Cannot Get Higher Than 320x240 w/AVER TV Tuner/Capture Card

[rkr1958]

I wanting to capture TV video using my AverTV turner card. I'm using Virtualdub and the Huffuvy AVI codec. If I try to go higher than 320 x 240 resolution I get, "Error 418: Unsupported Format". I'm running W2K and I've confirmed that I have the VFWWDM wrapper for W2K installed. But the only thing I can figure is that the Aver TV tuner is using its own capture drivers with won't support anything higher that 240 vertical. Is this possible? Is it the Aver TV turner capture drivers? If so, what drivers should I use?

I'm at a loss on this one.

[gshelley61]

Download VirtualVCR (it's free). It will allow you to capture up to 720x480 (NTSC) no problem with the AverTV card. I have the same issue with VirtualDub and my AverTV card, and VirtualVCR works for me. After you finish your AVI capture with VirtualVCR, load the file into VirtualDub to filter, frameserve, etc.

[BrainStorm69]

I also capture with VirtualVCR when using my Avermedia card and am not limited resolution-wise. But you might also try the btwincap drivers instead of avermedia's. That's what I do with my AverTV Studio.

[rkr1958]

Thanks guys. I was trying VirtualVCR and I see that I can get 720 x 480 resolution. However, I'm having the dickens of a time trying to configure the TV tuner. All I get is a blue screen when I hit preview. And I only get this when I have "Use Smart Tee Filtering for Preview" checked under view.

In terms of configuring the tuner, I shows 50 or 60 channels after I hit scan. But when I select one I don't see anything. I know my tuner is working because I see the channels in Virtualdub and QuickTV.

I know I'm missing something very simple here but I just don't see it.

[BrainStorm69]

Sorry, as far as the tuner goes, I've never used mine with VirtualVCR. I only use my vcr and the S-video input to the card. But I do need to use Smart Tee to preview.

[pyscrow]

Which Aver card you using? Mine is the Aver DBT

I use the Aver software, captures straight to MPeg2 720x576.

Virtual dub also will only go to 320 x 240 for me.

[rkr1958]

Even when I capture directly to MPEG2 with my AverTV media card and I set the capture resolution to 720 X 480. I get 720 x 240. Anything set to greater than 240 Vertical always results in 240.

Is this a driver problem?

[FulciLives]

Some AverTV capture cards require a capture resolution of 688x480 for proper aspect ratio (assuming you are capturing for DVD creation).

So again if you can tell us exactly what AverTV capture card you have it would be helpfull.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[gshelley61]

Even when I capture directly to MPEG2 with my AverTV media card and I set the capture resolution to 720 X 480. I get 720 x 240. Anything set to greater than 240 Vertical always results in 240.

Is this a driver problem?

It does sound like you may have a driver problem. Try uninstalling and re-installing the AverMedia hardware, drivers and software. There are some tweaked WDM drivers available online for these types of capture cards, too (they did not work for some reason with my AverTV Stereo card, though - I had to go back to using the stock drivers).

check here:

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/installation.html

[lordsmurf]

http://www.digitalfaq.com/capture/nonatiavi/nonatiavi.htm

[rkr1958]

So again if you can tell us exactly what AverTV capture card you have it would be helpfull.
- John "FulciLives" Coleman

It's the AverTV Stereo internal PCI card.

It does sound like you may have a driver problem. Try uninstalling and re-installing the AverMedia hardware, drivers and software.

I got this card about a year ago and installed it in my old computer with the same result. It's now installed in my new computer and due to a harddrive failure I've installed / reinstalled it's drivers a couple of times now. It has to (I hope) the drivers I'm using. My old computer was a 733-MHz and didn't have the horsepower to capture in MPEG2 at 720x480 so I never really tried that. It's just now that I'm trying to capture at the higher resolutions and in AVI.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/capture/nonatiavi/nonatiavi.htm

Thanks ... I'll check it out.[/url]

[lordsmurf]

Do you want to try my new MainConcept 1.4 capture guide for MPEG capture?

Your system specs are higher than mine... maybe this can do hi-res 720x480 for you.

PM me with your e-mail address.

The image-only version was posted in a thread requestins feedback. The Word document has text to it. I'm trying to get it tested on numerous devices and system before I post it.

