VirtualDub - vfw @ wdm driver issue

[Maximum Risk]

I copy this posted message as an intro:

1).VirtualDub needs a Video for Windows capture driver to capture. Most Firewire (DV) devices do not provide a VFW driver, and thus cannot be used by VirtualDub at all. Also, ATI appears to be shipping their current devices with a WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver only; this can be used indirectly by VirtualDub through a Microsoft wrapper, but it is crippled in functionality and it also appears that the wrapper is buggy.

The wrapper will show up as "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)." If it works for you, great.


2).....That means that you are going to be severely limited in capturing with VirtualDub under Win2K/XP, and your only choice will be iuVCR.


Okay, here are my confusion:
Now I'm using P4 1.5GHz on Windows XP Pro platform. I found that VirtualDub is such a great application that shouldn't be left out as far as video capturing is concerned. From the messages above, it's clearly state that VirtualDub will not work OR severely limited when using on XP coz XP only supported WDM driver. Is it true??? Any other way for me using VirtualDub on XP..(and without dropping frames etc...)..????

Help me....I really love VirtualDub...seems that no other application can match Avery Lee's work...!!!

Oppss....almost forget. I'm using Asus V8200 deluxe capture/display card and sound blaster live value sound card.

[Greg12]

I have the same question but


I want to use a firewire captue device.

[ROBO1964]

I am Little confused by those statements as well.

While my capture card isn't a DV capture card it only came with WDM drivers. I installed Virtualdub on XP and so far haven't encountered any problems EXCEPT when I used huffy compression as then some applications couldn't read it but then I used MJPEG and it was fine.

I don't know where the problems are suppose to be.

[liquid217]

to the first poster, contrary to popular belief, using the wrapper does not diminish the use of vdub as a capture device. I have used it for close to a year and a half, and am able to capture full resolution (720x480) at 29.97 fps with little or no frame drop. I realize there will be a ton of people that have had problems with using this wrapper, but for my sake, it works perfectly. In my profile, you will see that i run win2k, which is basically the same structure as xp. Vdub in fact does only support vfw based capture drivers and not wdm(which is where i answer greg12's question). To date, firewire can only be captured with wdm based applications...not vfw. vfw wouldn't even know were to begin with firewire. As an alternative, you can use a utility that comes with the vegas video application". this program is called "vidcap30.exe" and is a stand-alone application that vegas uses. this executable does not expire like the demo does, and it fully supports transferring dv data from a firewire camera.

[Maximum Risk]

Thanks for you replies pals...

I just quoted the 2 messages as they include some "key point" that I use to present in this lovely forum.

Well, this is another "guideline" which I extracted from http://www.lukesvideo.com/lowrescapvdub.html :

"If your card has a Windows Driver Model (WDM) capture driver, you may see a driver called "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)". This driver is actually a wrapper that translates from VFW to WDM. Try to avoid using this driver because it will hurt performance. (If possible, select the entry that corresponds to the name of capture card instead.) However, some cards completely lack VFW support, so you may have no choice but to use the Microsoft VFW -> WDM wrapper."

In XP, WDM is the only driver appears..!! No other choices...So, will VirtualDub works with WDM in XP without hurting performance?

Thanks liguid217, I'll will try whether it works with my system. I'm just curious after reading the above guide which I quoted. Maybe that guideline is outdated and applies to previous OS prior to Win2k and XP..??

[ROBO1964]

I did na capture using that driver on XP because like you said I have no other choice. I have my specs listed in my profile.

It seemed to work fine. I got a really nice crisp capture with it. However I did have a glitch with the Huffyuv which I am not certain as to the cause.
But after encoding in TMOGenc my VCD actually looks better than the VHS source which is what I liked.

[theboywonder]

ok, i've only skim-read this post, but from what i can figure, you want to import DV into virtualdub right?

if this is correct, then you'll need the 'mainconcept' DV codec

http://www.mainconcept.com/archive/mcdv204.exe

and of course you can get cracks available for that if you so desire!

