Capture Card Vs Firewire

josh684 · Member Joined: 26 Jun 2004

I am trying to put my SVHS video onto DVD's. I got a new video card (AIW 9600) and I am not able to get a good quality picture out of it. Now I am probably gonna get a new camcorder and I was wondering If I use the passthrough on it, will this get me a good picture with no quality loss and no dropped frames?
Thanks
Josh

Capmaster · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 14:06

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 14:29

It will come down to the quaity of the Camcorder S-Video to digital conversion vs. the AIW 9600. The camcorder will capture the S-Video into a DV stream over IEEE-1394 (or record to DV tape). At the computer end, the DV stream can be directly saved to a DV-AVI file (13.5 GB/hr) or realtime transcoded to MPeg, WMV, Divx, etc.

If you capture to a DV-AVI file, you can then invest in non-realtime quality encoders but paying the encoding time penalty.

So, for realtime transcoding, what are the issues?

1. Camcorder capture (pass-thru) quality vs. AIW 9600 capture quality. Pay attention to audio to video sync on long captures.

2. ATI realtime encoding quality vs. other encoders like Mainconcept, Pinnacle, WMV, Divx, etc.

This sets the framework for comparison tests.

PS: I use the Canopus ADVC-100 in place of the DV camcorder for this kind of capture. I find it subjectively superior to captures from my ATI AIW-8500DV but I haven't done formal comparison testing for highest quality settings. I find the realtime MainConcept codec very good for DVR type recording (DVD Mpeg2 or SVCD) from my cable box. I just haven't gotten around to transferring my S-Video and Hi8 collections to DVD.

josh684 · Member Joined: 26 Jun 2004

Were can I download this "realtime MainConcept codec". Right now I tried to use the one for AVI that is in the "How-To Capture" for AIW on this site. I then use Ulead to put it on a DVD. On the video it was like I could kinda see small black squares in the backround, and it seemed to be skipping alot of frames. When MainConcept Codec, what kind of settings should I use? And I will capture this with the AIW Multimedia TV right?
Thanks

FulciLives · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 17:19

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 17:49

I'm talking about using the Mainconcept (or other realtime encoder) to directly transcode the DV stream coming in from the camcorder over IEEE-1394 where the camcorder is capturing analog to DV using "pass-through".

This is the alternative to using the ATI card as discussed above. I have the Mainconcept encoder in Ulead Video Studio 8 (also in Adobe Premiere and Vegas 5). Other codecs can be used and compared.

FulciLives · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 18:14

Ron B · Hanging In There Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge

I've had pretty good luck capturing with my AIW 9800Pro using VirtualDub and huffyuv. I tried Ulead VideoStudio6 but it had audio/video syc issues, probably due to dropped frames. I'm afraid to use ATI MMC, never have liked it. VirtualDub is a straightforward, no frills program. I like that. I encode with TMPGEnc using 2 pass VBR.

vhelp · ..Semi Neutral.. Joined: 31 Mar 2001 Location: New York

@ fulci,

I think edDV is saying that w/ MC, (and it's software app) that it
can capture (real-time) during the DV firewire transfer. I think
that this is a featrue of an Capture and Encode app (MC for instance)
and can problably do this (if MC is using the driver pass-through
for DV) - - I think that Ulead does this to, because in my Ulead app,
it includes my DV cam as one of the drivers to capturing with (and
then encode to *other* format ie, mpeg; dv; huffy; rgb etc)
.
At least that's my understanding. And, I'm basing all this from my
DVD Xpress box, which is a hardware mpeg (USB device)
.
So, my guess is that if any app can show (as capture sources)

* VFW; WDM; and MPEG as driver-ready sources, than DV is no exception.

-vhelp

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 18:55

"Are you talking about doing a DV AVI capture using the Mainconcept DV codec or are you talking about capturing from the DV AVI comming through the FIREWIRE (or IEEE 1394) directly to MPEG-2 using Mainconcept MPEG encoder (the capture function)?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman"

The latter as clearly stated several times in the posts above. This refers to realtime MPeg2 capture from the ATI card vs Camcorder analog pass through. I suggest you read the thread from the beginning.

