Hauppauge WinTV PVR250; btwincap; Virtualdub

[forestial]

I bought a Hauppuage WinTV PVR 250 card, and I hope to use it to capture video from a Hi8 analog camcorder. Using Windows XP SP2.

I have installed VirtualDub and the btwincap driver. When I try to use VirtualDub, I am expecting to see "Conexant's BtPCI Capture" as an option under the Device menu but I don't. I see "Microsoft WDM Image Capture", "Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture (DirectShow)" and "Video file Emulation" as the only options. If I try selecting the Hauppauge it always gives an error "VirtualDub cannot connect to the desired capture driver."

Perhaps I am installing btwincap incorrectly. Its installer's autodetect information says that the Chipset is BT848 but it also says it cannot detect the card type. So I have tried selecting "(024) Many vendors CPH05X/06X (bt878)", "Hauppauge bt848 based" and "Hauppauge bt878 based" all without success. They appear to install OK but I never see the Conexant menu selection in VirtualDub

I have searched all over this site and others with no success. Can anyone tell me how to proceed?

Even knowing what chipset the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 uses would be a step forward.

[jameshgross]

Try http://www.shspvr.com/

[deckard8]

BTwincap doesn't support your chipset (Conexant CX23415/6).

http://www.shspvr.com/pvr_model.html
http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/supportedcards.html

[jagabo]

There are other Hauppauge cards that have BT chipsets but not the WinTV PVR-250. You will not be able to use btwincap drivers or capture with VirtualDub. Use the WinTV2000 program that came with the card. Other programs that can capture from the card include SageTV and BeyondTV. But video is converted to MPEG by the card so all capture programs will capture with the same quality.

[forestial]

Thanks all: obviously I was going down the wrong track there.

Another question about the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250: the card has a large component (which I take to be the TV tuner) which is marked "NTSC". Does this mean that the card will only be able to capture NTSC video? I was hoping to capture PAL video from the s-video port, so I hope that NTSC label only refers to the TV tuner part, which I don't plan to use.

[FulciLives]

Thanks all: obviously I was going down the wrong track there.

Another question about the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250: the card has a large component (which I take to be the TV tuner) which is marked "NTSC". Does this mean that the card will only be able to capture NTSC video? I was hoping to capture PAL video from the s-video port, so I hope that NTSC label only refers to the TV tuner part, which I don't plan to use.

My understanding is that the tuner is NTSC but that the line-in inputs (such as the S-Video input) will accept NTSC and/or PAL as long as you have your software set-up correctly.

I would use the WinTV 2000 software for capture. After capture but before doing anything else I would run the file through either the GOP Fixer option in MPEG-VCR or the QuickStream Fix option of VideoReDo (either is fine just depends on which program you have).

After that you can go ahead and edit and author or whatever.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

Shspvr has most of the same information but you may want read the tips and tricks at:

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

You should get the tweaking tools that let you adjust settings that the software from Hauppauge doesn't give you access to (noise filtering, sharpness) -- see the tools section at shs.

[forestial]

I was able to use WinTV 2000 to capture a few minutes of video from the camcorder, after adjusting a few settings. The resulting MPG file plays OK in Windows Media Player, so it seems to be working even though I was basically guessing at the WinTV2k settings. I selected the video resolution at 720x576, since this is a Hi8 camcorder.

My next step will be to get the audio working. The camcorder (Canon) has an 'A/V Out' port which seems to be the only way to get the audio from it, so I suppose I need a cable arrangement that will ignore the video portion of that and feed the audio into the Line In port of my sound card. Hopefully WinTV2k is able to take video from the Hauppauge card and audio from the sound card and put them together.

[jagabo]

Camcorders usually use this type of cable for A/V Out:



http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2404389

You should be able to use the s-video cable for video, then just connect the red and white cables to the PVR-250 for audio. The yellow cable carries composite video but that is lower quality than s-video.

[FulciLives]

NTSC is 720x480 whereas PAL is 720x576 so be sure to pick the correct resolution as per your source.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman