. Dunno about NT. DirectX has taken care of the VfW-WDM bridge. I still think it's a driver issue but the Fly card, in particular, doesn't seem standard. When I did some research I saw the video chips are very oriented towards PAL. Given the original post is about capturing NTSC, it's probably not a great idea.

wrt, sample grabs:

I've finally gotten some space at Geocities and here's what I'm going to upload tonight:

torture footage of a white guy walking through sand

1) VHS plain
2) VHS with genlock, comb, digital stabilization

Both of those will be from DV connected to the S-VHS deck

3) ADS Instant DVD 2 sample of #2 from camcorder s-video
4) All-in-Wonder sample of #2 from camcorder s-video

I have no intention of making a plain VHS grab. If you're going to buy a video grabber at $200, you should also get a decent playback deck. Not being snotty, being reasonable. You'll spend far too much time trying to clean up composite feeds. It will all be plain when you see the clips if you don't already understand.

The new ADS has 2x oversampling and a pro DVD encoder chip. We'll see how it performs, huh?

I might also do the Instant DVD 1.0 for comparison but that would have to come later.

Oh, so will PAL VHS samples.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Mark,

Good luck with the flyvideo. As i said, i was VERY impressed with the quality of the capture but REALLY aggravated with not being able to use any other program to capture besides what it came with. As far as your capturing, do you do it in MPEG2 or AVI? That's my biggest problem. The joining. If it would only join properly, I'd keep the damn thing and not go through all the trouble that I have as of late. I spent $1500 on a computer that I can't use to do what I got it for!! :(

Fred,

Where can I get the ADS Instant DVD for a decent price should I be satisfied? Is there an online tutorial on how to optimize? And will there be a way to clean it up like TMPEG does?

Thanks!

[markrb]

@FredThompson I haven't upgraded to DX9 so maybe this is my issue. When I get the chance I will. I know that my Brooktree card will not with the Windows Wrapper in any resolution higher then 352 x 240 for NTSC under DX8 in XP.

All I know is that in Vdub if I try to select any resolution greater then 352 x 240 I get an error saying that the card does not support this resolution.

I will try DX9 and see if that helps. I need to upgrade anyway as my vidcard was made with DX9 in mind.


@DigitalfreakNYC I am using IUVCR to capture to an AVI @ 720 x 480 with 48 audio.

Mark

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Any pics? Responses? I need to just purchase the ADS i think. I'm sick of my computer just sitting there. :(

[FredThompson]

Sigh, yes, I'm trying. I'm a week late getting some PAL stuff converted and the ADS was to do it. (ATI cards can read both PAL and NTSC but the image qulaity sucks in comparison.)

Yes, I think the ADS is going to be a far better choice. The ATI and other internal cards are not capable of the kind of quality you can get from a dedicated MPEG encoder chip. I don't know how to explain other than to make ana alogy of a DVD to an AM radio.

It's up to you. Right now I'm caught in the middle of an argument between an American and a Frenchmen and the phone lines are about to melt. Both think they're correct and neither wants to yield. ;)

If you can hold off a day longer, I'll get some samples. I have to use the ADS to export the converted NTSC to PAL VHS anyhow.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

OK fred...i can hold off.

But a couple of quick questions:

Where can i buy the ADS?

What do you think about the Canopus and Datavideo as choices? as opposed to the ADS?

One other question: just did some research on 2.0 and it says it only captures at 704x480. It can't do 720??

[FredThompson]

adstech.com or do a web search. The 1.0 is going for around $100 now. List on the 2.0 is $200, upgrade was $130 but you had to already own and have registered a 1.0 version. Dunno street price.

Canopus is very good stuff but costs twice as much. I think you mean the ADVC-100? Performs very well but is DV so the files are larger. As far as I know it doesn't have any filtering to remove noise and it's reported as modifying dv that is exported as analog. Problem with that is you don't know what you're really getting if you play through it. My new camcorder does DV passthru. I'm sure the performance isn't as precise and firewire connectors looks like they're going to crinkle at any minute but you can probably see why I didn't buy the Canopus.

Canopus does make USB MPEG-1/2 converters with a list of around $450 or so. When money isn't as tight, I'd love to have Canopus. Well, probably get one of those firewired JVC HDTV recorders first...

The ADVC-100 was actually my first choice but the size of DV is a real bear. 13G doesn't seem TOO bad until you start using editing files then it's a bear. It's not uncommon for me to have around 35G tied up during editing a single session. That also gets awkward because it slows a drive down. Best to use 2 drives but then your work files are spread all over and it can be confusing.

Don't know about the Datavideo. Do you mean the DAC? It's also DV, not MPEG.

I also don't remember if DV has the same colorspace as analog sources. Something to consider because editing with multiple steps can change the nature of the color during conversion. I'm still working on my methods but if you're output is going to be MPEG2, shouldn't you capture and edit with the same colorspace? I think so.

ADS also makes a DV passthru.

