VHS Capture - results and questions/problems.

[EAO]

Back to the basics.

I have a WinFast 2000XP dlx card. Was not really able to play well - VHS capture - with the PVR software it came with - synch issues - so I'm learning - very slowly - virtualdub 1.5.7.

My system highlights are: 1800+, 768 2100ddr ram, 80 gig & 30 gig hd, Philips Acoustic Edge 5.1 sound card. I'm on an ASUS A7A266 Ali based motherboard. The sound card and video card are in slots 3 and 4 respectively, and they are both the only devices sharing IRQ 5. The pci latency is 64.

Trying to capture VHS. Tape quality is a little better than poor. I wanted to follow a tutorial that I found here to see the results. It's been interesting.

First problem is that I can only capture as 350 x 240 no matter what format is chosen. Everything else gets a 'error 418:Unsupported video format' message. I tried the custom settings. They won't take either. Anyone know why? The WinFast will let me capture in various settings, so I'm not sure if there is a connection. Solutions?

Second problem is when using 24 bit RGB, the capture has these grey vertical lines starting on the left and going over 3/4 of the capture. They go from top to bottom. The image in the background is black and white. (But it's a color vhs episode! ) The good news - the picture was in synch for the entire 15 minute capture! A first! I had used the force setting. Codec was huffyuv.

Then I switched the Image Format to YUY2. Perfect. No grey vertical lines.But still using the huffyuv I had dropped about 60 frames in three minutes - not good.

So I loaded up PicVideo MJPEG. Used YUY2. Set Quality to 20. Locked audio and video. The capture was decent. I'd say the drop in quality was about 20% off the original. Watchable, but reminded me of so-so antenna reception from my younger days.

With all these captures my cpu usage was never over 25%

Does anyone have a solution for why I can't use 24 bit RGB? I'd really like to see the quality difference using huffyuv.

[luvvbuzz]

i really dont see why you have audio sync issues when your system is more powerful than mine yet we use the same card.
i have an amd xp1600, on a jetway 266b mobo, main hd is 40gig, slave drive which i capture to is 30gig 7200rpm, i have 512mb ram and use windows 98se.
i have great captures, even when using high quality dvd format mpeg2. the winfast pvr software i have found to be really good, and easy to use. i mostly capture to mpeg2 as its best quality without huge avi files.
sorry i havent answered your questions but found it really strange that your card is giving you av sync probs when mine doesnt and is a lower powered pc.

[bottle-necked]

You might need to reinstall some of that stuff, like the capture drivers, codec, or VDub(?) If every program and every codec isn't working then it's probably the drivers. You might uninstall then reinstall your capture drivers and software.

Maybe from sharing the IRQ. You'd need to rearrange the cards then. Put the video in #1 and the sound card at the bottom and see what that does. Try disabling your firewire and ethernet ports in Device Manager.

..... Take the card back... maybe it's bad....

Good luck

[EAO]

I want to thank both of you for responding. Sometimes when you don't know a lot, I feel like my questions are being ignored or belittled, and then good people like you post.

I'm not sure about anything with this system other than the motherboard is a little finicky. I had tried switching the sound card slots and IRQ's three times already, but that was a good suggestion. I even have an Audigy 2 on order right now. Let me know if you think I should keep it after you read the rest of my post. Even with this very fresh Winxp install I'm having system issues that have creaped up since my posting.

But...

Some good news for me an hour ago. It seems all to be solved. I tried a real newbie program called WinDVR 3.0. It's no where near as versitle as Virtualdub, but it works incredibly well. The audio and video were perfectly synced on my 1/2 hour vhs to vcd recording . Best of all...it took no effort! This program is made for people like me , or anyone who just wants it easy. I barely had to glance at the instructions and the picture quality results are absolutely fantastic compared to anything I've tried. On this poor vhs tape, the best I'd say that the WinFast PVR could do was 85% of the original quality. Virtualdub was slighty better. But this program is somewhere over 90%...and it's in synch!!

The stereo sound has a very slight reverb - not bothersome on talking portions. I do notice it on music portions. I think it's caused by the dropped frames - the tape being so old and all. (Maybe it's the capture format?). But considering the source material and the capture format, I am beyond pleased with the results. Unfortunatly my component DVD player will not handle svcd, so I may try the svcd header trick soon. One day I look forward to eventually trying this program with a DVD burner when I can afford it.

Now as to why virtualdub will not cooperate. I'm sure most of it may be my fault, especially since our systems are similar. However, I'm done with it for now. Why waste your time tunneling through a mountain when it's easier to go around? A week of my life was enough to throw away.

Thanks again, and enjoy the holiday season that is fast approaching.

[bottle-necked]

Hay, VirtualDub is a bear expecially when one doesn't know all the gismos in there. I only use that program for speciality stuff I need to do and then I'm not so sure I even like it anyway. It did fix a couple of AVI files I had some problems with but I later deleted them anyway, so heck... It's tough and I think it was meant to be that way. haha

Capture templates can sometimes be touchy to adjustments. I have a routine I've developed for my captures. I like to know CPU usage for a given setting and how different capture applications and templates deal with my drives and different system setups. Windows XP is a great OS because it offers tools like 'perfmon.msc' with settings to monitor drive rates, memory usage, etc, that makes tweaking and problem solving much easier.

I had several capture quality problems when I first started but eventually found out my old Live card had problems. When I replaced it with my newer Augidy2 card most of my problems went away and my quality level came way up. My reject rate right now is very low compared to what it used to be.

Your 'reverb' problem may be nothing by overmodulation. Try different input volume settings during a test capture. I have a shortcut to my master volume control program in my quick launch bar for easy fast access. I usually start my audio recording application (Creative MediaSource) put it in record mode and monitor my input audio signal while taking note of it's record level meters. I adjust my sources volume level by those meters and now I have very little audio problems.

Things are too hard to learn and too easy to forget. That's why we all try to help each other.

Best of luck and keep cranking out those tests. Take some notes too, cause if you're like me you'll forget pretty soon these days.