What Software is out there that's really good for capturing?

[TheHour]

So basically here's my story...

I've been capturing with WME, but now I'm using Quicktime Pro to do my podcasts, so I want to switch capturing programs as Quicktime Pro doesn't recognize WMVs. And if I encode WMVS, they look like crap.

So I've tried a WACK load of software, all kinda buggy. I thought VirtualDub would be my saviour, but other than uncompressed AVIs (which are a bit too big to handle) the codecs seem to all screw up (audio lagging, video lagging, etc etc)

So my question...

What Software is out there that's really good for capturing? And, the software must output files that Quicktime can recognize. I can't seem to find one that'll work and I've downloaded a ton.

I'm using an Osprey 210 or 230 Capture Card(I know, not very good).

[Baldrick]

I changed your topic subject, just software help doesn't say anything abour your topic. You can change it yourself by clicking on the edit-button on your post.

[DB83]

Update your profile to show what system you have - CPU, Number of disk drives etc.

Very often it's not the software but the system that creates bad captures. For example, capturing with a single drive that also runs the OS is not the best approach.

[TheHour]

Sorry, pretty new, I downloaded Everest and posted everything I could find.

Pretty sure I just have one drive, C: obviously. I have a few externals, but I use them for others.

suggestions?

[DB83]

Well I do not think anyone here would recommend you try to capture to an external drive.

The problem with capturing to one drive is that as well as writing to that drive for the capture file, the OS will also be trying to write it's own data at the same time. Something has to give and it's not the OS.

So if you are serious about capturing, the first upgrade to consider is another internal Hard Drive.

Did the capture card come with any software ? Quite often that will be specially configured for your card and could give good results.

If you do not want to capture un-compressed (and that can be problematic even with a separate drive), the next best option is DV through a firewire connection. You would not use your card for this.

With the hardware sorted, there is plenty of worthwhile capture software. Personally, I swear by Ulead and you can download trial versions before you commit yourself to a purchase. With this you can capture as DV, Mpeg1 or Mpeg2 and even as Windows Media.

But even before this, if you have not already doen so, take a look at Windows Movie Maker which you already have on your computer.

It's a huge topic really and cannot be answered conclusively. But read this site as there are lots of tutorials.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Well I do not think anyone here would recommend you try to capture to an external drive.

I think a large number *would* recommend it. Many pros do this. I *only* capture to external USB2.0 drives. Never had an issue and they are portable - I can capture in one location (e.g., in the field with a laptop) and take the drives to another more powerful computer back at base.

[DB83]

OK. This is not the topic to argue this case. I was simply trying to illustrate the opinion often expressed here about USB capture devices over firewire.

I have 2 usb2.0 externals attached to this PC yet I find them extremely slow when transfering data and would never risk them to do any capturing.

The OP may like to try it with your obvious actual experience.

But to come back to his original request........

[TheHour]

So the idea is to have the Capture software on my original internal drive but capture the output file to the new internal drive?

I'm still looking for a reliable software. WME came with the Osprey card, but I find that WMVs aren't very good when you want to encode to different types (mov, mp4, etc etc) and they eventually look like crap.

I've been doing this for a while now, but we are redesigning our site with a FLV player, and going from WMV to FLV is a terrible encoding process. I'd like to go AVI to FLV...

Maybe I can go uncompressed if I get a new internal hard drive...we'll see if the budget allows.

Thanks guys!

[JohnnyMalaria]

WME is capable of producing very high quality video.

I can use WME to capture from DV and, in realtime, stream via my local network in high quality and/or convert to WMV at full DV resolution and frame rate. However, I am using a Pentium D 2.8GHz which though not cutting edge isat least twice as powerful as your P4 3.0GHz - most likely more.

Re hard drives - yes, put all your software and the OS on one drive and use the other for capturing.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I have 2 usb2.0 externals attached to this PC yet I find them extremely slow when transfering data and would never risk them to do any capturing.

I couldn't agree more that data transfer rates for external drives (USB2.0 and FireWire) are much lower compared to internal drives. These lower rates are still much higher than that required for DV or HDV capture. Assuming a poor performance of say 200Mbps for USB2.0 (half the rated) that's considerably higher than the 25Mbps required for DV/HDV. I've successfully captured three DV streams at the same time to the same drive without issues. BUT - if I have to transfer the files to another drive then it becomes painful. I rarely have to do that, though, since I use them from their original location in my NLE. The bottleneck in such a case is the CPU activity of the NLE rather than the disk I/O.

[TheHour]

WME is capable of producing very high quality video.

I can use WME to capture from DV and, in realtime, stream via my local network in high quality and/or convert to WMV at full DV resolution and frame rate. However, I am using a Pentium D 2.8GHz which though not cutting edge isat least twice as powerful as your P4 3.0GHz - most likely more.

Re hard drives - yes, put all your software and the OS on one drive and use the other for capturing.

Agreed, I have no issues with the WMVs themselves...

But my issue lies when
a) I want QuickTime Pro to be able to read the file, without encoding it in another step
b) encodings WMVs to other formats (mov, mp4, flv, etc) tends to look like crap

[poisondeathray]

Is there a reason why you want/need a quicktime pro compatible file?

What is the quality of the WMV generated from your Osprey 210 (specs, bitrate)? Can you adjust the quality? (Remember garbage in =garbage out)

How have you been encoding these (what process/software) to other formats to make them "look like crap"?

I assume that the Osprey cannot output other formats, and that you don't want to spend on a better capture card?