FWIW, you can get a DVD+R writer for around $130 in the States now. http://www.techdeals.net/ I want DVD-R or a combo. Those prices should drop in the next month as well.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

Yes, i'm talking about the Datavideo DAC-100 which is rumored to be just as good as the Canopus.

U also didn't answer about the 720 versus 704. Can you do 720 with the ADS?

I guess my biggest hesitation is the fact that it does "on the fly" MPEG2 and i really am a huge stickler for quality. I haven't read good things about this thing on other websites and everyone seems to be pointing towards the Canopus. Does the Canopus save to AVI? Does it work differently?

[FredThompson]

yes 720x480 or 720x576 (or whatever PAL is)

on-the-fly isn't really a proper description. MPEG encoding is temporal, meaning, one frame is usually somewhat dependant on the encoding of a neighboring frame or frames.

What you've seen is people talking about general-purpose or low-quality encoders. If you're encoder is high-quality and there's a big enough buffer, inline encoding is fine. I wouldn't necessarily use it for the ultimate squeezing of byte usage in a limited space but it can be very, very good.

All satellite TV is MPEG2-based and the vast majority is encoded on the fly.

ATI and other similar captures us the computer's CPU to do MPEG encoding. It's not optimized for that. You could, to make an analogy, use a compute inline to act as a distortion device for an electric guitar. Compare that to a pedal effect. Given $50, which is going to give the better performance.

Bandwidth is also important. If you pull MPEG-2 at 6000-8000 bitrate through a good hardware encoder you're probably not going to see much difference from DV. Having said that, DV is locked at 720x480 and your source ISN'T doing that resolution so it's not as accurate a grab. I used to say grab at as high a resolution as possible and there are very valid reasons for that. However, I have a suspicion about how the oversampling works in the new ADS and that might not be a valid thought anymore. If it isn't, capturing at the source resolution with a high bitrate should yield a proper-quality file at about 1/4 the DV size. That's no small issue.

Can't compare an apple to an orange.

AVI is a file container, it can hold many different types of encoded files. If you pull video through a DV converter you're probably going to store as AVI but the content is DV.

The Canopus is good, no question, also costs more and the files are a lot bigger.

--

You DO realize you'd have to downmix DV files and they're captured at a higher bitrate than the final destination, don't you? You aren't comparing DV to capturing as MPEG-2 with your CPU at the final resolution, are you?

[FredThompson]

OK, well, here's what I can tell you:

There is no comparison between the ADS and the ATI. The ADS uses a pro-level dedicated MPEG2 encoder and does up to 15 Mb/s throughput for video and up to 448 kb/s for audio, locked, and external to the box. The ATI has no native sound support. By way of comparison, that's about 1.5x the max "legal" datarate of DVDs.

The ADS also have some built-in filters tha can be real helpful including a simple temporal and a spatial filter.

I can't find the footage of the white guy, dressed in white, walking up a sand dune nor did I see any good sun-on-water shots on the travel channels tonight but I did get 2 short segments I think are worth comparing. One is the title shot to a thing about Mt. Everest, lots swirling white dots on a black background. The other is Steve Irwin in some water with reflected sun.

Here's the thing, I can easily setup the ADS to blow away the ATI, no question about that. Having thought about it, though, there's no way to really judge what's right for you without understanding more about the computer you're using. I'm going to find a good example frame or two and will pull them from DV, the ATI and the ADS. Don't expect color swim like you'll see with composite, this is going to be DV played from the camcorder and the original source was DirecTV.

I can find nothing in the book about the oversampling. This unit DOES capture at 2x oversampling which means there are two "samples" per pixel. The ATI probably does 1. If you visualize a pixel as being a sine wave and it's only sampled once, you'll see how it's not accurate compared to 2. 4 would be ideal but that's not an option. Basically, if you want to digitize an analog source, you have to sample it at a greater frequency. The ATI only samples at the same frequency. (This would be a lot easier with a picture. I'll scribble one up and put it with the stream grabs.) Manual is available at http://www.adstech.com and this stuff is around page 22.

There is also an ADS unit with DV in/out so you can go from DV to MPEG-2. Uh...I don't see the benefit to that. All the DV I shoot has to be edited anyhow and I want to save it on DVDR in the original format. Dunno what ADS was thinking.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

Some very good advice there, thank you.

Here are my final thoughts. Is there a way of setting up the ADS to optimize it? I seem to remember seeing a post of yours for doing this. Would it be the same process for the 2.0 version? Also, I found 2.0 online for around $170. Good price?

Is there ANY benefit to going to AVI first? I just want to make sure I wouldn't be better off getting the Canopus.

My hesitation is with the creation of the MPEG2 immediately rather than going from AVI-MPEG2. The comforting thought is that "stand alone" machines do it "on the fly" when you hook them up to your TV and I'm impressed with what I've seen in that respect. But someone had mentioned that this capture card does it at a fixed bit rate and not a variable bit rate which didn't make sense to me because isn't that something that happens during the burning process?

