DC10+ or WINTV PCI?

[qaa]

Hello

After reading many topics here I still in trouble to understand if I need both DC10+ and WINTV PCI to capture, editing and than produce (S)VCD and VHS tapes.
Or was it useless to buy DC10+?

KR

[vhelp]

qaa,

course not. wasn't useless of you to buy the DC10+ !!

I've ben using it for many months. I paid $59 for mine back when they were on sale.
I also use the PVR usb (mpeg1/2 hardware), and I also am currently in the testing
stages with my very old Hauppauge Wintv PCI card. It's ben giving me great captures.
I believe that they are selling it as the WinTV GO card, and for around $49 bucks.

Both these cards (haup/dc10) are AVI capture cards.
except, the dc10 has an hardware mjpeg, but caps to AVI.
the dc10 can cap 12gig for a 1 hour tv show and with less cpu %
I haven't fully tested a complete hour with the wintv, but I'm guessing that it will
cap at 15gigs or more per hour at 352x480 and with a lot of cpu %

You didn't say what your confusio was, so I (we) cannot help you. But, the above
should help in some way. There's nothing wrong with having both cards.

If you're concerned with the quality that each one will give, and that that's what is your
holdup, then please head on over to my web site and download some Sample clips I have there.
And judge for yourself what these two cards can do. They are basically there as a guage
to matching your SVCD encoding quality to what I have produced in quality with mine.
And, if you have difficulty in reaching the quality that mine are in, then you or others
out there can post and ask questions here, and maybe I can help stear you closer to
your goal.
So, head on over and take a few clips, burn to CD (SVCD) as they were intended for.
Quality will not look good on a pc monitor, for one, it's 352x480 being stretched to
your monitors resolution, ie, 1024x768. So, you'll notice blurryness or quality loss.
That's why I say to burn to CD and view on your TV via your dvd player. Go ahead
over and take some clips - that's what they're there for!!

Good luck.

[qaa]

Thanks Vhelp!!!

Basicly my confusio was about the fact that I perfectly could obtain the same quality final production (S)VCD/Tape with WINTV PCI or DVD-R later on instead of paying 120$ for the same result with DC10+.
Looking your samples confirm my disappointment.
Your answer also indicates that it is possible to re-encode MJPEG encoded DC10+ files to MPEG1.
Is there any issue with that?
And why do you use AVI_IO with WINTV PCI instead of native HAUP cap application?

KR

[vhelp]

qaa,

Now you left me in confusion!

First, about your "quality final production svcd/tape w/ wintv pci or dvd-r"
Exlain in more detail here.

Are you saying that you already have the wintv pci?
But, that you wanted to know if the DC10 would give you better quality?
In that case, the answer is yes/no. It's a matter of pesonal judgement!
In my opinion, the DC10 is a great card, but only has two flows:
A - it doesn't capture at 352x480 (IS DOESN'T!!)
B - it has a slight color range limitation (16-253)** vs (0-255)
** Record Star Trek Enterprise shows, and you'll see what I mean.
I left a capture sample of the Star Trek Enterprise (new prev.) with
the wintv pci card. It came out better than the DC10. Sorry, but I
just coudn't get a capture of the same clip for the DC10 so you could
compare.

DC10 vs wintv pci - both are good cards!

DC10+ pros/cons
-------
pros:
* can capture a 1 hour tv show using 12gigs hd space
* cpu % is around 10 to 20
* spanning is much more smoother (starting new segmented caps)
cons:
* color range limitation
* can't cap at 352x480 (can cap up to 640x480 NTSC, no more)
* can't capture to other Codecs (ie, huffy)

Wintv PCI pros/cons
pros:
* nice color and ok sharpness capture (w/ avi_io)
cons:
* many capture resolution settings.
* I tried to cap a 1 hour tv show with this card - took 16+ gigs of hd space
* glitches when first starting up the captures. I get "multi instance WinTV DLL"
errors, and every time I have to set the capture driver to recignise it, same
error pops up. Probably a driver issue.

