Optimize Video Capture Quality

[NekoChris]

I'm using an ASUS V8200 to capture video from both my GameCube and Playstation2.

The problem is there's some very obvious difference in how the image displays to the TV and how it displays to the PC as far as colors and brightness. Messing with the settings in Digital VCR doesn't seem to do too well. Is there something else I can do to make the PC image mirror the TV, and also, I need the framerate to exactly match as if the game were being played on TV. What rate should I use? NTSC or 30 FPS? Or higher?

Edit: Blorgh. Fixed some typos. I'm also wondering. DVCR is very odd about how it handles things. When I first open it it displays video fine. If I try and change from NTSC_M to NTSC_N it gives me a hard time and gives an error. If I try and change ANYTHING it gives me an error. VirtualDub is a bit more forgiving but a little odd also. The only drivers it seems to want to show me are the Universal Nvidia and the Logitech for my webcam. There's an Asus WDM floating on my PC, or I -thought- there was, but it never seems to want to make itself seen.

[zappernl]

Hi NekoChris,

I have exact the same problem as you mention. I have tried every available drivers (from Asus and Nvidia, the AVI driver even never worked), I even tried 3rd parties capturing SW, no succes. After comparing the original video stream with the video stream via the VGA card it seems to me that the bit-depth for the colours is not sufficient enough (some colour shades in the original picture are combined into 1 colour after capturing). And if this is the case, there is nothing we can do about it, its hardware related.

[zappernl]

I SOLVED IT!!!!!

After some more investigations I found out that the sensitivity of the video input is too high. Normal spec of a video signal is about 1Vpp. The V8200 has much less than this 1V, by making a simple power divider using 2 simple resistors (a 50 cents solution) the 1Vpp is transformed to a lower level. If you feed this to the card it will present the colours in a much better way. Because I do not know the exact input sensitivity of the Video input I can not calculate the exact resistor values, you have to experiment, I used 2 100 Ohm resistors and the image is near perfect!

A very stupid harware mistake on this expensive card!

[zappernl]

Hi Guys,

After I found out what the real reason was for the bad capturing quality I have been searching the net again and there a SW solution too! I have copied a part of the page below, since I had already the latest drivers on my PC I started at point 5.
SW solution:


1. Fresh install of Windows XP Pro or 98SE (or completely remove all
the old video & capture drivers.)
2. Install the lateset ASUS drivers, rebooting as necessary.
3. Install Nvidia WDM 1.08, rebooting as necessary.
4. Install capture software (or just use Windows Movie Maker in XP) to
test to make sure everything is working so far. I still get a black
capture window sometimes but if I reboot it seems to initialize
properly and then capture will keep working until I reboot again.
5. Install Video Live WDM from
http://www.ab.ru/~lookin/downloads/_downloads22.htm
6. Reboot.
7. Install Video Live Mode from the same URL.
8. Regedit and add or change the DWORD value
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\VLio\EVIPInit =
0x0
9. Create a shortcut in Startup to point to the livemode.exe installed
from step #7 with a target of "E:\Program
Files\VLive\LiveMode\LiveMode.exe" reg 3 0x00
(make sure to leave the quotes as above if you are doing a shortcut.
Or just make a batch file to run it in whatever drive & directory you
installed to with the command: livemode reg 3 0x00 )
10. Reboot and capture with your favorite software with no brightness
problem on latest (released) reference drivers!

Note that you are still going to use the Nvidia Universal WDM for
capturing. There is no need to install any more Video Live software
other than described above.

If you still have the brightness problem ("excessive white saturation"
is how I've seen it described elsewhere) you are not running the
livemode reg 3 0x00 command properly. You can run it any time after
bootup, even while a capture program is running if you want to watch
it change the picture.

If you want to play around with the manual gain control and many other
settings also download the SAA7111A EVIP manager from the Video Live
URL. It will run without messing up the picture as long as you did
step #8.

Also, remember if you are just getting a black capture window to
reboot. I seem to get it every other time I reboot but then rebooting
again will fix it.