having a problem capturing mpeg2 footage.

[MidnightMike]

Hi, I have been having problems recording mpeg2 with my winyv tuner card whenever I record I'll test some TV recordings with with the mpeg2 codec using ffdshow and press stop on my wintv2000 application. it will try to play the video but it says unable to render the video I can play all other video formats on my PC accept mpeg2 is their someway I can get my hands on a mpeg2 encoder with the codec ? I tried nvdidia mpeg2 decoder pack but it doesn't work right. also I am awarte my wintv go PCI tuner card does not have mpeg2 codec encoder intregated in it that's probably my worst downfall for this TV tuner card.

[redwudz]

I'm confused.... I thought the WinTV card was a hardware MPEG-2 encoder card, if we are talking about the same thing. What's the manufacturer and model number? Do you mean the Hauppaguge card?

The rest of that sounds like you have your MPEG-2 playback codec messed up. You might try VLC and see if it plays the video with no problems as it uses it's own codecs. If so, you likely have a codec problem.

[jameshgross]

Pardon, but what is a winyv tuner card?
I could not find a web reference.

[MidnightMike]

Sorry about that james..... I made a slight typo I mean't to say wintv.
also redwuz I have a wintv 878board pci card also I'm telling you that any mpeg2 video I record won't play back on any applications including VLC. I think my problem is I don't have a mpeg2 codec mpeg2 encoder to go with it that is the reason why I asked for help finding this codec as my hardware doesn't include it. If I had the codec and the encoder it would save me alot of time and trouble converting back and fourth and unecessary recording during the day when I need to use my PC most at that time.

[redwudz]

Here is one application that is popular: VirtualVCR

And you might look at the this listing directly below it: btwincap WDM Video Capture Driver

But if you indeed have a 433Mhz Celeron, and 256MB RAM and a single 80GB HD, you have a bigger problem. That CPU is really too slow for most direct capturing at a decent bitrate. MPG-2 is very unlikely. You may be able to capture AVI (Possibly PicVideo) at high enough bitrate to get some quality, but even that depends on your hard drive space and speed. Then you could encode it to MPEG-2.

If you can afford it, I would look at a hardware MPEG-2 capture card. You will avoid a lot of frustration that way. The Hauppaguge 150, while not the best, is inexpensive and will make your projects a lot easier. And it will work fairly well with a slower CPU and limited hard drive space.

As mentioned, if those are your specs, that is likely a major part of the problem.

[MidnightMike]

Thanks for your help but I can't afford $99-149 capture card right now. like I said in my other topic I'm looking for work and when I get another job I will be able to get a faster computer and finally be able to recycle my six year old computer I know that joker is slow but I have to bear with it.

[redwudz]

You can make do with what you have. I used to have a Celeron 433 and a similar card. If you really want MPEG, you might drop your capture resolution down and use MPG-1, VCD or at least MPEG-2, 1/2 D1 settings. You will see them in "What is' DVD and VCD the upper left. If you want a little better quality, do a AVI capture if your card will permit it. PicVideo for one is good quality with a lighter CPU load than MPEG.

You just have to find a combination of settings that works for you. The disadvantage of AVI is that it needs to be encoded if you want it on a DVD. I got around that when I had a slower computer by running the encodes overnight.

There's always a way.