ati wonder ve help???

[swiss]

i just got me card about a week ago. i looked at every tutorial and ran trough them all but cant find one with nice resolution. i use mmc right now cause it seems ot be the easyiest. i was wondering what program do yall recommend for best capture. also i installed the BtWincap drivers but all the video in every program is black and white after i installed them. wanted to get 720x480. but if anyone has any suggetions on what program or how to get the drivers to work or anything that might help me in my never ending quest please help. thanks.

[reboot]

Did you install the BTWincap drivers according to the instructions on the site?
Does that card even have a Conexant BT chip?

[swiss]

i looked on the site and the instruction were to install and make sure that the correct card was installed, and so i think i did it right. as far as having a Conexant BT chip i have no idea how do i check.

[reboot]

Look on the card.
If you don't choose the right card, and the right tuner during install, those drivers won't work.

[NIRVANAX5X]

I use AVI_IO to cap with along with the above drivers works great.Follow the installation right and try removing all the ATI crap.It never soiled my system.

[swiss]

i got the drivers to work but what settings do you recommend for AVI_IO. thanks

[swiss]

i know im asking alot of questions but i not really getting the results i want. what im trying to do is capture music videos to play in my car on a 6.5' lcd. im capturing trough windvr mpeg2 640*480 video and mpeg 1 layer 2 44.1khz 16 bit stereo audio, but capture with windvdr then make a dvd trough ulead videostudio 8 the video isnt that good and the audio is wrose. if anyone has any ideas there greatly appreciated. thanks

[FulciLives]

i know im asking alot of questions but i not really getting the results i want. what im trying to do is capture music videos to play in my car on a 6.5' lcd. im capturing trough windvr mpeg2 640*480 video and mpeg 1 layer 2 44.1khz 16 bit stereo audio, but capture with windvdr then make a dvd trough ulead videostudio 8 the video isnt that good and the audio is wrose. if anyone has any ideas there greatly appreciated. thanks

First of all you are going about it all wrong.

This kind of capture card (if it is a BT chipset capture card) is not very well suited for direct-to-MPEG capture. You should capture first to an AVI file then convert to MPEG-2 DVD spec.

Secondly if you ARE going to capture straight to MPEG-2 DVD spec then do it right.

For NTSC the resolution should be 720x480 or 352x480
For PAL the resolution should be 720x576 or 352x576
640x480 is NOT proper!

Audio should be AC-3 format but most MPEG capture programs only do MP2 (MPEG LAYER 2) audio capture. If so then you need to capture it at 16-bit 48k Stereo audio (not 44.1k). After you capture you should convert the MP2 audio to AC-3 audio before authoring it (some DVD authoring programs will do that for you ... most will not. One that does is TMPGEnc DVD Author but only with the additional AC-3 plug-in).

I don't know how good a program it is but Ulead DVD Movie Factory 3 Disc Creater Edition is very cheap (I just saw it at Office Depot tonight for $39.99) and it can capture in MPEG and do AC-3 audio. So this one program can capture and author a DVD with proper AC-3 audio without the need to use another program (although you should burn with DVD Decrypter instead as that is the best burning program but thankfully DVD Decrypter is free).

A BIG NOTE ... even with good decent software (and a working BTwincap driver) this type of capture card will not give you the best quality WHEN you capture direct to MPEG-2 DVD spec.

As I said before, for best quality, you either do an AVI capture then convert to MPEG-2 DVD spec OR you get another capture card that can better do MPEG-2 DVD spec captures. The best is probably the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 or one of the ATI AIW (All-In-Wonder) cards. Even with these you will still have to do MP2 audio to AC-3 audio conversion.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[reboot]

Fulcilives is absolutely correct.
I've just been through the wringer, with a cheap BT878 card, and the absolute best TV capture I could do, is using virtualdub, 320x240, with the Picvideo codec, set at 20.
Encode with Mainconcept, Canopus, or Tmpgenc.
I never did solve my audio sync problems with it, and had to manually resync each capture.
I just got the Hauppauge PVR-250 and I'm never looking back! The video quality is easily twice as good as the other card ever was, no re-encoding needed, and I can capture directly to full D1, AND I can use my computer for other things while capturing.
IMHO there's no reason to purchase a "soft" capture card of any sort, not if you want some quality.

[swiss]

thanks for the responses ive decided to try to capture xvid with vdub, and encode with tmpgenc if anyone has any pointer that could help me please share. thanks

[reboot]

Don't use Xvid.
Try and capture in full D1 with no dropped frames.
If you get dropped frames, you'll have to go to a smaller resolution.
Get Showshifter (demo download) which will install the Picvideo mjpeg codec, which you can then use in vdub (or just use Showshifter to cap).

[FulciLives]

thanks for the responses ive decided to try to capture xvid with vdub, and encode with tmpgenc if anyone has any pointer that could help me please share. thanks

Don't capture with XviD.

Instead capture with the HuffyUV codec (free) or the PICVideo MJPEG codec (not free).

HuffyUV tends to be a bit better picture quality wise but it takes more CPU power and more HDD space.

PICVideo MJPEG tends to be a little bit lighter on the CPU power and takes less HDD space. Use the "19" quality setting and all of this is true plus you will be hard pressed to see any major quality difference from HuffyUV when it comes to picture quality.

HuffyUV and PICVideo MJPEG are often cited (for good reason) as the best two AVI capture codecs (for PCI type capture cards that have no hardware assist for DV or MPEG etc.).

XviD takes too much CPU power and frankly sucks picture quality wise when used in this way (real time capture). The XviD codec was never intended to be used this way.

Since you intend to re-encode to MPEG you want the highest quality capture you can get because the better the capture the better the end MPEG encode ... plus the capture is a temp file anyways so if HDD space is an issue ... it's not like that huge capture file will be on your HDD for long since it can be deleted once the MPEG encoding is done.

There are all sorts of problems with capturing direct to XviD especially when you intend to re-encode the capture to MPEG. I tried to give you an idea as to some of them. I don't mean to sound overly harsh ... I am just trying to be helpfull.

It is a bad idea.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

*** EDIT ***
When using the BTwincap driver the proper A/R for a capture is 712x480 for the NTSC format. When you import this into TMPGEnc you can crop it to 704x480 and then have TMPGEnc center the image (adding 8 pixels of black to each side making it 720 in width). As for a capture program you can try VirtualVCR (free) or iuVCR (not free but usually works better).

[reboot]

I also had good results with the Lagarith lossless codec.

Fulcilives: Great minds think alike?

[FulciLives]

I also had good results with the Lagarith lossless codec.

Fulcilives: Great minds think alike?

Yes but you beat me to the punch because I took like freaking forever ... when I started my post about NOT using XviD you had not posted your similiar response yet ... I just took to damn long typing mine up!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I need to learn to post more like LordSmurf. His response would have been simply, "Do not use XviD." LOL 8)

[swiss]

thanks to both of yall again for all the help and direction. ive decided to go with showshifter. the quality for divx tv best is pretty good and i guess i can live with the audio. might upgrade to pro for the divx pro plugins. but thanks to you both.