[DB83]

WMV's can be encoded into other formats without them looking 'crap'.

It could be the software you are using and/or the quality of the original source wmv. Frame size and data rate are important. You are converting one compressed format to another. Alwys best to start with the least possible compresion, without comprimising quality, and that's where DV comes in.

[edDV]

I'd add a warning about capturing to external USB 2.0 drives. Although it can be done on a resonably fast desktop, older slower laptops may have drops when the CPU gets busy doing something else or when the internal drive is busy doing something else. Best to keep hands off during the capture.

Desktop internal drives are much more reliable for capture. You can even capture multiple streams to the same drive or copy a file while capturing DV without drops.

[TheHour]

Is there a reason why you want/need a quicktime pro compatible file?

What is the quality of the WMV generated from your Osprey 210 (specs, bitrate)? Can you adjust the quality? (Remember garbage in =garbage out)

How have you been encoding these (what process/software) to other formats to make them "look like crap"?

I assume that the Osprey cannot output other formats, and that you don't want to spend on a better capture card?

The reason I want to use QuickTime Pro, is to limit the number of steps in producing the podcast. Quicktime Pro can take the source file and marry it to a pre roll ad, without any other steps.

The quality of the WMV, I thought, was pretty good through WME. It's currently at a bit rate of 5000K with a frame rate of 29.97 under a Windows Media Video 9 Compression Codec. I then use a variety of WME and Cleaner XL to produce the Podcast and Files for the website. I used Sorenson to produce a FLV from WMV and it looked terrible.

The Osprey card can, its just about find the software that will allow me to do it. Maybe its my computer, but I've tried VirtualDub and only a few codecs look decent, and QuickTime Pro won't read them.

[TheHour]

WMV's can be encoded into other formats without them looking 'crap'.

It could be the software you are using and/or the quality of the original source wmv. Frame size and data rate are important. You are converting one compressed format to another. Alwys best to start with the least possible compresion, without comprimising quality, and that's where DV comes in.

oh, agreed. The issue is that I'm grabbing my source from a television feed and a beta player. The source files are about 10-15 minutes long, so uncompressed, I'm looking at a ridiculous file size that a lot of software can't handle (or handle it poorly)

[poisondeathray]

Sorenson will give you mediocre quality.

Here is a suggestion (Assuming your 5000kbps WMV output files are decent quality; and not VC-1 advanced profile WMV files):

Use avidemux to encode using x264 video, AAC audio. You can use a 2-pass encode, change various settings, use filters etc... and save into an mp4 container - these are similar specs to what is used in the high quality apple movie trailers. I've generated very high quality encodes from various sources using this method that work with quicktime pro

[TheHour]

Sorenson will give you mediocre quality.

Here is a suggestion (Assuming your 5000kbps WMV output files are decent quality; and not VC-1 advanced profile WMV files):

Use avidemux to encode using x264 video, AAC audio. You can use a 2-pass encode, change various settings, use filters etc... and save into an mp4 container - these are similar specs to what is used in the high quality apple movie trailers. I've generated very high quality encodes from various sources using this method that work with quicktime pro

I like it, but I can do the same process with Cleaner.

The idea is that I'm trying to cut down steps, streamline it so if I leave this job, the next guy can step in and do it fairly easily. So I'm looking for a way to capture right into a format that can be used in Quicktime Pro. So essentially I only use 1 or 2 programs for the entire process.

[DB83]

I've just done a little experiment.

Taken a 1 minute Mpeg2-dvd quality capture and used my video editor to make a 352*288(512 kbps) wmv file.

The mpeg was 88 meg. The wmv was 4.61 meg and is perfectly acceptable quality (I would not increase the frame as quality will drop.

I do not usually work with flash but just imported the wmv into super and created a 320*240 flv at 288 kbps(3.21 meg). Again. it looks, and sounds, fine to me. Of course that file size might not be acceptable to you and I do not know just how low you can go without it comprimising quality.

If you want to see these samples then I can upload them for you.

[TheHour]

What program did you use to capture?

[DB83]

As I said earlier, I swear by Ulead software. There is better out there but this stuff is easy to use.

Ulead Media Studio (but you can do exactly the same with the simpler Video Studio) did the capture over firewire and directly transcoded to Mpeg2 at 720*576 , 8000 kbps. It also handles DV as well.

The editor part then created the WMV using one of the presets from within the program.

I think the latest version of VS can also create FLVs so it's then just one program and one less step.

[TheHour]

As I said earlier, I swear by Ulead software. There is better out there but this stuff is easy to use.

Ulead Media Studio (but you can do exactly the same with the simpler Video Studio) did the capture over firewire and directly transcoded to Mpeg2 at 720*576 , 8000 kbps. It also handles DV as well.

The editor part then created the WMV using one of the presets from within the program.

I think the latest version of VS can also create FLVs so it's then just one program and one less step.

I'm not so much worried about creating the FLV, as we have a watch folder that can do that.

It's more the QuickTime Pro step...marrying 2 files and outputing a podcast compatible video.

Thats why I'm trying to find a codec on VirtualDub that will work for QuickTime Pro.

Edit: So I found a possible solution. Outputting a Microsoft Mpeg4 Verson 3 out of VirtualDub, and then download the 3ivx codec so that quicktime pro can read it.

[DB83]

So what in your eyes is a 'podcast compatable format'

Are you talking about mp4 ? If so, this has already been adressed. But again, any up-to-date video editor will create an mp4 container video as it's just the matter of using the right codec (probably H264 for the video and AAC for the audio)