New Hauppauge PVR 250 user, question about macrovision

[Iamnotsam]

Hi, I got a Hauppauge PVR 250 from my friend, and I have encountered a " black screen" problem while capturing from the S-video input. I think the problem is related to macrovision, but I thought Hauppauge PVR 250 would ignore the macrovision completely, am I wrong here? Here is the situation: When I connected my PVR 250 directly to my DVD-player thru either S-video/Composite, I got "black screen". Just to be sure that my problem isn't caused by bad S-video/Composite connector or cable, I have connected them again to my TV's monitor out (video out) thru S-video/Composite, which I can received the TV signal without any problem. Then I put a DVD into my DVD player and play it, I switch to the DVD channel on my TV (which should also output the DVD signal thru my TV's video out), I again got the "black screen". However, when I change back to a regular channel, I got video signal. I only got "black screen" or no signal from my DVD player. Why? Do I need a older driver? Can some one help me please?

Sorry for my bad english, and I hope you can understand my question. ^^

[ulapines]

I have no answer on that, but I'm curious.
Why would you want to capture from your DVD-player?

[Iamnotsam]

The reason is simply to test out the card, since only my dvd player has both s-video out and composite out ( component out also, but my PVR 250 won't accept that I believe), and my old VCR doesn't has S-video out, so it would be much easier to use the DVD player if I want to test whether the S-video/Composite input of my card are working. Besides, almost all commercial DVD have macrovision, so it is also a sure bet to use it to test whether my PVR 250 will ignore macrovision or not. My final goal is to make a digital backups for all my old VHS archives, so whether or not this card can remove macrovision protection is very important to me.

Another reason, a minor one, is that DVD should have the best quality of all, and I just want to see how good the quality this card can get.

[junkmalle]

Are you using component cables to connect your DVD player to your TV? Many DVD players switch off the composite/SVideo ouputs when using Component.

[yoda313]

Hi,

I have the 250 and I did test the input from dvd playback. I used a rca video cable and the supplied rca/svideo adapter to connect it. I got superb dubbing that way. No macro problems at all.

Did you make sure you selected svideo on the input channel in the wintv2000 program??? You have to tell it what input your using.

Kevin

EDIT - Here's an example:

[junkmalle]

Or press the little green button between the channel up/down controls to cycle between the tuner, composite and s-video:

[Iamnotsam]

Thank you very much for all your reply and help. (junkmalle and Yoda313) You guys are the best. ^^

English is not my first language, so I guess I didn't make it very clear in the first post. Please allow me to explain my situation further, and I hope this time you can understand my situation.

First of all, I CAN capture from my S-video/Composite input. In order to verify that there wasn't anything wrong with the connection or cables, I have connected my PVR 250 card to my TV's Video out (thru S-video/composite cable), which is located at the back of my TV. This way my 250 will receive anything that were displaying on my TV. When I switch to a regular channel, my 250 got the video signal without any problem. But when I switch to the DVD channel, while I can see the picture on the TV, my 250 got "black screen". If I switch back to the regular channel, I got video signal again.

Here is a still image capture(TV Cap) that I got from S-video/Composite input:


Today, I try to capture directly from my DVD player for the second time, and this time I have tried several different settings. And I found out that if I set my DVD player to pal/ntsc with interlace mode, I got "black screen". But if I change to Pal and progressive scan mode, I got something that look like a distorted picture.

Here are some examples:




The above pictures look a lot like those that are suffering from macrovision if you ask me. And the only difference between a regular TV channel's signal from a DVD player's signal is macrovision. So, I have reasons to believe that my 250 doesn't ignore macrovision at all. Of course, I am still investigating this problem and let's not jump into conclusion.

Also, my 250 is a Pal version that were sold in Hong Kong and even though my card should be less than a year old (that what's my friend told me), phsically this card look differently from the one on the Hauppauge website. My 250 got a Composite input as well as a S-video input; so is my 250 a very old card that suffer from Macrovision???

By the way, all my capture have "black bars". Is there anyway to minimize them or even remove them in capture???

Here are some examples: (Regular TV cap)




Thanks in advance.

[yoda313]

Hi,

I don't know anything about pal so I cant help you there.

But to let you know the black lines should not be visible when you author a dvd. Its the overscan issue I believe. So don't worry about the lines.

Kevin

(just make sure your settings are pal to pal which it seems you did on your dvd player. One question, did you upgrad to the latest drivers for your wintv???? That can help considerably.)

