Pic MJPEG, killing me softly

[Digitizer]

Ok, I have to ask you guys, I can't take this anymore. I got Pic MJPEG installed. I downloaded it when it was free and I never actually experimented with it! What a great codec, ultra fast and high quality. BUT the sucker periodically hangs my system! This happens from whatever software it is used to capture video. Lowering the quality settings seams to make it more stable, but I am not sure. I am not willing ti give this baby up, so what is the trick to make it more stable? Am I the only one to have this problem? Thank you.

[Bullworth]

Simple qustion, but how long has it been since you did a clean install of your software and are all your drivers up to date as well as DirectX? Sometimes something as simple as this can keep you from taking advantage of the full potential of a piece of software. I know I used to have a terrible time with Huffyuy until I got the right combination of drivers. What do you have hardware/software wise?

[Ronin2]

Digitizer,
I also downloaded PICVideo codec when it was free and I use it constantly with AVI_IO. I can only use the maximum quality setting (20) when capturing at 352 x 288 (PAL). If I try at a higher resolution it crashes after only a few seconds because it exceeds the maximum number of buffers available. Just drop the quality setting to 19 or 18 and give it a try, I'm very happy with the results I get.
Hope this helps you,
Ronin2

[Digitizer]

Bullworth, I got a pretty clean system. I don't have anything that I don't need. I have a DriveImage file that I periodically restore to get rid of messed up registry, bad drivers, and beta software. I use VirtualDub to capture at 640x480 with ATI TV Wonder. The card works great on my system and it never gave me any problems. I also have Radeon 8500 for vidcard and a dedicated video drive.

Ronin, I have to go to as low as 16 to get the codec more or less stable. I got a lowly AMD 700 but VDub shows proc usage that is less than 100% up to quality setting 18. I think I will be fine with this setting because when I go higher, I start having problems. In any case, even at that settings the quality-to-hard-drive-space ratio is way cool. Ya all have to pay for it too

I remember reading on Deja that someone had the same problem, which says there is something that this codec does not want to co-exist with. Maybe it's the chipset.

[macleod]

You mentioned that you have a ATI TV wonder card, which is what I have. I was wanting to get your perspective on your video captures. I am assuming that you have captured from VHS tapes through the cable. I am trying to make SVCD's from my old home videos and the results have been less than perfect.

When you said that it is great, is it identical to the VHS tape that you copied from? I've spent many an hour trying to get everything right and the quality isn't the same as the VHS tape. Figured I'd ask other ATI people what their experience was. I had did another post where I was asking (it sorta sounded like I was letting off steam about the whole thing though) for anyone that got a PERFECT copy of their SVCD from VHS. Meaning that if you ramp the DVD and VCR into the TV and switch back and forth, you cannot tell the difference. Is that what you are saying is grat capture. I am just trying to realign my expectations because I hear people say/write good,great,horrible,fantastic, etc. and that means different things to different people....

[Digitizer]

Well, I am perfectly happy with what it can do. A card should get good quality picture to your PC, after that, it's up to your processor and the software. Frankly, I moved away from VHS and got myself a SuperVHS unit. I avoid capturing VHS at all costs. If I capture video straight from the cable box and encode it to SVCD, it looks perfect. In fact, I did a test and I was not able to tell the difference between a capture from SVHS tape and directly from digital cable. That is if you have clean source. Analog cable and VHS are a different story, all that noise really eats away picture quality when encoding. To answer you question more directly, I think the card is perfectly capable; I made some mighty good captures with it. However, when capturing from a noisy source, the output quality is usually worse. I think that's a general fact of encoding, but not the card. You also have to capture at a higher resolution than the source. You need the overhead, no matter what anyone else says. Higher resolution - better quality. Period. I do all my caps at 640x480 with the newly discovered MJPEG Before I used YUV9/12 codecs (they ate up lots of space though).

You have to keep experimenting with different codecs/resolutions. It took me a while before I got what I wanted, but no card will do the magic and make VHS looks better, so don't go and spend money on different hardware if TV Wonder works on your machine. It's a good card when it actually works

[macleod]

you can actually capture at 640x480!?!!! We must have a different card. Mine is the ATI AIW TV tuner card. All I can capture at is ??? x 240 (the hihest verticle rate is like 700 something and the highest horizontal is 240) (this is NTSC). I have tried everything I can think of to capture at 480 horizontal lines. I've tried Vdub, freevcr, etc. and everytime I try to break the 240 barrier, it tells me that it is an unsupported video format.

Do you know the way to crack that 240 barrier. I am now capturing in avi uncompressed format and letting TTEMGC (or whatever it is called) convert it to 480x480. I use some of the filters to clean it up. My wife (the video expect since I am biased) tells me that it is close, but no cigar. IF you know where I could get directions on making my AIW ATI TV tuner card do 480 horizontal I would really appreciate it or if you could tell me that I am hosed and need to get a 480x480 card

[Digitizer]

You said before that you have TV Wonder
Anyway, from other posts I understand that AIW can go as high as TV Wonder can. You guys have problems getting it to work though. Ask around what drivers you have to use, but it appears that you CAN make it work. 240 lines, now I understand why you don't like what you see - that is not a good resolution to capture at.

[macleod]

I am purchasing powervcr II (and also getting power DVD) from ebay for $10.00 (store copy is $120'ish). I downloaded the trial version the other night and captures DVD resolution in mpeg 2 with NO frame loss. I let you know how it works out for me.

[Digitizer]

My CPU is too slow for real-time MPEG2 cap
I decided to try Win2K, maybe it will give me MJPEG stability together with overcoming the 4 Gig file limit. It is such a pain, I need to convert to NTFS, some system programs and games will not work... Urgh!

[Lord_MiL]

PowerVCR and PowerDVD for $10.00?
Do you really think that is legal?

[Digitizer]

Ok - update. I spent the last day and a half installing Windows 2000. The night went by as I was fighting to get TV Wonder to work in Win2k. With Windows 98 it worked like a charm but in NT it is near impossible to get it to capture at custom resolutions. I was able to do it though. The card is not recognized, s-video is dead, and the drivers are not ATI It works!
So far MJPEG seams to be rock solid. With Win98 the capture "stuttered" and often froze my system. Now it looks great and I hope the trouble was worth it. I am on!

By the way, all three MJPEG codecs that I tried had freeze problems in Windoze 98.

[jp1234]

PowerVCR and PowerDVD for $10.00?
Do you really think that is legal?

Not in the Free World I live in (US). But I think in Germany it *IS* legal for you to sell what you own legally (software wise), and the vendor can't do jack about it.

[macleod]

I just received my $10 powervcrII + powerDVD cd in the mail from ebay. It is the original CD and serial number, etc. I went to powervcr's web site and registered it and no problems. I tried all the tools on it and the dvd viewing and it works just fine.

The CD itself looks like a commercially made CD (doesn't look like the seller "burned" it to a cd) and the label looks genuine (unless he has one hell of a printer).

This comment might open up a can of worms here (and it probably will), but aside from copying home videos and television programs for personal use onto VCD/SVCD......

Trust me when I tell you, I personally have NO issues with the ...... part of the post.

ps. I live in the US (texas).