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minolta
10th February 2004, 23:57
About 6 months ago I purchased a MyHD HDTV card. For HD sources, it has been great, but I don't like how it handles my analog sources (cable tv).

With my old bt878, if I captured with a vertical height of 480, I would capture both fields (thus visible interlaced lines). However, the Micronas chip on the MyHD automatically deinterlaces analog sources. The deinterlaced picture is updated at 60FPS, and actually looks good full-screen (somewhere between a 'bob' and 'tomsmocomp'). When I capture the true-interlaced content (sports, mtv, etc) with the supplied MyHD software, the resulting 720x480 AVI is always deinterlaced and 30FPS. If I were only making DivX or XviDs, this might be okay, but I prefer to make interlaced MPEG2s when the original content is interlaced. All told, I still use my bt878 with analog sources (not happy with the quality...).

But, here is where it gets good... I've tried using other software for capturing (VirtualDub, AMCap, iuVCR), but all instantly crash/restart my computer. However, I constructed the DirectShow graph manually using GraphEdit and that seemed to work. Now, I can even capture at 60FPS (hardware deinterlace is still active). If I capture at 720x240 at 60FPS, you might suspect that each field is captured in each frame, but there is no visible 'bob' effects, so the picture is just being scaled down. So the only way to get it ready for MPEG2 is to capture at 720x480 (or less, say 480x480) at 60FPS, then write an AVISynth script to throw-away and weave together at 30FPS. When capturing at such a high rate, it is nearly impossible to apply any compression (with my 2GHz machine). Best I can do is just old YUY2 (1GB in 25 seconds, not good...).

So, I've coded with DirectShow before, and I'm going to create an optimized filter that does a 60p to 60i conversion and horizontal resize (to 240, 384, 480, 512, 640x480). Only then will live compression, such as MJPEG, be possible. So, I'm writing this to see if other MyHD owners would be interested in this filter (or am I just too anal). Let me know, and I'll be sure to post it somewhere.

Karyudo
13th February 2004, 02:54
I don't understand half (or more...) of what you just said, but I do have a MyHD, and plan to start using it to cap analog stuff (after using it for a year to cap HD stuff from satellite), so I'm interested to hear about / try whatever you come up with!

eng3
13th February 2004, 08:40
I have a myhd also, the second version, I think 120.

I never got it to work for analog. I asked support and they said that the card was never design for analog capture and my system may not be fast enough.
I have an athlon(tbird) 1.5ghz
so right now I have to keep the myhd and my analog (asus tvfm) so I can capture both.

The digital capture works great, except I must turn off WAV output during capture otherwise I will hear skipping in my audio.

minolta
14th February 2004, 08:44
Thanks for the replies. I've been thinking about this some more, and have decided to write an "InverseBob()" filter for AviSynth as well. From analyzing the MyHD output, it appears to apply a so-called "smart bob" for its deinterlace. The InverseBob() could take video at XXX by 240/288 and reconstruct the original. Anyway, I'll post again when everything is finished for those who are interested.

Zep
15th February 2004, 09:25
Originally posted by minolta
About 6 months ago I purchased a MyHD HDTV card. For HD sources, it has been great, but I don't like how it handles my analog sources (cable tv).


wow not sure what to tell you. my 120 works great on analog.

I have an antenna and cable both going to the card. I suggest swapping
the input from input 1 to input 2 and see if that helps since I run my roof
antenna into input 1 and my cable into input 2.

Make sure you do an auto select type with auto scan as well on the correct input source.
Oh and do do not let the auto source choose. Select input 2 yourself.

Overlook
28th July 2005, 00:50
I saw your February 10, 2004 post "MyHD card w/ true-interlaced analog". I am very interested in any graphs and filters you may have available. I Have a MyHD-130 and are experiencing similar analog capture problems. Have thied numerous codecs and other software. Tech support tells me to buy a capture card. This is ridiculous since analog video from this card looks better than two capture cards that I have which suffer from poor software or hardware.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Pookie
28th July 2005, 03:02
Wow, an old post, but as a 120 owner, I'd appreciate any help in getting analog capture working. Fortunately, the HD captures look glorious (and barely affect CPU utilization while recording).

Mug Funky
31st July 2005, 09:18
Tech support tells me to buy a capture card.

tech support like this is disgusting. their product is designed to do something, it's not doing it, so they ask you to buy something else to do the same thing. you should have asked to talk to someone who knew what they were talking about.