.... i'm probably wrong and you're most likely discussing something different... so i appologise if you are!

[thefish]

I have the same problem. My TV card only has the Microsoft MWD image capture (Win 32) drivers as an option in VirtualDub. Is this because I use Windows XP? With Windows ME VirtualDub worked great with my card but now... well I would like to capture video with higher res than 320*240.

[pet_head]

I have experimented with VirtualDub and WDM drivers and have not found them to be completely compatible with VirtualDub. Since VirtualDub was written to use VFW protocals it does not handle WDM drivers well, however it can handle them. The main problem is that the WDM to VFW wrapper that is built into VirtualDub cannot handle more than 240 horizontal lines. You can increase the vertical resolution to all concievable sizes, but the horizontal rez seems locked at 240.

I have never seen an an exception to this (with a pure WDM capture that is) but if there is a usuable workout around I would certainly be interested. If not, you will have to use other capture apps to get high resolution caps. Hate to burst anyone's bubble since Avery Lee has written such fantastic software but this appears to be one of VirtualDub's limitations.

[liquid217]

well friend, i can honestly say that your statement is not true. As mentioned before, i have captured at 720x480. This is composed of 2 different fields, meaning it is interlaced. This something that cannot be faked, it either is or isn't interlace. mine definitely is (trust me, i have loads of fun with interlace). Im sorry that it doesn't work for you. I realize that it will not work for everyone, but in my situation. the wrapper works perfectly.

[liquid217]

for all of you techies out there, i found some good technical data on the wrapper (actually called mapper by m$)

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/archive/desinit/vfwanalog.asp

apparently, the mapper only has certian chipsets in it, so that may be the reason why only some people can capture at full frame, others at half d1, ect

[lusid]

Those of you with bt based capture cards can use the btwincap driver to get fullframe capture through the wrapper. It's more a limitation of the capture driver than the wrapper itself. That covers the wintv boards, the avermedia boards, and most other pci capture boards.

The dv/firewire/usb guys, and most of you ATI guys are outa luck though. If by some miracle your vendor's drivers work, count your blessings.

[Maximum Risk]

Emmm...this forum become more interesting. Seems that VirtualDub doesn't have any standard to work well huh..? But why...? It's time consuming to get the right setting by trial and error method without a "clear" guideline to capture to the fullest the system can support.

Reading through across this forum, it's hard to find somebody using a capture card like mine(display cum capture card Asus v8200 deluxe with video-in). Look like everybody using the Hauppage Win-tv capture card and it's neighbour. Will capture card affect performance? I don't think v8200 such a lousy card. The video quality captured using the same format,source, resolutuin,codec etc on Win98se, WinME & WinXP Pro produced different quality which make me more confuse than ever....

[ROBO1964]

seems to work on a Gainward Geforce 4 Ti card

[Anonymous65]

If you have to use WDM drivers, then VirtualVCR is the perfect capture tool replacement for VirtualDub.

[TKS]

I can get Virtual VCR to work capturing video fairly well for now, but the audio is incredibly quiet.. Is there something that im missing in the audio configs? I have a sound blaster live and an ATI TV Wonder card...

Just wondering...


tks

[Maximum Risk]

If you have to use WDM drivers, then VirtualVCR is the perfect capture tool replacement for VirtualDub.

Somebody also suggested using IUVCR which is built to work with WDM. It's quite good when no post-editing were to be carried out. I try capturing movie with IUVCR and make editing using VirtualDub....the result is VERY annoying..the audio never sync..!! Since IUVCR didn't provide post-editing/filter tools, it's useless to use IUVCR...I read too many complaints on audio problem with IUVCR, AmCap, AVI_IO & VirtualVCR. If VirtualDub can handle WDM, nothing can beat VirtualDub...!!!

VirtualDub rules...!!!

[Anonymous65]

The audio record level is set by your audio record controls. Double click on the yellow speaker in the system tray, select record, and then select and adjust the level on the audio channel you record your audio from.