Ok, as for your other question/statement:
>> Your answer also indicates that it is possible to re-encode MJPEG encoded
>> DC10+ files to MPEG1.
>> Is there any issue with that?
Well, MJPEG*** AFAIK, is not an mpeg like the mpeg1 or mpeg2 you're thinking.
Its more a jpeg, compressed. It's still an AVI file. You feed it to tmpgenc and
it encodes it. You are not re-encoding an MPEG2 file, K?

So, in the mean time, I yanked out my DC10+ card, and put in my old
wintv pci card. (boths cards don't get alone in my system)

>> And why do you use AVI_IO with WINTV PCI instead of native HAUP cap
>> application?
Simply because I dont have one. Or, do you mean the PVR's cap?
Can't be used. It senses the for the correct (specific) card, and if it finds
it, it startup, else it bombs out because the correct card its sensing for is
not available, even though I have the PVR connected. When the PVR is
connected and I start up the wintv PVR app, it's geared or tied to the PVR
device, NOT the wintv pci device.
At the time I
purchased this card - back in summer of 1996, there were no wintv capture
software, other then the CAP.EXE app that was floating around on the
cd, and that didn't work on my meesly slooow 486 machine of that day.
a year+ later, I got an 90mhz pentium. Still not good enough to cap,
even at 320x240. Anyways, I long since then, gave this card up for good.
The problems I do have are probably due to my having the ATI Rage
Fury card in my system - it uses the WDM drivers. I've ben trying to
figure out how to use VFW driver instead, but with no luck. When the
VWF (wrapper) does work, there are too many side affects (like 16
colors in my avi files) I got the Rage Fury simply because I wanted
to replace my 2nd pc's (this pc) from my 6 year old video card (very
slow) with an more up to date one, and faster as well. And, I wanted
it to be cheap enough. In addition, it has capture abilities, and I
wanted to give this card a go with the capture features. But, I didn't
realize it only supports the WDM drivers. Like I said, its not
not working correctly with the VFW wrapper driver. Maybe some day, I'll
get it working properly. I don't know. And as for the Fury card, I
decided NOT to use it's capture capabilities, simply because the
available capture resolutions, ie, 640x480 uses just too great a
hard drive space, probably 30gigs for 640x480, compared to 16+ gigs
for 352x480. But, it doesn't do 352x480, else I'd use it!! Again,
IT DOESN'T DO 352x480!!!

Oh, and which samle clip(s) did you see? The DC10's or haup's??
I trust the samples were crap? he, he...

*** As for MJPEG, maybe someone else can do a better job at explaining this, please?

I really hope that have ben more theral at responding to your post.
It took a lot out of me. Feewwwww!

Get back to me when you can, as I'll be here all day.

Samples

[vhelp]

qaa,

Oh, NOW I think I understand your question/statements. . .

After re-reading it again.

You're saying that you already have the wint pci card. But, that
you thought? that you would need the DC10 in addition to your
wintv pci card? Answer: NO.

You can get pretty much the same quality caps from BOTH cards,
but the DC10 has a couple of features/capabilities that the wintv
pci cards do not (at least the one I have)

So, now I think I understand what you ment by useless.
Not my sample, he, he....

Ok. I got it.

Did I help clarify some or all things for you?

[qaa]

Vhelp

Thanks for all help. It is getting a bit clearer for me except resolutions.
Are you sure about DC10+ "can't cap at 352x480 " ?

I have both DC10+ and WINTV PCI in the same comp and it works well except sound problems.

You can download from HAUPPAGE web a lot of stuff for your WINTV including cap application.

OK, now I should put in practice what I learned from you here.

KR

[vhelp]

qaa,

First off, you got my feathers ruffed up in all.

>>Are you sure about DC10+ "can't cap at 352x480 " ?

Yes, I'm sure! "...You doubt me???" he,he...

Ok, first, you can cap at 352x480 (if you can figure it out)
with the DC10+ card, BUT you (and don't be fooled) will ONLY
get a cut (can't put into words) partial area. Seems that
the DC10 is cutting like, 50 % out of the whole 352x480.
I'd love to cap at 352x480 with the DC10 - Love too!
But it can't be done (completely/correctly). If you know
something that I DONT? Then by all means, please speak
up! Or else get out of my way, he, he, Just kidding!

