Capture from analog camcorder, need software suggestions...

[ranchhand]

Hey all...

I am trying to capture analog family tapes from my analog Sony camcorder; I want to create MPEG2 and burn to DVD. I have a Hauppauge WinTV PVR250 card installed. Problem is, it's really "iffy" as to which software will recognize the card. Oddly, Nero 7 will see the card and capture, but the quality is poor and I have no options to play with-what you see is what you get. Okay, no surprises there. Pinnacle 10, Ulead Studio 5 and Windows Movie Maker will not "see" the card.

So.. what I need (I think) are suggestions from anybody who uses a program with that PVR250 that works. I figure that if I try enough software, eventually something will work (?). If you have used that card, what editor/capture software are you using it with??

thanks..

[Bjs]

Number 1 :

Yes ... fine , the cards installed ... but the question remains dosent it ?

What slot has it been jammed into ???

The cards "iffy" part can be attributed to being inserted into the wrong slot ... or where there are more cards installed in the pc than there should be in the first place .

Onboard agp / agp slot / pci1 = share resources ... only one may be active
Pci2 / pci3 = shared resources ... again ... only one may be active
Pci4 / pci5 = same as above .

Any other way will cause problems with shared resource's , and problems with not enough power being delivered between devices on the same buss (pci)

For a motherboard having only 3 pci slots available ... you can / should only have "1" pci card installed ... (either in pci2 or pci3) ...

Once the hardware has been properly sorted ... retest your setup ... then ask again if it still dosent work properly .

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Number 2 :

Device incorrectly installed ???

If the card had been installed prior to the software , and the drivers ... then the card has been installed incorrectly , and this is why most programs will give you a hard time , and wont see it .

Uninstall the driver package , and all software that came with the device .
Shutdown pc , turn off at power point ... REMOVE the device .

Restart pc
Reinstall the capture software for the device
In some case's they install the device drivers .
Once completed here , shut the pc down and off at thew power point .

Reinstall card in an appropiate slot (wrong slot , and it will be fussy ... dont install in pci1)
Restart pc ... os will pick it up from there .
If asked for device drivers ... insert the disc that came with it .

When done , remove disc , and reboot the system .

Try capturing now ... note that you may need to repeat this step with pci3 , pci4 and pci5 , to find the best location and slot where the device works perfectly .

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Failing this , there is a slim possibility a problem with camera output is involved ... or the capture card itself is faulty .

You could try this , which is for ieee / usb2 connection .

Power camera on from power adapter supplied with camera .
Connect to capture card (or ieee / usb2) .
Turn pc on

Try the capture form here ... it's very similar to tv out ... if it's not connected from the start ... pc's can get very picky , and refuse to see the device at all .

The manufacture ... insist's the camera to be powered from it's supplied power adapter , and on , prior to connection with the pc (pc must be off) .

Or it is possible that damage to either the camera , or the pc and its device will result .

From what I have seen around the web ... most do not cover this under warranty , stating the end consumer failed to take the necessary precautions to prevent camera damage .

Pity , it's in such small print buried halfway through the user manual ... and not included in the index ... thats sony for you .

[jagabo]

Use Hauppauge's WinTV2000.

[ranchhand]

Bjs: Thanks, I will give it a go when I get home. May take a day or two to do everything, but I will post back with results. At this time, I have 4 PCI slots, and only a wireless NIC for my home network/internet access, and a dial-up modem for faxing (which usually is unbooted until I need it), and my PVR card.

What capture software are you using?

Jagabo: I may have to change cards, but after paying for this one I would like to try to make it work . What capture proggie are you using?

[jagabo]

I use Hauppauge's WinTV2000. The latest version at their web site has some problems. I'm using a version (driver and apps) that's dated JUN-05.

Most other capture programs cannot capture from hardware MPEG2 encoders like the PVR-250.

[ranchhand]

Well thanks for the suggestion; I tried the whole shot, but bottom line is that the Hauppauge 250 drivers will not install unless the card is installed first; with the card removed I get the error message that it cannot detect hardware required and shuts down. Tried everything else, still no go.

Someone out there has to use this card to capture analog. Just tell me what product you use to do the capture...

[jagabo]

Once again, I have a PVR-250 and capture analog video all the time. I use WinTV2000. Sometimes WinTVCap.

But if you can't install the drivers you won't be able to capture with anything. If you have the drivers installed you can try Sage TV or Beyond TV, both of which work with the PVR-250.

Some other resources you should look into:

http://www.shspvr.com/
http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/htpc.html

[ranchhand]

Thanks Jagabo, I will check it out. I didn't realize you had the PVR-250 also.

[ranchhand]

Well, I downloaded the latest WinTV 2000/ vs.4.7, and it appears to work-at least it immediately synchs into the camcorder, and saves files. Great! My only problem now is that the damn splash screen (the one with the world and a building with the name "Hauppauge!") remains on top, and I can't get it off. So I can't monitor what is being recorded because the stupid splashscreen is on top. I have tried everything, clicked on everything, gone to the online help here:http://www.hauppauge.com/html/Wintv2000.htm and I can't get the darned thing off the monitoring screen. It will resize down slightly if I Right click on it while it is recording, and I can see pieces of my tape playing underneath, but that is all I can do.

Any suggestions??

[jagabo]

I've never seen that happen. My splash screen goes away after a few seconds. Maybe you have a version conflict between the drivers and WinTV2000?

[ranchhand]

My thought exactly-great minds think alike! Tonight after work I will delete all drivers for WinTV2000, manually edit the register for references and reinstall. Thanks for posting your screen, mine doesn't look like that at all-it's full-screen in the monitor area, and has a cheezy-looking earth, a skyscraper and the Hauppauge name.
Then I will re-download 2000 and try again. Thanks for hanging in there with me!!