You've almost got me hooked, Fred! Thanks!! :)

[FredThompson]

The 1.0 hardware has an upper standard bitrate of 3000 and was designed for USB1.1. That's why the "hack" to override the settings. No need with the 2.0 hardware.

Understand that even with a very high bitrate any MPEG-2 device is probably not going to give pixel-per-pixel accuracy. However, with a very high bitrate and the oversampling, you'll probably never see the difference. DV is also lossy so no big deal.

Personally, I think given your destination is MPEG-2 you're BETTER grabbing as MPEG-2 and doing your editing within that color model if at all possible. There is no 1:1 relationship with RGB, the most common method used for AVI. AVI is more universally used by PCs but there are plenty of ways to access MPEG-2. VirtualDubMod and the new AviSynth can both do it. Re-compressing within a color model is faster and more accurate than adding a translation step.

The ADS can do CBR or VBR. For quality, you'll grab at a real high rate and do whatever editing you want then re-compress to fit the target storage medium. If it's not critical, you COULD just grab to fit the target medium, that's your choice.

Again, AVI->MPEG usually changes the color information somewhat, MPEG->MPEG should not. It WILL if you do some editing with a non-MPEG-friendly method.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

So if i get the ADS 2.0 it will be fine out of the box and I won't have to do any tweaking?

What do you mean by "recompressing with a color model?"

Does it hurt to recompress? How can I do that? How's the quality if i capture at VBR?

I know that when i transferred from AVI-MPEG via TMPEG, I loved that it color corrected and looked better in the resulting MPEG. I just want to make sure i'll be able to clean it up.

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by DigitalfreakNYC
Fred,

So if i get the ADS 2.0 it will be fine out of the box and I won't have to do any tweaking?I don't think you'll have to do any tweaking to capture. If I recall correctly you have a decent setup. Someone with a P2-400 and ATA33 drives wouldn't be happy. This thing can firehouse data and you need to be able to handle it.What do you mean by "recompressing with a color model?"There are different ways of numerically representing the image data. There is not necessarily a 1:1 relationship between them. If, in the process of editing, you convert the source between different formats, the result will be the least common denominator of color range. To illustrate, it is impossible to print on paper a fully accurate representation of parts of the visible spectrum. Forgetting for the moment the difference between direct and reflected light, you cannot, for example, print a full representation of some types of stained glass or a rainbow.Does it hurt to recompress?All editing and compression (except, sometimes, removal of frames) changes the data somewhat. The more you do this, the lower the quality. That is why you should capture at as high a resolution as is feasible and edit then reduce to your destination format, same as with audio mastering. There is always a diminishing return. It would make little sense, for example, to store an AM radio transmission with 96bits but it sure makes sense if you're capturing a live performance.How can I do that?I use DVDV2SVCD and SVCDBuilder. SVCDBuilder looks like it will be the better solution for groups of capture as there's active development of a batch mode. I like the interface better, also. How's the quality if i capture at VBR?Dunno. You'll have to try it. I can't say which settings are optimal for your needs and taste.I know that when i transferred from AVI-MPEG via TMPEG, I loved that it color corrected and looked better in the resulting MPEG. I just want to make sure i'll be able to clean it up.Color correction is a different function than the color encoding method. You can adjust color many different ways. The 2.0 includes some settings you can adjust before you capture if you wish. Perhaps there is a good practice of setting white and black points. Haven't experimented with it enough to find one and don't want to say along those lines until I've got the process really refined. Like I've said, I think there will be a switch away from internal capture cards to external devices because of the quality/price and LOTS of people will be asking LOTS of questions. I'd rather respond with, "Read part X of the article."

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Hmmm...

well...looks like i'm going to have to bite and go for it. I guess I'll let you know how it turns out!

Wish me luck! I'll probably order it tonight.

[FredThompson]

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

wrt the goal of mass migration of analog to DVDR, I've been doing a LOT of tests with DV made from DirecTV and also VHS-C camcorder. I've got S-VHS also but haven't tested it as thoroughly yet.

What I've found is an hour of DirecTV easily fits in 1.17G at SVCD resolution using DVDPatcher, no problem. That's actually a waste because it's recompressing anyhow. I'm still playing with noise removal to get rid of the MPEG artifacts but I don't think it's really possible unless you're working with simple animation.

With analog source, 1/2 D1 (CVD) resolution is just fine and you can fit an hour in 0.78G

That means you can easily put 6 hours of converted analog on a DVDR and still have room for menus. The bitrate is so high that I can't see any benefit to VBR so the encoding is a LOT faster. My 2100 Athlon is doing it at greater than 1x speed.

That's why I was talking about running in batch mode. Let your computer do the final compression on 4-6 hours of source material while you sleep.

That comes back to the issue of storage. If you sample at 6000 bitrate CBR you're probably just fine and the inline noise filters could be handy. 6 hours as DV is almost 80G. It's a lot smaller with MPEG2, around 10-11G. You could even bump that up to 12000 bitrate but might not see an appreciable difference because the analog source isn't THAT clean.

Starting to see the benefit vs. a DV converter? It would take up even MORE space using a lossless codec like people typically use with internal capture cards.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

ummmm....


what the HELL did you just say?


