video capture newbie

[twolf]

Ok, my system is a 1.33ghz tbird, 768 megs Ram, 2 20gb plus 40 maxtors-7200 rpms..soundblaster live and right now an asus v7700deluxe vid card.
2 parts to my questions.
Part 1.

Am looking to upgrade a little to be able to start transferring my vhs home movies to dvd. Am planning on getting the new Philips dvd+rw drive, the new ATI All in wonder Radeon 8500 video card.

question 1-will this be enough? Or do I need to ugrade my drives as well and if so, to 10k rpms, or scsi or what?

question 2-will the ATI video card capture video and sound thru the same port or is there something else I have to do to record both up at the same time? Not sure how the video and sound go up together.

question 3-Will the software that comes with the new vid card be enough or do I need to get other software and for what?

question 4-If sound and video won't go up on the same cable how do I do that and what do I need.

question 5- have read posts here about hauppage, avi-io, and virtualdub...what do these software titles do and are they needed in place of or to complement the software for video capture that comes with the vid card.

Part 2
I fooled around a little bit with video capture last nite with my present system..the asusv7700 video card and the live video capture sofware that came with it. I hooked the svideo into the back of the card, ran a splitter from the vcr audio out and the video out into that svideo cable into the card. Hit play and record and was able to watch the video playing as it recorded..but no sound. Also it was saying something like 640(i.e.) frames captured, 222 frames dropped. The capture was set to 30fps. could only save in the avi format

Question 1-Why no sound? How to I get the sound up with the video...I would like my daughter's lip movements to correspond with her words...not like an old b movie where the lips aren;t synch'ed with the sound.

question 2-Why the frame drops? and so many? I have described my system above...how do I tell what programs are running in the background and shut them down? How else can I remedy the dropped frames and monitor to find out why?

question 3-what is the wintv?

Also the posts I have read pretty much were from last year and I know that technology has advanced, so not sure what all is needed today as compared to last year.

am assuming the wintv card is a pci card. do I need it as well as vid card?

Will the new card I am getting the Radeon 8500AIW work for what I want?

Also just read at wintv site about there wintv pvr...did not know you could burn movies, home movies and such to a regular cd and then play in a dvd player..is this really possible? and how is the quality compared to a dvd disk recording?
thanks...t

Also fooled around with it and tried some of the above recommendations..




I tried with virtualdub software and the asus vid card live vid capture...

my frame rate drops were 298 captured 274 dropped with virtual

and 274 captured and 1503 dropped in same time period of 45 secs

That was at resolutions for the avi above 325x240 and capture rate of 30-50 fps.

when i dropped the avi resol to 325x240 and capture rate to 15fps, no dropped frames.


questions... isn't the higher resolution preferred for better quality?

If so, then how do you go about getting it to capture at the higher resolution?

Why must the capture rate be so low? I would thing the faster the capture rate the less frames dropped and also the better the quality. It was only using 40% of cpu and I had all progs in the back shut down.

Is it possible to capture at higher resolutions and how?

Still no sound going up..how to do that? using svideo cable...thanks...t

what is the best resolution and format to capture in?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: twolf on 2001-10-14 22:13:08 ]</font>

[jvilhauer]

Wow - Questions, questions, questions! But you've come to the right place to get them answered. This is a great site.

I can help you with a few of them.

The reason you are not capturing sound could be:
1. The S-Video connector only carries video, not audio. you need to connect the audio out(s) of your camcorder, vcr, etc. to the line in of your sound card. You also then need to go to the Windows Volume Control, select Options>Properties, Adjust Volume for: Recording, then select the Line In and adjust the input (recording) volume.
2. Most applications force you to select whether to capture audio or not. Keep in mind that the processor will need to work harder to capture Video+Audio, and that may result in more dropped frames, etc. - Many people make 2 passes - capture only video, then only audio, then merge and synchronize them as a separate process. This will usually result in better captures (although more work.)

With regard to the frame rate/resolution questions, remember that the higher the resolution and/or frame rate, the more information your card/processor must capture in a single moment (or second). If you are dropping frames at 320x240 @ 15fps, you are going to drop significantly more at 30 fps, because you're asking your hardware to capture twice the information in the same amount of time.

My advice to you would be to spend a few hours...days...weeks... looking at the tutorials and postings here. There is a TON of good info here, and you'll slowly start getting the hang of it.

Hope this helps.

[twolf]

Hey thanks for your response and your time to respond. It is appreciated and have printed it. This is great info, and as is obvious, I am totally new to the video capture world. Yes have started reading here and printed the tutorials out.

Saw a reply to a post on another board that said that cards like ati and so on force the compression to be done by the software. What I need to do is get a card so that the hardware does the compression. Any thoughts on that? they recommended the dazzle....not sure if that is a type ofhippauge or not and if these will work with a regular agp vid card or they have to be used alone. will research that...tho the compression idea sounds very plausible.

On the compression...is it better to compress or record uncompressed. I may be off base here but I know with images, jpg is not a lossless format, but with RAW and BMP it is lossless format. So is it better to capture video in the RAW uncompressed type or to compress...

thanks again, you have been a big help and this board is already beginning to be a huge helpful resource...t

[RaleighNC]

Your hardware is more the enough. My capture system is p3-550, 128m, aiw128/32, scsi os hd, pullout 20&34gb hds.

One thing to check is make sure you don't mix hds (5400rpm & 7200rpm). Hds always sync to the slowest drive. It's best if you motherboard has 4 eide controllers or you can add a promise edit controller card.

I believe capturing raw (no compression) is the best way, but it creates huge files. Some ppl are using winxp to break the 4g limit.

I familiar with ati, so my answers will be ati related. Dropping frames are caused by several factors like: HD speeds, compression types, TSR loaded, motion estimation (me) settings, resolutions settings, and bitrate settings. There're probably more and depends on what software/hardware on your system.

I don't capture in avi, but I think it's better to capture in 720x480...u can always go down in quality, not up. I experimenting with i-frame captures. I read somewhere it uses less cpu, but puts more info on the frames and creates larger files.

To tell what TSR is running in the background, press ctrl-alt-del. It will show the programs runing. You can disable programs by using: start>>run>>msinf32>>tools>>sys.conf.utils This will show your win.ini, config.sys, autoexec.bat, and startup options. The gui is easy to understand and u just uncheck the program you don't wnat to start-up during boots.

Capture cards: alot of people complain about ati, some people like matrox. Check capture cards on the left side-bar.

I'm a newbie too, so I'm learning everything too.