[ranchhand]

Okay! We did it! I got a reply from Hauppauge tech support e-mail; here's what I had to do:
START/Programs/Hauppauge WinTV/Primary; click on Primary, and enable "Force Primary" in the tiny menu that pops up. That's it. I never would have found that, or recognized what to do if I had. It's capturing famously now.

I was wondering, since you have been using this. Are these mpegs DVD compliant, or have you ever burned them to DVD??

Again, thanks for helping me.

[jagabo]

Glad to hear you got it working properly. My PVR-250 is set to "Allow Overlay". I guess there is some kind of conflict with your graphic card that forces you to use Primary instead.

MPEG video from the PVR-250 is DVD compliant if you use the preset DVD templates or create your own and stay within the DVD spec. The MP2 audio isn't compliant for NTSC DVD. To be fully within spec it should be AC3 or LPCM. But since MP2 is included in the PAL DVD spec most NTSC DVD players can handle it.

Here's a little tip you might find useful:

When recording you can press the || button (on the little recorder control dropdown) to disable the video and audio. It will continue to record but since the video isn't displayed CPU usage will drop down to ~1 percent. Pressing the || button again will resume the display. When I first got the PVR-250 I assumed that button would pause the recording.

[davideck]

Are these mpegs DVD compliant, or have you ever burned them to DVD??

Ulead DVD Movie Factory makes great DVDs from PVR-250 MPEG files.

[jagabo]

I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory too. You can tell it to leave the MP2 audio as as, or convert to AC3.

[ranchhand]

Update... On a hunch I deleted my existing ATI drivers and installed the newest off the ATI Catalyst website. Re-set my Primary to Overlay, and it's working!

I already have Nero7 Ultra, and imported the video saved by the PVR250 as mpeg2. Vision Express in Nero actually did a good job of editing, easy chapter creation, etc. Very intuitive, I didn't have to use the help. Burned to a DVD disk, and it really looks good, very close (or exactly) same as original camcorder result. Nero is just lousy on capturing, but it is pretty good on editing and burning to DVD.

I got Ulead Studio, and am figuring it out now. I can see it is much more powerful and gives more options, I just have to educate myself now. One quick question: can I include Chapters with Ulead Studion? I don't see chapters in the help file. Thanks for the tip Jagabo, I clicked the "ll" button and my CPU usage went down. Didn't notice any improvement on final capture, but it never hurts to free up resources! Right after Christmas I am going to build a new 64bit, got my components already picked out. I figure Newegg will drop prices after Christmas when business slows down. My AMD 2700/2.17HGz proc does good now, but I will really Rock & Roll with the AMD Orleans and 2 gig RAM on the ABIT m/board; that setup can overclock easy to 2.8.

[jagabo]

I haven't used Ulead Video Studio in a few years. The problem with it back then was that it reencoded the entire MPEG file if you made any changes. Even something simple like trimming of the last few seconds. Hopefully they've improved since then.

[ranchhand]

Well, I got a trial copy of Pinnacle 10 and the quality of the video and sound blew me away. Pinnacle was one of the proggies that would not recognize my camcorder, but has no problems recognizing my captured mpeg2 files. Incredibly better than anything else I tested, especially Nero, so I will be using Pinnacle 10.

Last question; what I am thinking is to save the captured mpeg2 files as is, so that in the future if technology changes I can [hopefully] use them to upgrade to whatever is coming (Blueray??), who knows?

Each mpeg is coming in at about 1.6 - 1.8Gigs. No problem, I have a 160 Gig HD with about 60 Gigs left. If possible, I would like to avoid purchasing another hard drive simply for storage. And, in addition, anything mechanical can fail even if it is new, and there go all my captured files.

Question for anyone: can I directly save each captured mpeg2 file to a standard DVD-R disk? I know I will get only about 2 or 3 on each one and that is fine with me, but does anyone see a landmine with using a DVD as a normal storage device, like a common CD (as opposed to using it for movies, etc. as is commonly done)??

Thanks for all the support here, greatly appreciated!

[jagabo]

Well, I got a trial copy of Pinnacle 10 and the quality of the video and sound blew me away. Pinnacle was one of the proggies that would not recognize my camcorder, but has no problems recognizing my captured mpeg2 files. Incredibly better than anything else I tested, especially Nero, so I will be using Pinnacle 10.

Not for long! You'll find that Pinnacle Studio is so full of bugs it's unusable.

Last question; what I am thinking is to save the captured mpeg2 files as is, so that in the future if technology changes I can [hopefully] use them to upgrade to whatever is coming (Blueray??), who knows?

Each mpeg is coming in at about 1.6 - 1.8Gigs. No problem, I have a 160 Gig HD with about 60 Gigs left. If possible, I would like to avoid purchasing another hard drive simply for storage. And, in addition, anything mechanical can fail even if it is new, and there go all my captured files.

Question for anyone: can I directly save each captured mpeg2 file to a standard DVD-R disk? I know I will get only about 2 or 3 on each one and that is fine with me, but does anyone see a landmine with using a DVD as a normal storage device, like a common CD (as opposed to using it for movies, etc. as is commonly done)??

MPEG files are data, just like any other file on your computer. Select the DVD ISO template in Nero Burning ROM, drag the MPEG files to the compilation, and burn. I do this all the time. And I have a DVD player that can play MPEG files off ISO data disks so I can watch them like this.

[ranchhand]

Cool, and thanx for the headsup about Pinnacle; I will run my first full mpeg one night this week and will be on the outlook for bugs!