WinTV - SVCD - VirtualDUB - AMD XP1500 .. tried many things

[TMcD]

Here is my system:

Asus A7M266
40 GIG
nVidia based graphics
WinTV Go (FM)
256M DDR

I am trying to caprture a 30 minute TV show live with VirtualDUB. (480 x 480 for SVCD).

Well, 30 minutes uncompressed AVI takes up TOO much space. But, when I try to use a compression codec, Huffy, Brooktree Prosumer, etc. frames start dropping like flies. Why?

Any ideas/thoughts, I'm a newbie, but I continue to read, to educate myself, but I haven't found the solution.

Thanks for the help,
Troy

[dirk67]

Huffyuv works for me. I capture at 352x576 (PAL), compression is about 2:1 or 3-4 GB per 10 minutes of video. During capture, the CPU has a load of 10-40%, preview disabled. Although the CPU load is relatively low, I get some dropped frames, about 2 dropped frames per 1000 frames captured. I do not know why. Anyway the number is so small that the quality of the video is not affected.
My system:
Athlon 1.4
40 GB ATA100
WinTV-Go

[Methanoid]

Mess around with the HuffyUV settings. I had one time I could not grab SVCD res cos of settings. Sorry i cannot remember the specifics but ISTR RGB and YUV9 springing to mind as involved in the problem.

HuffyUV is the best way to go tho!

[TMcD]

dirk67,

Preview disabled with VirtualDUB?

I see:

Overlay
Preivew
Preview w/histogram

How do I turn off the preview?

Thanks,
Troy

[ThighMaster]

To disable preview/overlay just click again on the selected option to unselect it, i.e. none of the 3 options should have a checkmark next to it.

Your system is way faster than mine (see my system specs below), you should be getting GOOD results. Make sure you have all the latest drivers (IDE controller, VGA etc.)

I use MJPEG @19 quality cus' of disk space. Okay for VCD's.
If you are using HuffYuv make sure you select YUY2 for image format under video->format. Then, set custom format to 480x480.

I can capture from 480x480 upto 640x480 just fine, dropped frames insignificant. Last time I got only 4 dropped frames for a one hour tv show @640x480. I had turned off all ACPI power saving features, screen savers etc. This helps a lot in dropped frames issue.

My System:
Athlon 550@700 GFD
WD 20GBMB 7000RPM 2MB ATA100
Micron 256MB PC133 SDRAM
GeForce2-MX400 TwinView
Voodoo TV200 (cheap!)
PCI IEEE 1394 Firewire
Win98 - tweaked for capture.

Cheers,
ThighMaster

[dirk67]

In VirtualDub you can also select "Hide On Capture". Thus you see the preview before capture, you can start capture at the appropriate momen, but during capture preview is disabled.

[flatlander]

I have a similar system

1.4 Athlon
45 gig Maxtor 7200rpm
256 DDR ram
3dfx 3500 card

I cannot capture 480x480, if I try I lose ~10% of the frames regardless of the codec I use. When I try processor stays pegged ~98-100% utilization

When I capture at 320x240 no lost frames & processor stays at 55% utilization.

I have tried many combinations of settings including disk i/o with no luck.

Is anyone with an Athlon able to capture 480x480?

[dirk67]

@flatlander:

I had similar problems once, but somehow they dissolved themselves. I also had 100 % CPU at 352x576 while having 10% at 352x288. Now it works. It seems to be a difference if you select a custom format in the "format" dialog box or in the "custom format". The former works fine with me, the latter yields the 100% CPU load.

[thxkid]

#1 reason I have stayed with WIN98, no frames drops when using compressed, uncompressed or Divx AVI with my Happuage PVR PCI card, when I went to WIN2000 got all types of problems with frame drops, mine a AMD 1.2 gig and 512 megs of PC133 ram, 30 gig ATA 100.

[flatlander]

BINGO!

I lowered my computer display resolution from 24 to 16 bit and now I can capture YUY2 480x480 no dropped frames and CPU @ 80%, any codec, with overlay on during capture.

Its funny that the display resolution mattered, considering that I previously tried capturing with or without overlay & preview and it had made no difference.

[Vorlon]

Normal use settings for PC is usually the opposite for what you need to set for capturing. Lowering display settings to 16bit, removing write-behind disk caching, setting your system to expect network disk writings (to allow more frequent disk writes), removing read ahead buffering, using a separate physical hard drive dedicated for the captured target files, removing desktop background, turning off screen savers, turning off power management, removing task scheduler and any other programs except what is necessary in the systray, removing read ahead buffering for audio as well, make sure your MSDOS.SYS file has instruction to turn off double buffering, defragging the target hard drive before capturing, etc.

Hope this helps