;)

Everything i'm putting onto DVD-R is from laserdisc or SVHS so I want the quality to be the best it possibly can. I'll never put more than 2 hours on a DVD-R and SVCD quality just isn't good enough.

Other than that, I honestly have no idea what you just said.

[FredThompson]

There's a point at which having a larger file doesn't give you anything because you've surpassed the resolution of the source material.

S-VHS doesn't have the equivalent of 720x480. It's actually less then half of that.

I don't see any real difference between DirecTV re-encoded at 3000 and 6000. S-VHS has a lower resolution than DirecTV.

Same thing with VBR and a high bitrate. It takes a lot longer to produce and I can't see any difference.

The point is you should be able to put at least 6 hours of S-VHS source on a DVD-R. Yes, you could save 2 but you won't see any quality difference, just a higher storage cost.

When you're comfortable with the process of capturing, cleaning and encoding, you'll understand.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

I guess my confusion comes from being used to "stand alone" machines that record DVD's such as the Pioneer and especially Panasonic. On those machines...no one really uses any modes over the SP (2 hour mode). I guess i'm confused as to why it would be different on a PC burner.

[FredThompson]

Oh, yeah, those are totally different beasts.

Remember when I was talking about AM Radio and why mastering it wouldn't need as much resource as mastering a concert hall recording?

That's similar to what I'm saying about the limit of the information on your source. An S-VHS stream, no matter how good it is, has an upper limit of complexity of the image which is LESS than, say, film or any of the digital video formats.

Given that, you'll get to a point where storing at a higher bitrate doesn't give you anything other than larger files and greater storage cost.

The standalone units are probably locked at a very high constant bitrate because they don't have the buffering/speed available to do proper inline encoding. I'm guessing here but it's a reasonable assumption a consumer DVDR device isn't as capable as a professional one. I also wouldn't be surprised if this was done to keep the cost relatively high to keep the studio legal departments away. You know how music CDRs cost so much more than regular CDRs but they're really th same structure?... Come to think of it, locking in a high bitrate means the components are cheaper. Oh, and they have to handle a digital camcorder as source. That type of input has at least twice the information per frame as your S-VHS.

Getting back to color modes, you'll probably find using VirtualDub and the filters is well worth it. I was just poking around Donald Graft's site again and saw an updated delogo filter. Hoping to test that soon, it claims to properly remove alpha-blended logos, the semi-transparent ones some stations use. Wish there was a way to peel away the animated History Channel ones ;)

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>Personally, I think given your destination is MPEG-2 you're BETTER grabbing as MPEG-2 and doing your editing within that color model if at all possible. There is no 1:1 relationship with RGB, the most common method used for AVI. AVI is more universally used by PCs but there are plenty of ways to access MPEG-2. VirtualDubMod and the new AviSynth can both do it. Re-compressing within a color model is faster and more accurate than adding a translation step.


hmm,fred you get it wrong quite often ,don't you?

nearly everyone here uses .avi as a source video for later encodings( to format of our choice) because all know that mpeg2 capturings look very poor.......different color mode is the least of a problem (capturers usually use "YUY2" (NOT RGB as you suggested) which is "stronger" color format than mpeg2's YV12!)
the image is better because of pure DCT system (mjpeg) or even better lossless huffyuv compression!
mpeg2 is dct coupled with motion estimation/compensation so it MUST look worse......also it has much lower bitrate etc.
editing in mpeg2 is pain in the butt too..........
recompressing mpeg2 to mpeg2 is surely NOT a way to go too.......
color space conversion is a small price to pay when u see how much better .avi video is!
(so small you won't see it at all)

so the way is to capture with the better quality (that's .avi in any case) and then take time to encode it woth decent software encoder...
that way results are better then thtis reencoding joke.....

also:is there some particular reason why this got all out of hands?
i mean,did nyc captured his video?(huh,too long thread to search)

btw. fred,have you uploaded the samples?
(>I've finally gotten some space at Geocities and here's what I'm going to upload tonight: )
any jpeg's fo rus modem folks (remember?........the 56k modem?heheh)

/ivo

[FredThompson]

read the entire thread, comprehend and don't troll. You look monstrously stupid in light of the rest of the thread.

Almost everything you've said is irrelevant or shows a total lack of knowledge of the situation being discussed here.

VirtualDub and VirtualDubMod filters = RGB

VirtualDubMod and AviSynth load MPEG-2.

Cheap capture cards give cheap results, regardless of codec used. We're talking about inline, oversampled, hardware encoding at 9,000-15,000 rate with (hopefully) no editing and re-encoding to about 3,000. (Had you READ and COMPREHENDED you would know that.) Lossless capture codec with a capture card incapable of the entire range due to inferior electronics just means he would have a very large lossless single-sample version of an incorrect sample.