[SHS]

Iamnotsam you say is macrovision but it not macrovision it shouldn't look that if was that, that or some new type macrovision, but any case the 250 would dump the error anyway, What I think get is off the wall frame sycn problem which maybe cuase by your Home DVD Player S/Video output have test any non macrovision DVD Disc as Home Made DVD Disc one?.
Dose the 250 support macrovision NO it dosen't.

[Iamnotsam]

Dose the 250 support macrovision NO it dosen't.

Shs,

Thank you so much for your reply. I have been to your web site, and all I can say is you did an excellent job there. Your website has saved a newbie like me a lot of time when setting up this PVR 250 card. As a matter of fact, the driver that I am using right now was downloaded from your website. ^^

If you say the 250 doesn't support macrovision, then man, I will take your word for it, since you have so much knowledge on the card. The reasons that I post this questions was because I am totally new to this card. Like I said on my other post, my card looks (phsically) differently from the picture on the Hauupauge website; and I wonder whether my card is a older version that support the macrovision. Anyway, thanks for clarifing this for me.

And for my problem, I still have no clue why it happen, since my dvd player works wonderfully on my TV. ( Gee, I bought this chinese brand dvd player in Hong Kong, and I thought China is one of the few countries that doesn't respect macrovision. I was hoping this dvd player doesn't even support macrovision and now I run into this troubles ) Anyway I can get my other DVD player and try on it, and may be my old VHS as well. Since those equipments are located in the living room, which is far away from my computer room, so I guess I will do it later when I can find the time. I will update my result ASAP.

Again, thanks everybody for your reply and help. ^^

[thecoalman]

This way my 250 will receive anything that were displaying on my TV. When I switch to a regular channel, my 250 got the video signal without any problem. But when I switch to the DVD channel, while I can see the picture on the TV, my 250 got "black screen". If I switch back to the regular channel, I got video signal again.

@Iamnotsam, If I understand you correctly your running the signal through your TV first? Perhaps the TV won't output anything with MV or it's screwing up the signal somehow. Have you tried connecting the DVD player directly to the card? The screencaps you posted above look similar to what you would see when you have the incorrect setting selected between PSAL/NTSC.

you say is macrovision but it not macrovision it shouldn't look that if was that, that or some new type macrovision,

How it looks on the capture depends on what the card does, it's not how VHS looks. My Geforce VIVO card for example will put a white bar across 75% of the capture. I'm not saying it's MV, just that it could look like anything from a capture card.

[SHS]

Now there a good possable to as thecoalman said and just wonder are you using a A/V switch box Iamnotsam?.
None of the PVR have macrovision support not 1st PVR PCI, 150, 250, 350, 500, USB nor USB2 but Macrovision will kick in and so will (CGMS-A) Content Generation Management System for Analog from channel like HBO, etc that support it but only under WinXP MCE will get turn on far I know of by defaults it off.

[junkmalle]

If you're setup like this:

DVD Player ---YCbCr---> TV ---SVideo---> PVR250

It probably will not work. The TV doesn't convert the YCbCR signal to SVideo for output.

This will probably work:

DVD Player ---SVideo---> TV ---SVideo---> PVR250

and this should work:

DVD Player ---SVideo---> PVR250

[yoda313]

Hi,

and this should work:

DVD Player ---SVideo---> PVR250

Yes its always best to eliminate the number of steps the video has to take between the source and the destination. Simpler the better

Kevin

[rumplestiltskin]

Just curious - How was the A/V sync when splitting the audio from the video? I use the coax connector on my 250 and it's perfectly in sync; However, it's badly out of sync when using the separate inputs (composite and audio line in).

[junkmalle]

Just curious - How was the A/V sync when splitting the audio from the video? I use the coax connector on my 250 and it's perfectly in sync; However, it's badly out of sync when using the separate inputs (composite and audio line in).

I capture with the s-video and audio line inputs all the time and never have A/V sync problems. I seem to recall having problems long ago when I was experimenting with very low audio bitrates. Like 64 kbps.

[rumplestiltskin]

junkmaile,

Thanks for the reply. I was searching for some more info and found some reports that point to nVidia chipsets on the mobo as a clue that sync problems will occur. That might not have been worded correctly; let's say that these reports of sync issues seem to have a common thread of nVidia. Of course, correlation does not equal causation.