The two methods:

Alt 1. S-Video->Camcorder DV encode->IEEE-1394->DV-AVI file
then edit and encode to MPeg2 non-realtime

Alt 2. S-Video->Camcorder DV encode->IEEE-1394-> Realtime MPeg2 encoder

The latter can be done by several applications. My example used the ULead Video Studio 8 (and its included Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder)

josh684 · Member Joined: 26 Jun 2004

Ok, So I just tried the M-JPEG codec, with not much luck. Let me read off my settings, maybe I am doing something wrong.
Resolution: 640 x 480
Frame Rate: 29.97
Standard: NTSC, NTSC-J
Codec: PCI VIDEO M-JPEG3 VfW
Decompressor Settings: Brightness and Contrast at Zero and Enable Codec Checked off
Compressor Settings: Encode Normalized YUV Checked off and Quality at 20, Subsampling at 4:2:2 and Luminance and Crominance Quality at Zero. And 2 Feilds if more than 240 lines check off. Capture High Resolution Stills is check off in main menue.
So those are my settings. Its still doing the same thing were I can actually see the pixels and it makes for ragged edges and outlines of black squares in the backround.
Thanks
Josh

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 19:11

"Its still doing the same thing were I can actually see the pixels and it makes for ragged edges and outlines of black squares in the backround."

Have you tried other tapes? You could also test with a clean VCR Tuner output from the SVHS VCR to separate the equipment connection issues from the tape playback issues.

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 19:19

To separate issues even more try these steps

Cable box -> S-Video -> ATI AIW 9600
test the various codecs. This is your baseline.

Cable box -> S-Video -> SVHS VCR (E-to-E) -> S-Video -> ATI AIW 9600
test the various codecs with cable input, then capture from a tape.

see where the process breaks down.

josh684 · Member Joined: 26 Jun 2004

Sorry, I am a bit confused. Thanks for the patience. I am going from my SVHS camcorder(S-video Out) to S-Video in of my AIW. What should I do again, you want me to try a live feed from the camera to see if that clear?
Thanks
Josh

josh684 · Member Joined: 26 Jun 2004

I tried the live feed with the same results and also tried the composite video instead of S-Video with no luck.

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 19:33

Yes test that it will work with a clean input first.
Tape playback adds a second set of issues.

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 19:34

ahh, something else is wrong then

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 19:36

Does the AIW capture well from its own tuner? Can you make a good MPeg2 encode?

vhelp · ..Semi Neutral.. Joined: 31 Mar 2001 Location: New York

@ josh684

Well, getting a new cam won't hurt (in replacement for your Analog)

But, as far as quality goes, your mialge will vary. But, with a
DV type cam corder (w/ pass-through) you have a very good chance that
you'd be saying good-bye to endless framedrops.

In my case, I have two alternatives w/ DV. I have my TRV22 and my
ADVC-100 and both give me great quality video "reproduction" from
various sources and w/ out any hint of MV association (for vhs)

As far as quality (from above, as well as other options) that is
subjective to your view. Only you can make that final determination
on each option.

-vhelp

FulciLives · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 22:13

edDV · Posted: Dec 17, 2004 23:31

Have a nice day

lordsmurf · Posted: Dec 18, 2004 00:03

To use MainConcept for capturing, you'd better a poweful computer to not drop frames. My P4 1.8 has to have bare minimum settings to capture. For optimal settings, better have a P4 2.5 or higher. I've tested this on many P4 and AMD systems in the 1.5-2.0Ghz range.

Satstorm always talks about how he caps high res on his old system, and I'm not sure how he does it, and I've never seen him give any details.
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edDV · Posted: Dec 18, 2004 01:44

"To use MainConcept for capturing, you'd better a poweful computer to not drop frames..."

Very true, here is my experience

I use a 2.4GHz Celeron, 512MB RAM, Canopus ADVC-100 to IEEE-1394
as my DVR from cable box + utility VHS capture (JVC HR-S4800U).

For basic realtime capture I use ULead Video Studio 8 (MainConcept encoder). These are typical realtime capture CPU loads. I don't see framedrops typically using these rates.

CPU 75-86% for 720x480 MPeg2 DVD, 8000Kb/s, MPeg L2 48K 224kaudio (default setting)
CPU 85-95% for 720x480 MPeg2 DVD, 6000Kb/s, MPeg L2 48K 224kaudio
CPU 90-97% for 480x480 SVCD MPeg2,2375Kb/s (default setting)
CPU 68-79% for 352x240 VCD MPeg1, 1150Kb/s (default setting)