Color will always be the lowest common denominator of whatever models are used throughout the entire process. As his destination is MPEG-2 for DVDR (had you READ and COMPREHENDED the thread you would know that) any larger colorspace doesn't really yield him anything. At most, given how he's described his source, he'll lop off some leading or trailing junk and that can be done in a GOP-oriented manner but I'm also considering AviSynth ignoring the leading and trailing junk and framserving to the transcoder/encoder.

JPEG of captured frames to compare quality? No. (Didn't you just complain about quality now you want LOSSY images?!?!) Lossy compression would obscure the real character. I'm actually planning some short clips and haven't figured out how best to do it, maybe compositing side-by-side, dunno yet.

Gotta find good torture clips. As I said earlier in the thread you didn't read yet feel qualified to comment about, I've been using DV instead of my ATI capture card for quite a while because sub-$1000 internal capture cards return horrible quality. Maybe that's changed in the past year but the only decent internal options to accurately capture the stream have been from people like Canopus. The ONLY correct thing I see in your post was the bit about capturing as RGB. Big deal, who cares? It's irrelevant because he can't get a clean capture using any cheap internal card so the options are external MPEG2 or DV.

Gotta find good torture clips and it's going to take a while. The Steve Irwin ads didn't have any real good examples for water shots. There's a few seconds and it didn't really show the problems. I got the VHS of Ken Burns' Lewis and Clark yesterday and hope to capture it tomorrow. That might have some good water motion segments. Don't remember where the sand ones are. I went looking and couldn't find the tape I was remembering which showed that.

The other challenge is how to properly present this given the bandwidth restrictions and codec issues. Screen grabs are ok for what they are but won't show real quality. I'm not sure how to balance the monthly download cap with the huge file sizes of DV, HuffYUV, and MPEG-2 captures. Changing samples to fit 10-year-old telecommunications limitations is not going to happen. It would be a monstrous disservice to those people who wish to see the true nature of the hardware performance.

Oh, yeah, read, comprehend and don't troll. (Something about that in the general rules a few times, isn't there?)

[FredThompson]

DigitalfreakNYC,

You know, maybe 720x480 IS the best way to capture your S-VHS. Here's why:

The ADS 2.0 has 2x oversampling, right? That means it's taking 2 horizontal samples per pixel. S-VHS doesn't really have the equivalent of 720 horizontal pixels, it's more like half of that.

So...the returned 720x480 capture should yield four samples of each pixel from the S-VHS tape; 2 from the increased resolution and 2 per each of those for the oversampling.

Remember how I mentioned 96bits for audio? I don't know if you're done pro audio mastering but the sound guys you know can probably explain why that's important for accurately digitizing a curve.

If I'm right about this, and I need to talk with ADS again to verify, it would mean you'll be getting about four reads per analog pixel (for lack of a better term) and that should yield a very accurate read of the original signal and quite a bit of associated noise removal. Re-sizing to 1/2 D1 or 352 horizontal pixels should give you very good results becaue it would take (what I'm describing as) 4x oversampling into account.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

fred,fred,fred....if this was some US based forum (like ars) i wouldn't hesitate to use stronger words on you,but as this is not such place i'll behave (although your lack or comprehension doesn't deserve it) and will try again (as i did with modem stuff) and hope for the best:

i believe i'm not troll or stupid (as you said) when i say that
mpeg2 capturing can easily beaten by .avi system (sam as nyc said some while ago,or better he asked himself what's better)
since then ,your voice is the only one in this thread,so i wonder if the guy will get a wrong impression on this complete thing....

direct mpeg2 capturing is for losers who think it's the beast it can be etc.
sure enough,it's easy to do,but can you capture moto race with your gear with satisfactory results,and how bout cutting those commercials on mpeg2 stream?

also,i don't have to read the complete thread to see where are you going with it.....

>We're talking about inline, oversampled, hardware encoding at 9,000-15,000 rate with (hopefully) no editing and re-encoding to about 3,000.

as i said:you capture moto race,and do that to it,then post few hi motion scenes over ,so all of us can get a lot of laughs...(will you?)

do you really think that mpeg2 capture can stack up to multi-pass mpeg2 encoding as made with tmpgenc or cce for which .avi was used as a source?

to lighten you up a bit,bt8x8 is oversampling too (initial waveform is sampled at very high frequency)...but i have bt datasheet handy,so i can give real numbers,and not just assumptions as you do:


"The Bt879 requires an 8*Fsc (28.63636 MHz for NTSC and 35.46895 MHz for PAL) reference time source. The 8*Fsc clock signal, or CLKx2, is divided down to CLKx1 internally (14.31818 MHz for NTSC and 17.73 MHz for PAL). CLKx2 and CLKx1 are internal signals and are not made available to the system.
UltraLock™ operates at CLKx1 although the input waveform is sampled at
CLKx2 then low pass filtered and decimated to CLKx1 sample rate."
(from datasheet)

as you see,initial sampling frequency is 35.4MHz for PAL....at was raster is ADS scanning the video?

but as i said today in another thread,you won't really see the difference between the ADC's but different between the codec's...
mpeg2's temporal compression is making all the difference although mpeg2 in Iframe mode only is still inferior to mjpeg OR huff!

