410megs for 1 min of capturing at 320x240...hmmm

[charvelzeppelin]

I had an old happauge winTV card from 1998 that was lying around so I figured I should try and do some tv recording. I have the newest winTV2000 and the newest drivers.

I tried recording at 320x240 at 48khz and I got about 410megs of video in 1 minute at the lowest resolution (320x240). That would make over 12gigs for a 30 minute show. How can this be since it is even an .avi (I don't think I can even record at any other format). Is this normal and then people just use different codecs to compress the files? I'm new to capturing and think I need some advice.

Is it time for me to get a real capture card?

[FulciLives]

Sounds like maybe you are capturing uncompressed AVI which can indeed be very large in file size.

Most people that capture to AVI with a TV tuner type PCI card (like what you have) do AVI capture using either the HuffyUV codec or the PICVideo MJPEG codec.

HuffyUV is considered lossless compression and yet files with HuffyUV are usually about 50% smaller than uncompressed AVI

PICVideo MJPEG has 20 quality settings and even at the highest quality level (20) it is still not considered lossless compression but it does very good and I'm sure you could never tell on the 20 or 19 settings that you are compressing your video. As for file size I think even at 20 it is still smaller than HuffyUV and most people use the 19 quality setting which takes up a lot less room that HuffyUV does. Usually though for serious use 19 is considered the lowest setting you would want to use with the PICVideo MJPEG codec (why it has 20 settings is a mystery to me).

If you are using VFW drivers with your WinTV then you should probably stick to VirtualDub (or one of the many modded versons VirtualDub such as VirtualDub Sync which is a mod taylor made for capturing in AVI format) for your capture needs.

If you have WDM drivers then try one of the following (in no real order):

1.) VirtualVCR
2.) TheFlyDS
3.) iuVCR

Good Luck

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redwudz]

With your system, yes, you should get a better capture card. AVI takes a lot of space, depending on the quality you want and the codec you use. You could try PicVideo, if it will work with your card. Huffy will give you better quality at a larger file size. For more info about AVI and capturing, try looking at lordsmurf.com.

[charvelzeppelin]

Thanks for all the help and the quick replies. Currently I just installed picVideo and VirtualVCR. I think I have finished configuring VirtualVCR but I'm still unsure on how to actually view the channels on there. (I know it's probably really simple)

I have the settings correct for country code and tv card. I've also change the video source to AUX and scanned for channels. It found about 94 channels but I'm not sure how to actually get them on the screen. I've also set the compression to the picVideo MPEG and YUY2 (should I use this?). All I get is a white screen the whole time. Am I missing something here?

Well, I just realized you probably pick a channel in the settings and click preview, but all of my channels are blue right now. I'm trying to autotune again then scan for channels. hopefully that will work.

[charvelzeppelin]

Well, It didn't work for some reason. I have 84 channels found but I can't get any to display using the preview button. Maybe someone can help me out a bit or point me to a tutorial so I can figure it out tomorrow. I didn't really see any help on the home page for virtualVCR.

[FulciLives]

I tried VirtualVCR but it has been awhile so sorry that I can't offer any help there. I now ostly use TheFlyDS myself.

Also I use the composite video in on my PCI capture card as I use my VCR as a tuner. In my case the quality of the tuner built-in to my VCR is better (quality wise) than the tuner built-in to my PCI capture card. This seems to be common amoung PCI capture cards but still ... you should get an image of some sort!

BTW you mentioned earlier doing a cpature at 320x240 but if you will be making a VCD you should use 352x240 not 320x240 also please note that 352x240 is a resolution that can be used with MPEG-2 DVD encoding as well. For best quality and performance though you should consider doing 352x480 but that will not work as a VCD although if you don't have a DVD burner you could try to make a CVD which is like a VCD/SVCD but uses 352x480 resolution.

Also the PICVideo MJPEG codec is a YUV/YUY2 codec so that is what you want to use. As a result you get best results using CCE rather than TMPGEnc when it comes time for your MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoding. This is because CCE works in the YUV/YUY2 colorspace whereas TMPGEnc must convert to RGB colorspace.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

Well, It didn't work for some reason. I have 84 channels found but I can't get any to display using the preview button. Maybe someone can help me out a bit or point me to a tutorial so I can figure it out tomorrow. I didn't really see any help on the home page for virtualVCR.

Well I just fired up VirtualVCR ... didn't realize I still have it installed.

Anyways ...

The 3rd icon from the right toggles Preview mode on/off. It sorta looks like a blue piece of paper.

If that doesn't work then ...

Try going to the VIEW TAB and select "Use Smart Tee Filter for Preview"

That should work ... hopefully

Be warned though that I seem to recall that at least on my system the image degraded on my capture when the Smart Tee option was checked. I would be sure to uncheck it before doing my capture.

I'm not sure if that is some wierd video card limitation (I have PCI not AGP video card) or something else.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Also are you sure your TV tuner is set to cable and not over-the-air etc.

[charvelzeppelin]

Thanks for all the help. This is definitely one of the best forums I have ever been in.

For some reason I still couldn't get VirtualVCR working. I also tried FlyDS but was having some problems scanning for channels.

Anyways, I loaded up iuVCR and it worked great. The second I loaded it up I could already see channels previewed. I have been working with this app lately and I like it much more. It's been working great for the stuff I have tried recording. I used the resolutions you specified and the picvideo codes. Thanks for all the help again.