[FulciLives]

I also have and use an AverTV Stereo PCI capture card.

It's a decent card but has some quirks.

If you are using the Avermedia official drivers then NTSC needs to be captrued at 688x480 and PAL needs to be captured at 696x576 for a proper aspect ratio.

For Full D1 resolutin just pad from 688/696 to 720

For Half D1 resolution first pad from 688/696 to 704 then resize to 352.

This means you will have to capture using an AVI file such as HuffyUV or PICVideo MJPEG since direct to MPEG capture can only be done at reslutions that will give you an aspect ratio error.

Programs that work well with this card include:

TheFlyDS
iuVCR
VirtualVCR

I've had the best luck keeping A/V sync using TheFlyDS myself.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[rkr1958]

I downloaded and installed the trial verison on iuVCR but I'm having the same problem configuring the TV tuner as I had with VirtualVCR. I'm configuring it for Country Code 1 and NTSC_M. All I get is sound and no picture. As a point of reference the tuner in VirtualDub and Ulead VideoStudio 6 worked until I tried to configure the one in iuVCR. Now both of them only gives me sound and no picture.

[fmctm1sw]

I've never been able to get the tuner in virtualvcr to work correctly. As soon as I click "OK", it reverts back to the channel specified in the virtualvcr.ini file. I have to edit the file any time I want to use it to capture TV. I never had any luck with iuvcr either....

Damn, that was a worthless post...

Let me try something else. This may sound dumb, but if you're getting sound an no picture, make sure you selected "tuner/Composite/S Video" correctly in the tuner. I do it all the time with my SVHS VCR and the other ones...

[FulciLives]

I find that the tuner on my AverTV Stereo gives less than steller quality so I use to hook the cable up to a VCR then connect the analog composite video and stereo audio from the VCR to the AverTV Stereo.

Much better quality that way.

Of course most cable boxes also have analog outputs like this but I didn't have special channels at that time which required a cable box.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[winifreid]

Use this driver (which is mentioned above). It will fix the problem that all BT878 cards have with VirtualDub

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/11/2/6/11-2-6-26.shtml

I listed 2 sites because the first one was down when I tried it, but it is the homepage for the driver.
It only works with OSs above/after plain 98 (SE is okay).

[FulciLives]

Use this driver (which is mentioned above). It will fix the problem that all BT878 cards have with VirtualDub

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/11/2/6/11-2-6-26.shtml

I listed 2 sites because the first one was down when I tried it, but it is the homepage for the driver.
It only works with OSs above/after plain 98 (SE is okay).

Even with this driver you get an aspect ratio error at 720 width but it is fairly minor. I never tested PAL with this driver but with NTSC you need to capture 712x480 for a 100% proper aspect ratio.

Also this driver tends to work a bit strange and the default settings for picture properties (such as brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.) are WAY off and tweaking it can be a real bitch. I find that the official Avermedia drivers are dead on pretty much at the default picture properties.

I'd only use the BTwincap driver if you insist on capturing direct to MPEG since the aspect ratio error is more-or-less fixed otherwise if you do AVI capture then just use the Avermedia driver with the capture resolution I provided earlier in the thread.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[lordsmurf]

rkr1958 has my yet-unreleased MC guide ... maybe that will work for him.

[rkr1958]

rkr1958 has my yet-unreleased MC guide ... maybe that will work for him.

Thanks ... I haven't received it yet. Maybe I gave you the incorrect email address. I'll PM you email again. I can't wait to give your guide a try.


Also, I'm an idiot ... I found out what my problem was with getting the TV tuner in VirtualVCR to work. I had it configured for the wrong device (under the "Devices" tab). I had been concentrating so much on the "Tuner" tab that I overlook devices. The correct configuration was:

Devices ==> Video Source ==> Video Tuner

That did the trick.

[iantri]

Also this driver tends to work a bit strange and the default settings for picture properties (such as brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.) are WAY off and tweaking it can be a real bitch. I find that the official Avermedia drivers are dead on pretty much at the default picture properties.

Really? I have found that the default settings for the btwincap drivers are pretty much spot on with my ATI TV Wonder VE -- but maybe it differs between cards -- the aspect error is actually worse with ATI's drivers, by the way -- the 704 pixel image is just stretched to 720 pixels.

It is probably similar for the Avermedia driver..