VHS -> VCD = i loose a ******* lot of frames :-/

[viruz666]

hello, i wanna make some old videos into vcd.
i use the following hardware:

AMD K7 Thunderbird 1400 Mhz
IBM Harddisk 60GB @ 7200 RPM
Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
192MB SD RAM

as software i tried virtual dub and avi_io with the following codecs and settings:

PICVideo MJPEG Codec -> under configure i tried from 1 up to 20 in the quality settings
Audio quality is CD but mono (the vhs'es are mono too).

when i try to capture the vhs in 25 fps there are dropping soooo much frames. in both virtual dub and avi_io the frames go down from 25 to 15 and never go up again. so when i have recorded 64000 frames for example, there are at least 5000-6000 dropped! what is wrong? my hardware can´t be, it´s fast enough.

note: i make all settings by the frames (not that u think i have forgotten to put it to 25 ;)

i hope anyone can help me. thanx alot, viruz666

[sommersby]

I have the same problem sometimes with video tapes, I never drop frames from laser disk. I think it has to do allot with how good the tape is to start with, I can help it allot of times by playing with the tracking, another thing that has helped old tapes is going through the tuner on my capture card instead of the composite in. It's a weird problem, I have had tapes that the picture looks great on and drop frames like crazy, other tapes that don't look quite as good record great...lol

[dirk67]

Hi,

I save the same problem with some tapes. It seems to have to do with a weak sync signal on the tape. I once captured a VHS copy of a tape and lost 30% frames. Fortunately most of the tapes can be captured with a loss of only 0.1%. What is really strange is that sometimes 1st generation tapes also provoke a huge frame drop rate.

Dirk

[viruz666]

hm i don´t know if it´s the tapes reason. i tried 2 tapes and both has the same frame drops. i will try another tape(s) and will see what happen. but i think i do something wrong :-/

[RoopeT]

What video format is used? If using RGB try switching to YUV2

[viruz666]

yeah i also tried it. but i think i just found the problem.
normal movies work very fine but i want to capture cartoons. is there any hint or a special way to handle cartoons? as i said, normal movies with real persons work fine :) but no cartoons. cartoons always fell down to 15 fps and the end result is that they lag like hell.

[garryward]

are you using the the same video player that it was recored on ?
Try putting it throught an intermiddate device eg TV on a camcorder this may help

[bslinker]

I am the same problem that the user is having too! I don't quite have the system specs he has. Although I havn't tried a different video tape, COULD the video tape be the problem? I'm not playing it back on the same VCR that it was recorded on but I am playing it back on a JVC SVHS using SVideo input to my capture card and I am dropping frames like crazy. I am using the following:

AMD K6-2 500 mhz
512mb Ram
6 Gig UDMA hard drive with DMA supported in "Device Mangler"
(Device Manager)
ATI AIW 128 PCI 32mb Ram
Usiing the latest software for the video capture(as far as I am aware of)
DirectX 8.1 with the capture update for it.
Win ME (I can put on 2000 or XP if need be)


Using VirtualDub with multiple codecs installed:
Divx 3.11
Divx 4.12
MPEG-4 A
MPEG-4 B
MPEG-4 C
Huffy
And just regular uncompressed.
Also tried RGB and the YUYV (or whatever it is)
I reallly don't think its my system specs because I used to have a Pinnacle DC10+ and even though I couldn't use any compression other than the MJPEG, at least I was capturing movies pretty flawlessly but TMPEGenc didn't care for that format too much so I wind up buying a the ATI AIW 128


Any sugesstions?

[maxxnostra]

Does not matter if it is carton or regular movie. It is the scene action that matter. See in Cartoons you have loots of fast moving scenes which are to much to handle for any software based compression, so obviously you gonna lose some frames. Try cartoon with not to much action (fast moving pictures) and some with almost static pictures and you will notice difference. MJPEG is not good anyways, even for VCD. You will notice pixels with lost quality because of compression on larger TV's, especialy the ones higher scan lines, like projection TV. I use huffyuv for loseless capture in DVD resolution and I am able to store 1 hr movie on 80G HDD with no droped frames at 29.97 fps. I guess on yours 60G (available 40 lets say) you would be able to capture full 2 hr VCD movie. Using TMPEG encode your AVI to VCD 1.0 for best compatibility with standalone players and you have proffesional VCD. Burn it with NERO or whatever you want . I am happy with DVD quality I got using this method, and I am sure you will be much more satisfied with VCD quality.