> Lossless capture codec with a capture card incapable of the entire range due to inferior electronics just means he would have a very large lossless single-sample version of an incorrect sample.

say what?
what have you just said here?hmmmmm

>any larger colorspace doesn't really yield him anything.

i would rather start with PROPER color instead of YV12 color....
also,you have stated that it would be re-encoded...you think that's wise?how well does your mpeg2 card handle interlaced stuff anyhow?
but concentrating on color space is missing the point:mpeg2 makes for lousy capture because mpeg2 is AN END format...not an intermediate one...

i can understand your point in one way only:for people who want to make it simple...capture to mpeg2,burn dvd,you're done....but you're talking re-encoding etc.


>It's irrelevant because he can't get a clean capture using any cheap internal card so the options are external MPEG2 or DV.

what cards/codecs have you tried before this?
"clean capture"?
in my mind it should be closer to the source quality and sharpness,but i can see that you love "clean" mpeg2 or DV codecs that smooth too much anyhow....guy on the forum just said he prefers bt device to DV capturing....i believe he knows what's he talking about...

>Gotta find good torture clips and it's going to take a while

the faster the motion the harder it gets for mpeg2....


>Oh, yeah, read, comprehend and don't troll.

i'll eat every single of my words if you prove that mpeg2 capture look better than DV or huffyuv...wether it be single frame or video sequence......i really will!
capture same source with different devices,post short samples and you're off......

you're talking like mpeg2 is holy grail of capturing etc.
very few folks here appreciate mpeg2 as a capturing system...prove all of us wrong,and you'll deserve my respect......

where are your samples?where's your proof? till date i have seen MANY lousy mpeg2 captures,never a decent one.......

>So...the returned 720x480 capture should yield four samples of each pixel from the S-VHS tape; 2 from the increased resolution and 2 per each of those for the oversampling.

what?you lack the basics of A/D conversion......"4x" oversampling because of the anticipated lower res. of the source?

also,svhs tape doesn't have "pixels"..and signal can only deteriorate after the ad conversion (any a/d conversion),and if cheap bt device is oversampling too (as i established here),what's <our point with all the sampling stuff?
codec flaws come to the sight,not ad conversion flaws.....(ie. 90% of artifacts are caused by the codec...don't worry about the conversion but about intermediat ecodec)

you're talking about cheap mpeg2 capture system as it cannot be beaten with anything else.........present the evidence or quit,it's not true......you're not helping the guy if the guy will ever snug a peek at some children's mpeg2 encodings made with cheap cards and avi as a source....

why am i talking to a person who said 4-6hrs will fit one dvd-r?

i'm off from here,as i have only repeated the stuff that the FAQ and the Guide already have........

and you,digitalfreaknyc buy yourself few devices and tell us what you saw....i believe fred's suggestions won't help you much anyhow....
mpeg2 is not even close to production system anyhow....(perhaps one day..)

[FredThompson]

You didn't read or comprehend the parameters or discussion, continue to attack and attribute to me things I did not state, and have made it very clear you have no intention of reading the thread. I will not respond to any more of your attacks or demands. You can, certainly, post to the thread but I will not respond to you.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Eee Gods! I hope thats over and done with!

Anyway, I'm all in favour of performing high bit captures direct to Mpeg2.

Mpeg2 at 6000kbps (or even Mpeg1 at 6000kbps) is more than good enough. After all you don't hear many complaints about the image quality of an Mpeg2 DVD!

And I would rather end up with a file at around 45MB per minute, as opposed to 225MB per minute for a DV.avi. Or even more for an uncompressed .avi

Sure a .avi looks good and who knows in a couple of years time when we all have 500GB hard drives that spin at 40,000RPM with a built in 500MB of cache, I might change my mind.

But as Fred pointed out, that was not what this post was all about.

I would like to see some decent 2pass VBR Mpeg1 and Mpeg2 encoding software though!

[FredThompson]

DigitalfreakNYC,

Any updates? Have you got your new hardware?

When you get yours, I'll be interested to know the performance. I had to determine different capture settings as the default generated a dark image on mine. I've also seen some funny interaction between the TBC and digital filters on the S-VHS deck and some worn tapes. This isn't anything new, happened with the ATI card as well.

I've also run into a problem with my IDE drivers. For some reason, the optimized ones aren't loading so I'm stuck with the default Windows ones until I figure it out. Unfortunately, this limits the speed at which I can capture. I've asked Asus for help but no reply yet.

I HAVE decided the internal filters aren't that great. Didn't think they would be at high resolutions and speeds but it was worth a shot.

[FredThompson]

Well, are you still around?

I finally have a good test clip. The opening credits for WWE Smackdown! last week had a huge amount of intentional over saturation and rapidly-changing mix of natural and CGI video. My DirecTiVo is busted so I couldn't get the original MPEG feed but I did manage to capture it onto DV. I've put together a sample of about 4 minutes length that's going to be a very good stress test. I have an XSVCD of it ready but I'll not post the URL until you get back to me. Want ot make sure you get it then I'll open up the site. There's a monthly download cap and I'd like to make sure you get the made-from-DV version.

