MainConcept PVR

[bb]

Who tried MainConcept's new video recording software? I did, and at a first glance it made a very good impression; needs further in-depth testing, though.

http://www.mainconcept.com/pvr.shtml

bb

[Inc]

It would be nice if audio can be captured as Wav, much more easy to handle in Avisynth afterwards.

Maybe a silly question:
Would it give an advantage to encode in mpeg2 4:2:2 profile to avoid bad chroma upsampling, if it "would" be offered in MCE PVR?

[maa]

I find their video capture in the stand alone encoder to be one of the best (The best for my gear) so I wonder whats in this package as its not expensive. Smart Mpeg cutting to but no editing as in PowerDirector (also worth a look - has patented Smart Video Rendering for encoding only the edits / effects)
I must try it !

[bb]

I tested the trial a bit more. Clicking the record button after setting the profile to "DVD" results in a DVD compliant program stream with audio @ 48 kHz, but when I dragged the quality slider to the very right, the file was no longer DVD compliant (maybe because of drops?).

Funny: Capturing via timer with the same "DVD" profile selected works, but you get a 44.1 kHz audio stream instead of 48 kHz. The internal DVD authoring module rejects it as "not DVD compliant". I could author the recording in DVDlab, but of course I had to transcode the audio. I have no clue whether they introduced this bummer on purpose for the trial version, or if it is present in the full version, too.

Authoring a DVD with the PVR's authoring module didn't work at all for me. Maybe it's deactivated for the trial?! I could not access any advanced options either.

The encoding quality was very good; the best I've seen from a PVR so far.

bb

[maa]

Hmm - sounds like another public paid Beta, but I'm sure they'll get there judging by the quality of the encoder anyway.

[Malow]

im still waiting for a interlaced capture app like these...

[bb]

If I remember correctly, MainConcept's PVR records in interlaced mode. I'll double check that, but I believe I saw interlacing artefacts when playing a recorded MPEG-2 stream in Windows Media Player.

The current state of MainConcept's PVR is much too buggy to be recommended. I'll keep you informed about updates - hopefully they will fix the most stupid bugs, so that you get a usable application at least.

bb

[Inc]

The first appl. which brings my machine def. to crash :eek: :(

As I already got MCE and its capture capabilities ... Is there a speed adv. comparing to the PVR at same Quality??

[bb]

Well, MCE has no timer, no profile settings can be saved - so you stupidly have to type your settings again and again each time you want to capture...

bb

[maa]

Yes - thats true and the normal encoding template function is stupid too - no editing of templates.
But the App is quite new so hopefully they'll listen to user requests and improve such blunders.

[bb]

I fail to understand how they can implement a great MPEG-2 encoder - which is a complicated tast - but suck with the GUI. I may assume that it's not a big deal to add some user-friendliness.

bb

[Inc]

Offtopic of MCE PVR but MCE:
The last version of MCE does write the last used capture settings in the registry (finally that has been fixed ;-) ), so u don't have to set up the capture mode everytime as new.

[Malow]

Originally posted by bb
If I remember correctly, MainConcept's PVR records in interlaced mode. I'll double check that, but I believe I saw interlacing artefacts when playing a recorded MPEG-2 stream in Windows Media Player.

The current state of MainConcept's PVR is much too buggy to be recommended. I'll keep you informed about updates - hopefully they will fix the most stupid bugs, so that you get a usable application at least.

bb

yes, but it use a "auto" mode for detect, sometimes are, and sometimes are not interlaced. and i can´t select field order (my bt878a caps in wrong order) and i dont wanna use restream our pulldown to change.

im STILL using graphedit for capture. much more customizable :)(using mainconcept filter)

[bb]

Originally posted by Malow
[...]im STILL using graphedit for capture. much more customizable :)[...]
If you have a solution for comfortably starting graphedit with a timer, selecting the correct channel, and dealing with waking up and shutting down the computer, let us know :)

I wonder why noone has written a timer like VVCRScheduler, but for use with MainConcept MPEG Encoder?


bb

[Malow]

UHHHHHH... not too much customizable.

channel if i remember, is keeped.

i have to configure only the encoder, set top field, online cap. search and bitrate.

i make it split the mpeg, and save elementary stream of video, and reconvert the audio to ac3 on the fly.

[tungluan]

my question is after i encoders the file is 5gb. how do i make it fit to dvd. please help thanks.

[jggimi]

I've merged tungluan's post into this thread, as it seems to belong here.

[Swan]

Originally posted by incredible
The first appl. which brings my machine def. to crash :eek: :(

As I already got MCE and its capture capabilities ... Is there a speed adv. comparing to the PVR at same Quality??
I've been playing around with the latest version of Main Concept Mpeg Encoder (MCE) today, and thought I'd try the PVR too, but the word "crash" scares me. :) Did you PC crash temporarily or did PVR ruin your Windows installation?

