I have a Hauppauge WinTV 878/9 TV tuner card. I can use it to capture and compress video using XviD and LAME MP3 in realtime using virtualdub. My problem is that under these conditions, I cannot get the maximum capture resolution above 400 X 300. The only way I can do this is using huffyuv, which I'd prefer to avoid. I've tried turning off the preview, which doesn't work. I've tried switching to YuY2, which doesn't work. The slightest increase causes Xvid to freeze and virtualdub to crash.

At some other forums people have been saying that the reason I'm seeing these problems is because this cards maximum capture is 320 X 240. This is NOT TRUE because the huffyuv codec captures at full 640 X 480 with no problems. I suspect the problem is that my CPU. When compressing in XviD and LAME in real time at 400X300 my CPU load is around 70%. When I increase it to 416X312 my CPU goes to about 90% and when I stop the capture, Virtualdub freezes up. When using huffyuv and LAME I can go to 640X480 and my CPU is running at about 30%. So obviously my card CAN capture at 640X480. Does this mean my problem is my system?

Is there anyway for me to capture and compress with XviD and LAME MP3 in realtime using virtualdub above 400 X 300 resolution? Should I have to upgrade my CPU?



System specs...

Athlon XP 1800
512 MB PC2100
geforce 3
Hauppauge WinTv 878 using latest wDM drivers 3.46
Shuttle AK/38 Motherboard

XviD 1.0.3
Virtualdub 1.6.11