I'm still playing with the settings on the ADS until I get something that looks great. Have been trying to compare with reference color bars. When I'm happy with the settings, I'll let you know what I've chosen and why. Tried the THX Optimizer and I don't like it. It's too limited a configuration test.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

OK...i'm back.

Side note: i'm an actor and was in rehearsals/tech/shows for the past two weeks. I haven't seen my floor...nevermind have time to fiddle with the computer.

So yes, I haven't had time to play with it at all. This week I'll have some more free time and I'll get back to you.

Have a question tho...you had said you still haven't gotten great results with the ADS. I'm wondering if I should really pick up a firewire card and the Canopus.

Apparently I missed some *ahem* interesting things happening. I think that gentleman made some points that I had wanted to make but in an unintelligible and moronic way. I guess I'm still feeling a bit frustrated and alone about this whole thing.

We'll see and I'll let you know how things progress.

[FredThompson]

I haven't been able to get back to the ADS due to DV editing.

Umm...I don't know what to tell you about DV. It absolutely will NOT properly work with saturated red or blue on a black background. Star Wars laserdisc? Forget it. The laser shots in outer space are absolutely hideous. Granted, converting an analog signal to digital means it becomes a series of dots but this was horrible. There's no way around it, either. NTSC DV uses 4:1:1 colorspace. MPEG2 is 4:2:0.

Go here and look at the sample image: http://www.geocities.com/fredthompson6

I think I've also mentioned the problem of dancing pixels on what should be straight lines and problems with computer-generated graphics. I've also watched thin lines like those in window dividers confuse the snot out of DV.

I've been talking with a guy in Australia who has that FlyVideo card. That's where the DV problem surfaced. No solution for drivers with the FLyVideo and he's got audio sync problems.

I do have a far-improved cleanup script for captures and I'm registering SpotRemover because it takes care of dropouts.

It's not that the ADS makes a bad capture, far from it. I haven't been able to put time into calibrating it. That's an entirely different issue. Like anything else, more adjustments means more power but also more headaches initially. I need to run some colorbars through it and note the baseline settings. That's what I meant. It works like a charm otherwise. The upside is the settings will make it easier to work with low-color or low-light source. Think of how you'd adjust your TV for brightness, contrast, etc. Those are the settings I need to baseline.

DV devices don't have those kinds of settings. It's nice because they never have to be adjusted but the source has to be good. I've got some multi-generational camcorder that's almost impossible to use unless a lot of manipulation is done to bring detail out of the dark areas. The ADS adjustments will let me capture it with a wider range of values in those dark areas making it a lot easier to work with.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

Checked out your page. Again...was happy with the way the flyvideo looked. :( *sigh*

Are the video captures at the bottom using the ADS? I'd like to see some examples of that. :) You've almost got me.

[FredThompson]

No, those are DV passthru. I've got a bunch of stuff that is on DV tapes and I'm trying to get them done so the tapes can be used. The ADS captures with 4:2:0 because it's MPEG2. I did a few tests with tape 2 of the Ken Burns film about Lewis & Clark comparing the ADS with DV. ADS was better for shape but the color wasn't correct. I could "fix" it by adjusting the settings but without first having a proper baseline, couldn't properly compare the 2 devices.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

So you're saying it doesn't capture color correctly?

[FredThompson]

Which "it"?

The ADS device has adjustments, just like the internal capture cards. DV camcorders and the Canopus device do not have those adjustments.

Those adjustments need to be calibrated to a known baseline in order to compare against the DV devices. It's no different in concept than calibrating cameras with whitecards. You've seen people calibrate sound for theatrics or tune musical instruments, right? Same concept.

What we discovered with the Star Wars laserdisc is NTSC DV has some serious flaws. They appear to be due to 4:1:1 color. PAL DV shouldn't have those flaws but then you're not going to have the proper frame size and rates for capturing NTSC source.

The FlyVideo was dropping frames all over the place and audio sync was messed up.

I think you'll get the performance you want from something that has both audio and video integrated and locked and uses 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color model. The ADS 2.0 is an MPEG2 device so uses 4:2:0. There are other products as well but most of them are more expensive.

I hope to get to the calibration tonight. I've been working on about 15 DV tapes for work and that's a LOT of disk space.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

How did you get this information about the flyvideo?

And you're saying you're calibrating the ADS 2.0. Which means that I (or anyone else) should make the same calibrations to my own if I purchase it? Is it a universal type system?

Thanks again for all your help...and for essentially holding my hand

[FredThompson]

I was contacted by a guy in Australia who wanted help with his captures. The FLyVideo3000 gave him great quality but also dropped frames and bad audio sync. The Canopus ADVC royaly screwed up the color, as you can see. His source is Star Wars laserdisc.

