Help, AVEr TV combo pcie wont show video inputs?

[BoonDoggie]

I just bought an AVer TV combo pci-e (M780) and I'm new to the video capture thing. I've tried VirtualDup, Virtual VCR and PotPlayer to capture my svideo input, but all i get is black fuzz. I have an old Panny Svhs VCR and i'm trying to record some old family tapes for archiving. Is there a setting I'm missing? Please Help!

[davexnet]

There is a program at the tools section, here at videohelp.com called STOIK give that a try.
I've also got the m780 - never had that problem. Try toggling the s-video/composite selection
in video input drop down.

[BoonDoggie]

Hey thanks for the response. I think I've figured the problem; I used the composite adapter and it works, but not the higher rez s video, just composite. I cant figure for the life of me why the s video wont come thru. Im gonna have to hook the vcr up to my plasma, maybe the svideo outs went bad ( hope not, but vcrs go for 20 bucks these days, so no big loss). I toggled the s video and composite settings in the drop down menus of the software i listed, composite works, s video bad (why does the 780 have 2 listings for each?) Ill keep mucking about, hopefully ill have some luck. Im just glad it wasnt the card, as far as i can tell.

[davexnet]

Not sure what you mean about "2 listings for each?" - something specific to the SW you're using?
If your tapes are actually recorded as s-video you definitely want to get the S-video working.
If they're standard VHS, not such a big factor.

Another thing to try if you can't sort it out is the Aver Mediacenter. software. I have it running in regular XP,
and it works great.

[BoonDoggie]

Sorry, by "2 listings each", I meant that, in the input selection drop down menus of whatever capture software I use, I see 1 selection for the TV tuner, but 2 selections for S Video and 2 for composite. Weird.
Some of my tapes are S video, so I wanted to get the best video out I could, understandably.
I cant use AVer MC as i'm on Win 7 64 bit, and it crashes, I assume (its quite old software, 2007 last updated!) it doesn't jibe with 64 bit, or maybe just Win 7. I use mainly PotPlayer (excellent except in this case, but I dont think its the software), Win MC, and I've been mucking about with Media Portal.
I'm going to get another S video cable this weekend, maybe mine is flawed somewhere. I havent used the vcr in so many years, and an s video cable is like 2-3 bucks, if not cheaper!
Thanks again for your help, I was just assuming I had done something wrong or didnt have the card set right.

One quick question, when i select the card in the software Im using, I see two selections give the cards name, "AverMedia M780 PCIe A/V Capture 1" but one has "(KS)" at the end. Do you know what that means?

[davexnet]

No idea what KS is - look in the device manager to see if two instances of the cards are somehow installed.
Regarding the Aver MC software, it's been updated beyond 2007 - their site has to be one of the worst organized
I've ever seen. I'm using a version from 2010. As long as you do a custom install and don't install the drivers
(have them installed separately) it works fine.

I have never tried capturing with Potplayer; I'll give it a try myself in my Vista OS and see if I can see anything interesting.

[BoonDoggie]

Hehehehe.. hahaha.... <--- sounds of me laughing at myself. THOUGHT I checked the physical setup, maybe not. Had my ins and outs mixed up! Lol, my inputs of the VCR were going to the inputs of the 780.
I'm an idiot, but I figured it out. Have lovely S video now, but weirdly, some videos look worse than SVHS than in composite. Guess Svhs reveals too much information, like what HD did to, well everything else, lol. So i'll probably be capturing in composite mode. Go figure!

[davexnet]

That's great - enjoy the card. Regarding S-video, I've a HI8 source, old family video's and they look great
in S-video capture. The old VHS VCR I've got hooked to it permanently is pretty basic, composite only.
The capture is better than I hoped for, it does some useful temporal noise reduction that helps quite a bit.

If you look at the consensus on the forum, most agree that technically, S-video out is better that composite out on the same VCR
regardless of whether the tape is S-video recorded or not. There also seems to be an agreement that the results may not
equal what you might expect and sometimes composite does achieve a better result. Trust your eyes!