I have an ADVC-100 and tried MCE and its capture mode on a P4 1.7 GHz (overclocked to 2 GHz) with over a gigabyte of Rambus RAM.
I got bad sync issues on Mpeg-capturing. If I didn't enable the buffer function, I got a lot of dropped frames, so it was turned on. I experimented with turning preview on and off, no big change, after a few minutes, the sync was totally off on the mpeg-file.
Has anyone else experienced sync problems when capturing with MCE in Mpeg?
Capturing direct-to-mpeg2 with Ulead Videostudio 7 doesn't produce any off sync, so it's defintely related to MCE. And the ADVC ensures the incoming aignal is in sync. What is the required minimal system for capturing in Mpeg with MCE? What powerhorses do you guys use? :-)

[Malow]

i made 3 captures in it, with version 1.4.2, about 1:30 each. no sync problems, from a advc100

with no preview, buffer enable, athlon xp 2600. 512 ram 333

[Swan]

Thanks malow. Now isn't a Athlon xp 2600 equivalent to a P4 at 2600 GHz or something like that? At least that's what AMD says? :-)
I wonder if the problem can be that my P4 is too slow? I'll try MCE on my Athlon XP 1900+ and see if there's any difference.

[bb]

Swan,

if you don't want to buffer, i.e. you want a real "direct MPEG-2 capture", then you have to turn the video encoder quality settings down. I don't remember the exact name of the setting, but it defaults to 30 below a slider (I'm at a different computer right now).

My Athlon XP 1800+ was simply too slow for a direct capture, but my P4 2.8 GHz could capture without frame losses with quality set to 15.

bb

[Swan]

@bb
I don't mind the buffering (if that's what it takes on the two machines I have access to):-), what I find weird is the bad sync!
I just don't understand why I get off sync with MCE and not with Ulead VideoStudio 7 (it also buffers, but the user can't turn it off, btw).

[bb]

Do you get frame drops? I assume they are the cause for bad synch, and that MCE doesn't compensate that, so that video and audio stay in synch. If you don't drop frames, there should be no asynchronity.

bb

[Pyscrow]

Doesn't even start on my box, just pops an error message (with no close button mind you!) ffdshow error.

[Swan]

Originally posted by bb
Do you get frame drops? I assume they are the cause for bad synch, and that MCE doesn't compensate that, so that video and audio stay in synch. If you don't drop frames, there should be no asynchronity.

bb
No frame drops at all, bb. Weird! It does work for a long time after I hit "stop capture", so there's a lot in the buffer. But even so... It's not slight bad sync, it's very obvious bad sync between audio and video, btw. Did you record an hour or so on your 1800+?

[bb]

Originally posted by Swan
[...]Did you record an hour or so on your 1800+?
No, because I found it too annoying to wait so long :)
On my P4 I captured longer sessions without buffering enabled (reduced quality, though). I didn't experience synch problems, but I didn't test enough to say that it won't happen. I'll do some more testing as soon as I get the time (I still have to write the MCE part in the "DV to DVD" guide).

bb

[omer123]

Hi,can I ask a question about Mainconcept's pvr?
I dowloaded the demo because I have been capturing to mpeg-2 (DVD) for a long time with V.Studio 7,and I didn't like the buffering.Anyway,I tried to play with the settings but I always get very "jumpy" movement (people in the movie seem to move "faster").
I tried to use the settings I usually use with VS7: mpeg-2,VBR,about 7200 kbps,no deinterlacing,mpeg layer 2 for audio with 224 kbps (i didn't change the GOP settings,though). I have an P4 machine with an Avermedia capture card (os: winXP).Can someone help?

[bb]

Is the "fast movement" due to frame drops? If yes, you should decrease the quality settings.

bb

[omer123]

No,the problem is not due to frame drops,and I tried decreasing the quality to almost 0.I also tried using the capture tool of mainconcept's mpeg encoder,and it works without frame drops only if I use buffering.Does that mean my hardware isn't good enough?

[bb]

Originally posted by omer123
Does that mean my hardware isn't good enough?
Probably. What are your hardware specs?

bb

[omer123]

sorry,i've been away. I have a P4 1.51 GHz machine with 256 MB RAM,for my digital video camera I use a firewire 1394 adapter(ST LAB) and for analog sources i use an AVERMEDIA capture card.My OS is winXP.The starnge thing is that when I capture analog video(using VS7) I capture it straight to mpg2 and get almost no frame drops and everything works fine.Only when I use the firewire wuth VS7 I get this buffering issue that causes some sound and picture distortion every 1 minute (the amount of time it buffers).Is there a way to get pass this buffering using the firewire?