Cyberlink video encoder / ATI / VirtualDub

[Broken]

Last night I started having problems with my TV Wonder Pro. I normally capture in ATI's .VCR format then export it to an MPEG-2 file. I could normally take this MPG file and open it in VirtualDub for editing or whatnot. However, over the weekend I installed CyberLink's PowerDVD XP 4.0, and now whenever I export a .VCR file to MPEG-2, it's using CyberLink's MPEG-2 encoder, and VirtualDub cannot open this. Even when I save directly to MPG it uses the CyberLink encoder.

I really need to be able to edit some of the captures I'm doing, but can't figure out how to get these files to open in VirtualDub. I've uninstalled PowerDVD, and uninstalled and reinstalled the ATI software, but the codecs won't go away.

Can anybody help me? I just need to be able to open it in VirtualDub. How, I don't really care.

[lordsmurf]

Look for one of my early posts dealing with my ELECARD MPEG-2 codec error... your ATI uses LIGOS as the codec, and CYBERLINK overtook it ... but VDUB should take either of them. Odd.

I didn't think VDUB could just "edit" anyway, you're editing a frameserve then re-encoding an MPEG aren't you? That's not optimal if it's true. Womble MPEG VCR would be better for this "editing" (removal of footage).

Look up any post by me dealing with ELECARD, should show you what I did to kill that codec. Involved GSPOT I think .. been too long.

[Broken]

Thanks. I downloaded GSPOT and it showed me where the CyberLink codecs were, but I already knew that (found it by searching the Registry). I've moved the files to my Desktop because I didn't want to totally hose something by deleting them, and afterwards whenever I tried capturing something then playing it back, all I got were unplayable files.

You'll have to excuse me; I don't know enough about all the codecs and whatnot, and you totally lost me when you mentioned me editing a frameserve. I have no idea what that means. I'm just capturing video in .VCR, converting it (using ATI's File Library) to MPEG-2, then opening that file in VirtualDub. I'm not re-encoding them, just cutting out commercials then resaving the file.

I have some earlier MPG captures using the same process before all this CyberLink mess, and WMP shows them using the MPEG Audio Decoder and MPEG Video Decoder as the audio and video codecs, respectively.

[feenix]

A couple of questions:-

1. Why don't you capture in mpg2 in the first place? The quality will be better that .vcr>mpg2. Perhaps you have a good reason for this that I don't understand.

2. Also, I don't understand how you can 'edit' an mpg2 in VirtualDub (presumably you are using VirtualDubMod or VirtualDub-mp2) and NOT re-encode? It won't just cut frames from the source! Or have I missed something over the last couple of years?

[Broken]

1. Why don't you capture in mpg2 in the first place? The quality will be better that .vcr>mpg2. Perhaps you have a good reason for this that I don't understand.

Honestly, I don't know. I just started doing it this way. I was going to start capturing directly in MPG once I got all the kinks out of my software, but it's all moot now - even when I do a direct MPG capture it's still using the CyberLink codec. I discovered that little nugget of info late last night.

2. Also, I don't understand how you can 'edit' an mpg2 in VirtualDub (presumably you are using VirtualDubMod or VirtualDub-mp2) and NOT re-encode? It won't just cut frames from the source! Or have I missed something over the last couple of years?

From what I can tell, if you do Direct Stream Processing on the file, it never makes any changes to the encoding. I'm not sure; I haven't used VirtualDub in about a year. So I'm probably wrong.

My problem is that I can't get this freakin' codec safely off my system. I'll worry about the best way to edit the video after I get the conversion problem fixed.