Huffyuv .AVI corrupt on all but capture computer

[Shepster]

I have an odd problem I can't explain and can't seem to fix. I'm hoping
someone here will be able to tell me what stupid mistake I'm making.

I'm capturing a series of VHS tapes to disk for later processing into
divx or DVDs. Here's my setup...

JVC HR-S9911U --> DigitalVideo TBC-1000 --> SignVideo Proc Amp --> Sima
SCC-2 Color Corrector --> AVI Radeon 9700 AIW.

I'm capturing at 640x480 using the huffyuv 2.1.1 - CCE SP Patch v0.2.2
codec to a 250GB local hard disk separate from my OS hard disk. The
computer is a P4/3GHz machine from Alienware running WinXP SP2. I'm
using the latest version ATI video drivers and ATI Multimedia Center
(both downloaded from ATI in the last two weeks).

A typical capture results in an AVI file about 20GB in size. When I view
these on the Alienware system they look just fine! They play fine in
VirtualDub and any other viewer I've thrown at them. I can convert the
.avi to DivX5 or MPEG2 (on the Alienware system) and the results are
great! However, if I take one of these AVIs and try to work with it on
any of my other computers (I have three Dells -- P4/3.4GHz with Nvidia
G-Force 6800 cards also running WinXP SP2) the video is horribly
distorted! The form of the distortion is weird. The audio sounds fine
but the video is messed up. The predominant distortion is blurry,
multi-color rectangles of various shapes and sizes that constantly
flicker over the full face of the image. The rectangles are large
(covering up to maybe 1/4 of the viewing area) and are somewhat
transparent. The VHS content can be seen (albeit distorted) "behind"
them. VirtualDub shows this as does Windows Media Player. Opening the
file through AVISynth makes no difference.

I've checked the AVIs with G-Spot. It typically reports them as "OK"
even though for the large AVIs it reports the wrong size (VirtualDub
reports the correct size). Occasionally G-Spot does report one as
corrupt but I'm suspicious since the same codec and same software
(VirtualDub 1.5.10) has no trouble with the "corrupt" file on my
Alienware system.

There is no and has never been a prior version of the Huffyuv codec on
the Dells. I had to install 2.1.1 there before VirtualDub would open
the files at all. The installed codec is exactly the same one installed
on the Alienware system.

I've recorded small snippets of a few seconds duration using the same
process as above, thinking it might be a size related issue. The
resulting AVI (about 100MB) has the same "flashing rectangles"
distortion as do the larger files. G-Spot reports them as "OK" and even
gets the size right! The same problem occurs when I try to play them on
my system out at work (an older, Xeon system... not sure what video
card).

So far the only system that seems to be able to play and manipulate
these AVIs correctly is the system on which they were made -- my
Alienware machine.

I thought maybe they were just displaying funny (video card problem) but
perhaps the video data was actually being read okay so, on one of the
Dells, I processed one of the short snippets into a DivX5 using
VirtualDub. The result had the same distortions. On the other hand, a
divx made on the Alienware system of the same snippet plays just fine on
all the Dells.

I've updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest version (8.1.9.8 released
Dec 10, 2005) and that had no effect.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? I have a lot of tapes
to process and I'd really like to devote the Alienware system to
capturing and use the other computers to encode with.


Any help would be most appreciated!

[mikiem]

Well, could try capturing to another format besides HUFFYUV, which might be the most practical solution. Shouldn't hurt quality really, as some think it's getting a bit old, & newer technology/methods have been improving.

If you're setting the codec options the same on all machines, I think I'd check to see what direct show stuff is getting used on your Alienware PC vs the Dells -- basically try to duplicate the software environment. I'd also google for prob with nvidia & HUFFYUV, and double check my file transfer.

[Soopafresh]

Might the other machines have FFdshow installed? If I recall, FFdshow has Huffyuv decode capability checked by default.

Lagarith is another lossless codec, and makes files about 1/3rd smaller than Huffyuv. Not quite as fast, however. Still, if you're out of options, it works quite well.

[dphirschler]

I once had a similar wierd problem. The solution was to install the same version of Virtual Dub on both systems. I was using Virtual Dub for viewing and editing.


Darryl

[Shepster]

Thank you to everyone who responded!

I did find my problem thanks to mikiem who mentioned "setting the codec options the same on all machines". That seems obvious, but I'd forgotten that huffyuv even had options to set. On my Alienware system, through my video capture software, I set "Field Threshold" value to 480 from its default value of 288. I'd forgotten that. I went back in on the Dells, opened the codec configuration window and discovered the Dell installations still had the defaults set. I changed the value from 288 to 480 and now everything works fine. I should have been able to figure this out for myself. I do appreciate your giving me the mental nudge I needed!