IS ANYBODY CAPTURING FROM DIGTAL TV?

[baker]

Is anybody here capturing from digital tele? I am, and not geting a good encode at all. No matter what filters I use there is always too much noise from te digital tv source to convert to svcd properly.

I am capturing 480x576 in vdub than frameserving out and into cce.

Anybody with any sudgjestions on filters or anything else will greatly be appreciated.

Baker

[baker]

COOMON GUYS I NED HELP!

Baker

[vhelp]

baker,

I cap from satallite, Dirctv that is. It's great quality source too!!

* what exactly is it (show'wise) that you're capping??
- - why? cause maybe it's just the show's quality that sucks, unless it's for
every tv show you record??
* how are you encoding it, ie, interlace, de-intelacing it, ivtc, inv32,
23.976fps than 32pdn, etc.
* I forgot the next question, he, he....


* I've done some StarTrek E episodes, and in it's plain capture (via my
ATW card) it's ok, though they do jimmy the quality (color, noise, etc)
But I've ben able to somewhat clean it up and make it look real good.
I could show you a small sample of one of these STE clips, but I want ta
see a sample from you first.


* Can you post a small clip so we (I) can see what you're talking about.


so, COOMON, answer.
-vhelp

PS: oh, I 4got, U don't like me much now, but that's ok.

[Dave B]

Most of my VCDs are made from digital TV captures. I unfortunately have to capture my "digital" video conventionally (via an analogue capture card) which is what I presume you are doing aswell? Roll on direct MPEG video output from our digital STBs!

For the record I was very unhappy with my capture quality until I started capturing at a full vertical resolution (576 for PAL, 480 for NTSC). I also found that Donald Graft's "Smart Smoother" filter for VirtualDub does a fantastic job of reducing video noise (and the MPEG artificats in digital TV) without blurring the overall image.

Of course you should also make sure that the video is as clean as possible when it hits your capture card. Steer clear of the TV input and ensure you are using either the SVHS or composite jacks on the card.

[tjclement]

I have a very nice system of capture that I mentioned in another post. I use my Sony TRV-720 Digital 8 Video Camera to capture from my digital tv connection (via VDSL), that comes in on my phone line. Seems that you can connect to the gateway box using analog input into the camera, and the output is native for the camera (720x480). The result is a DVD quality video, and 2 channel stereo sound. There is AC3 digital sound output available on the gateway box, but I have as yet not figured out how to capture the video and 5.1 surround sound at the same time. My suggestion is that to get the best capture, you must have good equipment to do it with. I also have a Hauppage TV capture card, but it captures sound only in mono, plus the video can only go to 640x480. The camera is the most desireable since firewire allows me to control the camera as well. One other thing is, I can capture video directly to MPEG using CAMpegRT, that converts avi to mpeg on the fly. No more HUGE files to contend with, and they import directly into the software I use.

[t0nito]

Well I usually capture from my digital satellite receiver through my analog capture card and the final result is quite good I usually use huffy's codec for better results even though it fills up my disk space in a flash. When encoding your SVCD be sure that you choose high quality in Motion precision search and that you have field order correct if you wish to preserve interlacing in you video.

[baker]

I am away loking for smart smoother and i am capturing via my digital satellite with an av connection from the box to my pc. The quailty is the same on the pc as it is on the tv but its almost impossible to encode because of the large ammount of mpeg artifacts.

Thanks for the comments,
Baker

[FiEND]

depends on your cable channels/provider perhaps. so many of my digital channels are so poor I wouldn't bother attempting to capture.

when I watch TV on these channels (not movie channels) its like they were encoded in mpeg1. text has visible jpg crap around it and scene changes have alot of ghosting junk.

doesnt help i got a good and large TV - prob look normal on a 32"

I will capture and post a image after my cd is done.

[FiEND]

OK i saved these as .PNG as not to introduce any more jagginess - so they are kinda large, 275Kb and 250Kb.

this first image is a 200% zoom of a digital cable channel first frame after a scene change.
1st frame

this second one is same zoom, after a bit of frames and where the video is almost at a dead stop.

stopped

recorded @ 720*480 huffyuv - I didn't deinterlace or do anything, just copied source frame from vdub.

you can see the bad compression I get from my digital channels - but movie channels are much better compression. they look and capture perfect.

[binkyaut]

I'm currently capturing off of my DirecTivo, and getting great results with an ATI Radeon AIW. I just want to point out that if you are capturing off of Digital Cable, there is a good chance that the basic broadcast and cable channels aren't actually transmitted to you digitally. They usually only digitally broadcast the premium, and step-up packages of channels...

Just wondering, does anybody know if the new line of HD VCRs from Mitsu and JVC are compatible with capture software from the computer? Just curious since they have the firewire interconnects on them. Thanks.

[dphirschler]

It seems some (digital) cable operators seem to think that 2k is enough bandwidth per channel. Call them and complain that you are noticing digital artifacts in your video. It should be at least 3k. That is still smaller than the bandwidth used by analog channels (7k I think). They may balk and tell you they cant change that, but they can! They are trying to keep it low so they can cram as many customers on that cable line as they can before upgrading (or buying additional) equipement which can be quite expensive. But my take is, if they are gonna charge you more for "digital" cable, and claim it is worth it for its "superior digital picure", then it needs to be at least as good as analog! It's more than resolution, it is bandwidth too.

When I worked at Scientific Atlanta, it used to bug me on our test system (which was at 2k bandwidth), every time ESPN showed highlights from any live sports event. The digital artifacts drove me CRAZY!!

Off my soap box now...


Darryl

[nick101181]

Yes I capture from digital cable also. For some reason even with digital cable i still get clear lines in some channels. I notice if I capture at 352X240 low motion divx at about 1200 kbps, it looks sorta decent and also blurs the clear lines into the rest of the pic. I really need to break down and buy a cable signal booster.