4 gig capture limit?!?!?!

[davidian]

What is going on here? I was going to capture from VHS using Vdub on my ATI AIW Radeon.

I use Windows XP and have FAT32 file system.

Soooo, when I've captured like 13 minutes, I get the message "sorry, can't capture more than 4 gigs with FAT32".

I had no idea. And I'm positive you've got this question 1000 times before, but what can I do? Is there nothing I can do to get around this limit?

I mean, when using huffyuv codec 4 gigs doesn't last very long! If I want to capture like a 40-minute episode of some tv-show or even a movie, is that not going to be possible then?

Please, what can I do!?

/Johan (desperate)

[speedy]

As long as you have XP, simple solution. Switch to the NTFS file system. Then you get past the 4GB ceiling which is due to limitations of FAT32. Under XP the size can grow much larger. I've made single AVI files in excess of 30GB.

Caution: Some have reported problems in XP newsgroups when converting a partition. Before proceeding BACKUP all your critical data!

To convert your FAT32 partitions to NTFS do the following:

Open a command prompt then type convert d: /fs:ntfs
Where d is the drive letter you wish to convert. Observe spacing as shown between colon and slash.

Once you convert you can't go back and if you have a multi OS boot system do NOT do or you will lock yourself out. There are other switches you can add to the command. Read the details in Windows XP help prior to proceeding.

Finally, you may wish to read some of the comments and pitfalls reported in the below newsgroup:

microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support

It is best to be overly cautious when making a file system switch on a partition loaded with data. I've done in several times without problems, others have not been so luckly. Just trying to warn you.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: speedy on 2001-12-10 10:50:18 ]</font>

[nittany]

To overcome this limitation, some programs allow for the capture to be spread across multiple files. If the program that you are using does not allow it, then I am not sure what you can do. Since you are using XP, the best thing that you can do is create a partition that is NTFS and NOT FAT32. NTFS does not have a 4GB limit.

[mikewg]

Forget this NTFS stuff... capture with VirtualDub or spend the $25 (best $25 of my life) and get AVI_IO... and set it to spill the files over. You can specify how large each segment will be... ie I have it set to be 1900 Megs... once it hits that file, it'll make a second file with the rest of the video... or a third, forth, or fifth if it needs it. As many as it takes. They'll join back seamlessly when you open them in VirtualDub... then just frameserve them to TMPGEnc and you'll have a perfect MPG. I have a dedicated 60 Gig hard drive for capturing and can get over six hours of video on there... I'll tape shows for a few days, then one night edit them and let them all frameserve overnight when I sleep, then start it all over again in the morning.

[davidian]

Well I tried multisegment in Vdub, it seemed to work fine. If I merge the AVI-files (or encode them one-by-one and merge the mpeg-files), will there be any gaps, or are they 100%?

[mpack]

Well, of course you can't merge the AVI files, because you'll hit the 4gig file size limit again. Nor have I found a way to join MPEGs that really works - typically you get a loud squawk from the audio, perhaps a lost frame as well, and the audio can end up out of sync for the remainder of the movie.

The only way that works for me is to frameserve the segmented clips into tmpgenc. You may find it helpful to concatenate the audio streams into one .WAV file and have tmpgenc use that as its audio source during the encode(instead of it taking audio direct from the avis) - otherwise the use of certain VDub filters (eg. temporal smoothing) causes the video and audio streams to be served up out of sync, so naturally you get out of sync audio in the mpeg.

[Vejita-sama]

I use multi/spill capture w/ VDub then frame serve w/ AVISythn. There's no noticable audio or video skip, and I've never had a sync problem.

AVISythn is fairly easy to use, but if you don't like writting the the scripts you can use GKnot. More info for both at:

http://www.doom9.org

[davidian]

Actually, I posted that last post before mikewg posted his.

I understand now, just frameserv, it's OK, I know how to do it.. no need to merge

[Joel0607]

Mikewg... I realize this may be a silly question considering what most people here do with their captured video (archive, vcd, etc.)

But, what do you do with those captured/edited shows? You put them on a cd or something and save them? Sounds cooler than recording on VHS and saving this obsolete crap quality video. I came here as an editor interested in doing pro work on a home PC. I didnt realize that so many people are recording shows onto their PCs for archive rather than simple editing. (My main goal was to edit and then export back to tape.)

[tilemanit]

If 4GB is the file size limit, how do create a 4.7GB DVD-R. I realize ther must be some overhead on the DVD-R, so how much video can you really place on the DVD-R?

[mpack]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-10 21:32:00, tilemanit wrote:
If 4GB is the file size limit, how do create a 4.7GB DVD-R.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
4gigs is the limit for any file on a FAT32 partition. DVD-R doesn't use the FAT32 file system. You do still have the problem of imageing the DVD on your PC of course, but a clever imager could segment the image into multiple files. I don't have a DVD-R so I've no idea what tools people actually use - I imagine the most straightforward thing for them to do would be to switch to W2K (or XP) and use an NTFS partition (ie. 64bit NTFS).

[thxkid]

A hardware MPEG2 capture card would solve your problems also, but a good PCI card will run you $149 to $199. I just love my WINPVR card, I have been taping a show from canada called "Reboot" from cartoon network from dishnet on my JVC SVHS every morning at 4am, then I put 2 shows on a 99min. CD-R at MPEG2 SVCD I have 38 of the 47 shows currently avilable. whats nice is no waiting to convert, no worry about a 4 git limit(with a 30 gig hard drive I can get about 20 hours of MPEG2 captured programing).

[mpack]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-11 13:52:07, thxkid wrote:
A hardware MPEG2 capture card would solve your problems also
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Personally, I wouldn't touch a hardware MPEG2 capture card with a 10 foot pole, unless I also had the option of lossless capture. There are things you can do with offline encoding - such as filtering the pictures in something like VDub - that you can never do with a hardware encoder.

Sometimes, the simpler cheaper card is the best choice.

[mikewg]

I capture my favorites shows, and put them on VCD format. I don't watch them now, but I can name tons of shows I used to watch that aren't on the air now... I consider it an investment in the future. Currently I'm capturing Scrubs (my favorite show), TV Funhouse, and the Critic. I'm not overly excited about the Critic, but there's only 23 episodes, which I can get onto 8 CDs... so it's not that big of a deal.

Also, I have a laptop that I can plug into the cigarette lighter of my car... so when I go on car trips, we'll pop these VCDs into the computer and watch them on the trip (well I listen, since I'm driving). My fiancee loves it because the trip goes by much faster, and we can record anything we want and watch whatever we want on the trip. Or sitting in airports, watch TV there. Also, I take a tape adapter and plug it into my car's tape deck and plug the cord into the laptop, so the car's speakers serve as the audio for the shows/movies. It's a great setup, I love it! And best thing is, no commercials!