Ok, I've got all sorts of IRQ conflicts when the dc10/wintv
and my (or any) sound card is in my system together.
No matter how I switch the cards around, nothing works
flowless'ly. something is always gonna give for that given
moment. I've ben there so many times, lesting to people
say, "Oh, you can fix your IRQ conficts". He, he....
Never happens with me!

I've ben to Hauppagues web site a zillion times, and D/L
many app and drivers from them. Allways something is NOT
going to work correctly/compatably, ie, need Windows 98SE
or ME or 2k or beta this, beta that... etc. All I end up doing
is making my system worse off then it already was (is)

Two good reasons why I prefer/like caping at 352x480:
1 - Takes up less HD space and encoding is quicker (mabe 3)
2 - Quality is good!

In short, if you want DVD quality, my suggestion is to copy/rip
dvd to your hard drive, and encode with dvd specs, but then, you'll
only get maybe 90% close to actual DVD quality. Don't forget,
you some some quality during the encoding process. hint, hint,
all those pics that get thrown away during the encoding process.

My encodes are for SVCD (or is it xSVCD, cause the res is lower)
and burning to CD to be played on TV. Naturally, when you view
any of mine sample clips, you see some quality loss on your pc
monitor. Because it's stretching my 352x480 encoded video to
fit your 1024x768 resolution or even higher on some peoples pc.

If I could ONLY find a software MPEG player that will play my
encoded MPEG clips at the quality that TMPGenc display in it's
window during it's encoding process! If only! But, there are NONE!

[bbb]

Vhelp,

Your movie clips links say:

Forbidden
/users/553b82af/bc/My+Documents/11-27-01-haup-02-14-STEntprs.rar?bcCtQT8AVZAZfMsG: Permission Denied

[vhelp]

bbb,

Thanks for letting me know.

I spoke with someone in the interneting field explained my situation.
In short, the reason people get these kinds of messages is because
too many people are at that site and be it, D/L files, or just browing
around, or whathave ya, once the limit is reach, you get that message.
I assure you, that if you wait a while, you'll be able to D/L some clips.

Might I make a suggestion?
Do this then, click the linked files you want to D/L, and drag to your
desktop (will create a shortcut) ie, RAR / R00 / R01
Next, when you think you had enough, double click the icon on your
desktop and a browser window should open up, ready to D/L the file.
If there is still too much traffic, you wont be able to D/L due to the
"access forbidden" error

I will post this at my site so others will know to do the same.
My site has ben jenerating a lot of visitors (even browswers)

[vhelp]

bbb, and others:

I just figured something else weared out.
But this will fix your D/L problems:

For each link, ie., RAR / R00 / R01
you have to right-click each and COPY the link
and then paste it in your browswer window. It
will work! I did it. Too many visitors or something
is causing this glitch, and again, my Apoligies!!
will post this at my web site

[qaa]

Vhelp

So co-existance problem DC/HAUP is not something special for my comp (Presario AMD 1GHz).
Do you know if I can use DC10 video-out in some way to play VCD/DVD on TV? I decided to put DC10 back on my older comp (PII 300MHz).

[vhelp]

qaa,

If I understood you correctly, he, he NO!
At least none that I no of.

The only thing reason I use the OUT for was when I wanted
to watch TV while capping it.

From what I understand, you're only getting the signal (video)
from the source, your Video In. Sort of like a Y cable bascially.

I have the rage Fury but the only way I can watch TV is, re-boot,
and make sure I have the OUT plugged into my TV. When windows
boots up, it senses this and set both outputs to display. The only
trouble is, both look Horrible!! And, compressed. Can't see why
ATI developed this kind of card like this. Unless, it was a glich
in my setup and I just need to set something correctly. If this
could be true, then great! I'm waiting for a response??
But, I doubt it.

Well, I have a bunch of other capture cards that needs my attention
and testing. But I'm not finished. Good thing I have 2 pc's.
I'm thinking of adding another one. Just for encoding!
So, 1 will Cap, the other will Encode and finally, I can relax and
surf here on this pc. He, he....
Oh, but I need the money, he, he... don't have (yet)