Capturing video with Avermedia EzdvdMaker problems

[cougar43]

Hi,

I hope somebody can help me. I have used the search on this forum but have not come up with any answers.

I am a silver surfer who is a newbie at trying to capture video from a VCR to save onto DVD.

I have an Avermedia DVD Ezmaker and NeoDVD 4 but I am not too impressed with the software.

I have tried to use Ulead Videostudio 7 and although you can see the video, when I try to capture it, the capture fails with the message 2failed to build preview graph. Capture failed..."

In another program i can not even see the video.

Can anybody tell me if the capture card is not compatible with other software or is it more likely that I am not using the correct settings?

Thanks in advance for any answers and apologies if this has been asked before.

Cougar43

[spectroelectro]

The "Failed to build preview graph" error mssg. is a classic indicator that the capture driver isn't supported. Either you need a VFW driver and you're trying touse a WDM driver, or (more likely in your case) you need a WDM driver and you're trying to use a VFX driver.
You could try the VFW wrapper but there are no guarantees. The usual solution to this is simply to sigh with digust and make do with the crufty kludgy software that comes with your hardware. That's what I had to do with my LeadTek WinFast TV 2000 PCI card. Most of hte available freeware (like virtual VCR or VirtualDub) gives the "filaed to build preview graph" error mssg.

[housepig]

Hey Cougar -

I have the same card, it is totally compatible with other software (it's based on a generic video capture chip called a BT8x8 [the x can be a 4 or a 7] )

I've never been happy with the NeoDVD software either, and I haven't found a realtime mpeg-2 capture software that I like - I think for me, to be happy with direct-to-mpeg, I'm going to have to upgrade.

however, I get really nice captures if I capture to avi first, then encode the avi to mpeg-2. I use iuVCR to capture, with either the Huffyuv codec (26Gb/hr) or the MJPEG codec (6-8Gb/hr) and convert with TMPG to get it dvd compliant.

it's a bit harder, it takes a bit longer, and it's a bit of a learning curve, but you have total control over the processs, so the payoff is really, really good looking captures, even with a bargain-basement vcr like mine!

I have also used VirtualVCR (freeware) successfully, and I've used Power VCR, which captures direct to mpeg-2, but I had some problems with keeping the audio in sync, so I moved on. the iuVCR->TMPG->DVD Lab method I use seems to give me the best quality & tightest audio sync of all the methods I tried.

But if I were you, I'd go to the Tools section and download some trial software - you may find a different mpeg-2 capture program that works great on your system.

hope this helps.