Capturing Problems -- looking for utility to fix.

[robmiracle]

This is more of an MPEG utility problem.

I recently bought an HP MCE Pentium D box with a built in Hauppage WinTV PCI card. And while the computer's purchase was not for video, I decided to use it to capture some recent video off of a Sony analog 8mm camcorder.

Using various tools, I've tried to capture/watch the video off of the card. And frequently within a few seconds to say 30-40 seconds. It glitches and the video is lost. I eventually worked though HP tech support and while I fully believe its a card problem, they suggested I use the Sonic MyDVD software to capture. No problems. I start capturing videos (roller hockey games, in the 15-40 minute per capture range) and storing them to disk.

I go to edit them and while I have a large MPEG2 file, applications only play a few seconds of each video. A few are okay all the way through. I'm primarily using Studio 9 as my editing/dvd building toool. In each case, of these "short" captures, I can play them in Windows Media Viewer and other than the progress bar which finishes in a few seconds, it does continue to play "past the end" and shows the whole capture.

I know my files have all the data, its almost like whatever card glitch caused the other apps to fail, is causing Sonic to write a bad header data to the MPEG2.

Is there any tools that can help me fix up these MPEG files so apps can see them for their real length?

FYI, I'm an 25 year computing professional, but a very neophite when it comes to video.

Thanks
Rob

[reboot]

Try a simple demux/remux.
Tmpgenc's mpeg tools will do it.
You could try the GOP fixer in Womble mpeg-vcr too.
PVAStrumento is a free demuxer.
I'm sure there are free muxers around, search the tools section.