Capturing - vividness lost?

[swiego]

I've been noticing that my captures do not seem to have the "life" that I think should be on the original tape. I thought this could be a problem with my govideo vcr, but I got a 9911U and saw the same thing. I thought maybe it was a VHS thing, but I tried 8mm and Hi8 from an EV-S7000 and saw the same thing.

What I'm seeing - and it's hard to explain -
- faded colors
- reduced contrast
- lack of pop / vividness

I see this when playing back captures on my monitor. Could it be the monitor? Well, when I "preview" the video using, say, ATI MMC, it looks great. What's captured, though, seems to lack pop when played back.

I'm using a 550 Pro, huffyuv capture, staying in YUV2 (I think). I've also seen this capturing to MPEG2 (hw) via the ATI. I am guessing that it's an ATI or capture thing, maybe, but generally speaking, is there something I'm missing about the capture process that would explain why captures wouldn't be or shouldn't be the same as what I preview?

[jagabo]

Computer monitors have a different gamma than televisions making video dull unless your playback software is adjusting it for display. After burning to a DVD it should look fine.

If you adjust the gamma, brightness and contrast so that it looks good on a computer monitor, it will look overly bright and washed out on TV.

[swiego]

How can I tell whether a preview software is making adjustments or not? I get the sense that the ATI "preview" mode shows something different from what is being captured. I don't like this one bit... I want preview = capture, and the choice to turn on "preview" enhancements. Otherwise I don't know what I'm capturing, and I don't have a baseline against which I can do procamp adjustments ahead of the capture card.

I guess what I'm asking is, is this an ATI thing? Or is it something about the limitation of YUV2 4:2:2? Or something else? I just want real WYSIWYG - what's previewed on my monitor (CRT, LCD or otherwise) to be what's recorded to HD as well. Right now I have no idea at all b/c of this uncertainty about whether colorspace is changing, whether the software is doing any kind of postprocessing, etc.

[mikiem]

1st off apologies because I'm not 100% sure what your question is, so this may be off a bit...

As jagabo said, if everything is left alone, video will look brighter on your TV. Really no easy way around that at present, though you can often adjust either the PC monitor or much better, it's video overlay settings to come close. Can make many adjustments in players like wmplayer, but have to do this each time, and software DVD players usually have some enhancements to mimic TV.

*IF* your captures look a bit lifeless on TV after putting them on DVD, then your processing could be at fault. Perhaps do some reading on the different color space and color range issues involved? Long story short, it's very possible to compress, restrict, or cut off a good portion of the original colors.

And I guess finally, many of your issues might be related to the card you're using. TO date there's a lack of good software, and the latest MMC (9.13) doesn't work as it should. The card itself enhances the video you see, but this is the card's electronics, not something retained by or in any video captured -- at least at this point using MMC 9.13 from what everyone else has posted.

You could try other capture software, something that gave you a bit of control over the captured video characteristics. Take that and put a short test or 2 on RW and see how it looked on TV. When you get it set so captured video looks the same as the original on TV, you know you're at least pretty close, and stay with those capture settings - I wouldn't rely on your TV out until the ati software gets fixed. You can also go the same route of testing, using a bit of filtering in V/Dub or Avisynth to enhance the video, basically doing the same thing your card does, only actually altering the video itself.

Edit: we posted close to same time, so re: your latest post.... You're going to have problems with ati software until they get it ironed out -- don't think you'll get what you want IOW. That's why the emphasis on testing with DVD RW discs, though should be able to use other methods of TV out like graphics card, scan convertor, firewire out to DV camera or box and so on.

[swiego]

Thanks for the posts I guess I just need to accept the fact that ATI is not the solution for someone who wants more control.

Can someone recommend a capture solution (capable of uncompressed/lossless, no frills such as tuner, etc.) with software that previews and captures identically, and provides a "monitor" output that I can send to a separate NTSC CRT in addition to the preview window on my PC monitor? I guess that's what I'm looking for.

[edDV]

Thanks for the posts I guess I just need to accept the fact that ATI is not the solution for someone who wants more control.

Can someone recommend a capture solution (capable of uncompressed/lossless, no frills such as tuner, etc.) with software that previews and captures identically, and provides a "monitor" output that I can send to a separate NTSC CRT in addition to the preview window on my PC monitor? I guess that's what I'm looking for.

A few basics to start

1 Computer monitor vs TV
- RGB progressive vs YUV interlace
- Phoshors differ, gamma differs
(TV has more sensitivity at black end of scale)

2 Computer playback can be coming from
- RAW video writter to frame buffer (rare for anything moving)
- Overlay from diaplay card
(settings in display properties alter every video variable)
- Display software that may or may not have deinterlacing capability

Bottom line, there are many ways to view video on a computer and most are a distant representation of the original video as viewed on TV.

You need to optimize what you are doing for either computer or TV viewing. If you follow semi-pro practice to make it look good on a TV, software players like PowerDVD or WinDVD can make that look good on the computer (CRT or LCD).

[jagabo]

Can someone recommend a capture solution (capable of uncompressed/lossless, no frills such as tuner, etc.) with software that previews and captures identically, and provides a "monitor" output that I can send to a separate NTSC CRT in addition to the preview window on my PC monitor? I guess that's what I'm looking for.

Does your computer have s-video or compostite outputs? If so, hook that up to a TV and calibrate the computer output with a colorchecker image.

[swiego]

I guess that's what I'm missing... composite/s-video outputs out of my computer + a capture card & software whose "preview" and "capture" windows show the same thing. Back to the drawing board!

[TBoneit]

I'm thinking ATI, is it an All - In- Wonder? If so it should have Video in and Video out. a ATI Capture only card is a different animal of course.

The only sure fire way to have what you capture on your tv match what the dvd will look like is use your TV, IOW use a DVD recorder to make your DVDs. The Pioneer 531/533 and 633 models all have lots of control over the captured vdeo. A search will give details.