[Maximum Risk]

Err....I didn't get you message Mr. Moderator. Are you suggesting me the way to get the audio sync even after editing using VirtualDub..?Well, I'll see how it works. Like I'm saying just now, the audio out-of-sync/no audio only occur when part of the movie were cut/edited somewhere in the middle of the clips...I haven't try the result while in AVI, this is happened when the clips is already on CD in VCD format.

[Anonymous65]

The answer about audio levels was for TKS.

As for audio sync, I have not found a single WDM capture program that will capture audio and video in sync other than VirtualVCR. There are only two ways of keeping them in sync, either dropping or adding frames to keep in sync with the audio, OR changing the sample rate of the audio to keep in sync with the video. If you have a stable video source, the last method is much better because you do not mess with the video frames. And the only capture program I know of that will change the sample rate of the audio to compensate for the video rate is VirtualVCR. However, if you are recording a flaky video tape, I don't know how well the VirtualVCR can track the dropped frames. That is why I always use a TBC when capturing from a VCR.

[Maximum Risk]

Now...it's sound technical and complicated. I'm not used to VirtualVCR, so I don't thing I know how to fix that audio-sync problem....?????

[tjdmobile]

Just to make my point...

I have the ATI AIW Radeon 32DDR, and in XP I am able to capture with Vdub without any additional wrappers or drivers loaded. Wrapper was needed in 2000 as I recall.

Unfortunately for me, VirtualVCR will not capture in-sync video for me at all, even after fooling with both of the sync options. Sound drifts about 2 seconds every 30 minutes.

[ROBO1964]

As for audio sync, I have not found a single WDM capture program that will capture audio and video in sync other than VirtualVCR.

I have Vegas Video and it captures using the WDM drivers and is always in perfect sync.

[lusid]

if any of you guys with bad audio sync issues are using SBLive cards, try setting the audio to record at 48k and see if it improves.

[pixel8or]

I have Vegas Video and it captures using the WDM drivers and is always in perfect sync.

Vegas Video is an awesome program. Haven't played with analog capture though. What size are you capturing in and what codec? I just tried it and couldn't get anything more than 320x240.

I can cap 640x480 with VirtualVCR/huffyuv, no problem.

[ROBO1964]

same here.....I found that Virtual VCR is the ONLY program I have encountered so far that is way out of sync. I downloaded a tried it after reading here just like an hour ago.

Interestingly with it if I leave it as 640x480 with no compression and no custom video capture settings its in sync. As soon as I choose either or both of the custom video capture settings the sound is way out of wack and it sounds a little muffled too.

[Greg12]

Virtual dub will import any type 2 avi in any codec.


It cannot unweave type 1 dv though.

[Maximum Risk]

I try to capture with VirtualVCR yesterday. So far, it's give me no trouble at all. Cap to resolution 720x480 with huffyuv/mjpeg on XP with no dropped frames and later cut/join using Virtualdub give me no out-of-sync problem so far, unlike IUVCR and AVI_IO which always have problem with audio after cut/join with VirtualDub. Anyway, what are the "dropped 2" for? I notice there are two "dropped frames" indicator in VirtualVCR panel.....

[4DeLuX4]

Why are you folks so stupid? I posted the Topic about - TV Tuners + WinXP + VirtualDub + 640x480 - WORKS - but no replys? I wonder WHY?
You all said that you have to use WDM Wrapper?
Yea right... I dont need this wrapper!
I don't know why cant you capture in Vdub more than x288? and that silly wrapper... eh..
I have WinXP , ati tv wonder and
I can easily capture in VDub in 720x576...
Any problem about that? ..then ..mail me.
VDub really rumblez

[Maximum Risk]

At last....problems arrived..!!! I try to cap with VirtualVCR but now change the fps from 25fps to 29.9706fps just trying to find another setting which can produce better quality. To my surprise, the audio only sync for up to 9 second....and the rest....you know..huhhhh. But no dropped frames recorded...!!!

Any VirtualVCR-er out there can help me...????