I assume the calibration settings will be universal. Having said that, this is a test to calibrate the device. Tapes can have variance also. That's why setting white and black points are important. Just as you'd tune a stringed instrument for a different key, you'll want to use different settings on the capture device if your source is low quality. Suppose it's all rather dark. I have an important tape like that. To get the detail, you'd retune so those luminence values are a larger portion of the allowable scale than usual. You'd still need to process but it's a lot easier to take something with a range of, say, 1-50 and do something accurate with it than a range of 1-5. Make sense?

My opinion: It is easier to calculate these kinds of things in VirtualDub but better to do the modifications with AviSynth so you aren't changing color models. You can have VirtualDub scan an entire capture and show a graph of luminance values. From there, you can determine the white and black points. I realize it will be giving you values based on RGB colors but it's still helpful.

Having said that, I do not know of a way to use SpotRemover without converting color. Its internal routines are YUV but it expects to be fed an RGB source. I don't know which RGB conversion it will accept. Hopefully, RGB32. I've asked Konstantin but don't have an answer yet. I'm working on the Jose Ferrar version of Cyrano de Bergerac and the tape has a large scratch on one field of one frame. That's where the sample frame on my support files page came from. It also shows a few other things which I'll detail later in the filtering discussion.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

OK.....what???

lol

What do virtualdub, avisynth or any of the other programs have to do with ADS?

I read posts like that and i feel like I should just purchase a stand alone unit. I'm really confused as to why the ******* capture is so complicated. I understand everything else...it's just the capture.

[Wilbert]

My opinion: It is easier to calculate these kinds of things in VirtualDub but better to do the modifications with AviSynth so you aren't changing color models. You can have VirtualDub scan an entire capture and show a graph of luminance values. From there, you can determine the white and black points. I realize it will be giving you values based on RGB colors but it's still helpful.
Sorry to interrupt. Maybe you know it, but it is also possible to do this in AviSynth (using Histogram) + scripteditor of vdubmod. It is described in the capture guide how to do that.

[FredThompson]

@ DigitalfreakNYC

You can't have both quality and a "one-button" method. If you want to come close to the original quality, you'll have to do some work on your captures. I'll put a before and after sample frame on my support page soon.

@ Wilbert

No, I didn't know that. Thanks. Guess I'll have to study the guide. :rolleyes:

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

Will you also put a detailed guide of how to calibrate the ADS along with the captures?

[FredThompson]

I guess I could. When I have some baseline numbers, those will go on the webpage and possibly the images I use to tune. My priority right now is to get today's work done and in the mail, calibrate the ADS and finish the cleanup script. You'll be safe with the settings but might want to tweak them for difficult source. Don't know what they should be for PAL. I have a multi-format VCR and some PAL tapes but no way to make a known good PAL analog source from which to calibrate.

There's also the problem of webspace. That page is about full so something will have to be removed.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Fred,

If you've got and managed to view the PAL Jaguar CD I sent you. Would you like me to create and mail you a PAL VHS and S-VHS copy of same?

Just let me know,

Cheers.

[FredThompson]

PM me because I don't have it and don't remember where you sent it.

If you know of a good source for the Honda ad, I'd be VERY interested. http://home.comcast.net/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

[wotef]

i have this on dvd, came free with my sunday paper a few months ago

[FredThompson]

No kidding! Is it any better than this one: http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

The DVD they link to looks really cool, also.

--

You followin' me around tongiht? :)

[wotef]

yes, it's better than that

the dvd contains a qt and mpeg2 version, also has the updated shorter advert as well that's not linked

p.s. rest assured i am not stalking you :p

[FredThompson]

I just thought it was funny. ;)

[SeeMoreDigital]

How many MB's is the Mpeg2 stream. Will it fit onto a CD-R?

[wotef]

only about 100mb

[SeeMoreDigital]

I presume Fred has PM you with a request?

If he has'nt already.... you better keep an eye on your inbox!

Anyway, may I ask are you in a PAL or NTSC country?

[FredThompson]

No, I just grabbed the OGG. Would rather have the MPEG2. Hmmm...maybe we need to do an FTP server.

I haven't forgotten your questions. Been working hard on filtering. Was about to put it all up last night then got deep into ways to reduce the 4:1:1 color bleed and played with VagueDenoiser. Man, that's a NICE filter but too slow.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Surely Fred, with all your PC's you could put your own web site on one of them. Then we could have some serious downloads to look at!

Mind you. I should talk. I've been meaning to do this for months!

[FredThompson]

It's not gotten any better. I keep saying I'll release the cleanup script then I find another way to tweak it. Result is hard drives full of DV that needs to get compressed.

Actually, I'm thinking about a small FTP server as a way to share test footage.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Me too!

I created a spare boot drive on my home ISP/file server PC six months or more ago. I even downloaded a copy of 'Apache' to play with but........ still no go.

I'm just lazy I guess.

What am I saying. I returfed part of the garden, rewired the garage, repainted the lounge, renewed the kitchen cabinets (god bless Ikea!) and managed to con my wife's parents into taking the kids away for the summer holidays!

Oh, I think it's beer time already. I'm starting to ramble!