How to force a Pinnacle PCTV to capture in 480x576 on Pent3

[taurinella]

Hi people, I'm a newbie (sigh) so I thought to read a lot before bothering you with my question, but I cannot find anything similar in the archieves and if this is not the right place to poste or the right question, sorry!

So, you can read the characteristics of my PC in my profile. The card is a PCTV PAL, I think an older version than the actual Rave.
I bought the card some months ago, and I thought the quality would be enough but I'm quite deluded by the results.
The card can capture in 3 standards:
- 352x288 (OK for Pentium III)
- 480x576 and 720x576 --> Pentium IV

Funny enough the card is well able to capture in 480x576 on my computer, with the standard programme of Pinnacle but gets stuck.

So I tried to use virtualdub + huffyuv but virtualdub refuses to proceed saying that the system doesn't support the format. No difference to choose YUY2 or other standards. I can choose all the lower formats, but no higher than 352x288. I think it would be already something to have 352x480, at least from VHS I'm convinced it would be better. Then I could postprocess to make a DVD.

Any idea of possible solutions, or maybe installing other drivers that could force my PCTV card to capture in higher standards?

Thanks!

Taurinella

[deckard8]

Download and install these capture drivers.

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

They are vastly superior in speed and features to the Pinnacle ones and magicallly you will be able to capture in any resolution you want. One small point when using these drivers with virtualdub, I've noticed any resolution above 352x288 and the overlay screen on Virtualdub doesn't function (at least on my system). Just switch to preview instead.

Also I get great results capturing using the latest Xvid with bitrate set to max and every other funtion disabled (important). Very fast and saves a lot of disk space - 90mins = about 7.5gb

[Moonstomp]

taurinella,

Try Virtual VCr for capturing. It's designed specifically for the Pinnacle PCTV cards. You can use it with Huffyuv also.

http://virtualvcr.sourceforge.net/

Good luck !!

Moonstomp.

[taurinella]

Hi deckard8 and moonstomp,
thanks a lot for your quick and precious advice!

So, I've installed the drivers and I've also tried Virtual VCR.
Everything works perfectly with Virtual Dub but, for your information, I cannot use virtual VCR, I have a similar problem I had before doesn't accept any resolutions, tried several settings, configured the buffers, no result. No matter, just for your curiosity!

With Virtual Dub I've finally decided to capture my 8mm film in 344x576 (reworked the information by www.doom9.net) and I'm actually postprocessing, also with VirtualDub.

My CPU usage has always been around 50%, so I'm convinced I could also capture at higher resolutions, but in my specific case I think is better to pump up the resolution in the post processing.

One day I'll also try the other program deckard8 suggests...

Have a good time!

Taurinella