IIRC, there's a registry setting for tweaking the audio delay. If you might know of it, a post here might be helpful.

Thanks

[junkmalle]

junkmaile,

Thanks for the reply. I was searching for some more info and found some reports that point to nVidia chipsets on the mobo as a clue that sync problems will occur. That might not have been worded correctly; let's say that these reports of sync issues seem to have a common thread of nVidia. Of course, correlation does not equal causation.

IIRC, there's a registry setting for tweaking the audio delay. If you might know of it, a post here might be helpful.

Thanks

Rumplestiltskin,

I believe the audio and video are already muxed together in the MPEG stream that comes from the card. So Nvidia problems are likely a decoding/playback issue. I know that If I really stress the computer while capturing (or just viewing) I can get WinTV2000 to desync the audio and video. But the MPEG file that's saved to disk is fine. This issue can be exacerbated by the "LivePreview" registry hack since it leaves less buffering between the live source and WinTV2000, leaving less room for error.

Is it possible that the sync problem is software related? Maybe the motherboards come with the same player or same MPEG2 decoder?

In any case, most of what I know of registry hacks and thrid party software for the Hauppauge PVR series comes from these two web sites:

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

Let me know if you find the source of the problem. This is actually of some interest to me because I'm planning on upgrading to an Athlon 64 X2 and NForce based motherboard once the prices come down a bit!

[SHS]

Yes that rigth junkmaile the audio and video are already muxed together in the MPEG stream that comes from the card.
rumplestiltskin is you see bad sycn in WinTV2000 but not in Soft DVD Player like PowerDVD, WinDVD, etc, etc.
junkmaile as for Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processors you should be fine with 32-bit OS, as for 64-bit OS that going take a year or two so don't go jumping on 64-bit OS band wagons.

But like all thing the results are quite logical. If the application, dll, sys, etc can use both processor cores simultaneously, then the dual core CPUs will definitely perform faster and better than the single core.

[rumplestiltskin]

D-oh! I was using the mobo's audio-input port rather than the one on the PVR card! (sound of me smacking my forehead!)

I'll try it again.

[Iamnotsam]

@Iamnotsam, If I understand you correctly your running the signal through your TV first? Perhaps the TV won't output anything with MV or it's screwing up the signal somehow. Have you tried connecting the DVD player directly to the card? The screencaps you posted above look similar to what you would see when you have the incorrect setting selected between PSAL/NTSC.

Thanks for your reply, and yes; I did tried to connect the DVD player directly
to the card and I got the same result.

How it looks on the capture depends on what the card does, it's not how VHS looks. My Geforce VIVO card for example will put a white bar across 75% of the capture. I'm not saying it's MV, just that it could look like anything from a capture card.

You are absolutely right, thecoalman; for I used to have a Geforce VIVO card too. Man, I miss that card badly.

[thecoalman]

A few other suggestions:

If it's a PAL/NTSC player I've seen others post problems with PAL/NTSC VHS players where it would convert the signal to hybrid called ?PAL-60? which apparently plays on a TV but not on a capture card.

Have you tried discs that you have made yourself?

If you have acces to another player have you tried that? preferably one that is outputting the native signal of the discs.

Is it just s-video? Maybe you have a bad connector in the s-video chain?

I'm really just guessing here but thos would be the things I'd look into.

You are absolutely right, thecoalman; for I used to have a Geforce VIVO card too. Man, I miss that card badly.

Bahhhhhhh! ADVC, it's the king. <runs for cover>

[Iamnotsam]

Again, Thanks everybody for your reply and help.

Now, it's time to update my result.

First of all, I would like to confirm that the PVR 250 DOES NOT SUPPORT MACROVISION, just like what SHS said; and he is absolutely right on this issue, and I have to appoligze to everyone for creating such a big confusion.

I have connected my other DVD player directly to my 250, and this time I CAN capture video from it and my 250 has absolutely no problem on capturing this kind of material (macrovision).

However, I still have no idea what is causing the capturing problem with my first DVD player. Out of curiosity, I have burnt a dvd-R using some the TV capture I have on my hard drive (@thecoalman, it seems we got the same idea afterall). And I try to capture from my first DVD player again using this disc, for this dvd-R does not have any macrovision. This time, I got video signal but the pictures are only in black and white. Since I am using a disc which does not have macrovision, and this DVD player still doesn't let me capture from it correctly (without color). So my conclusion is that the problem is not caused by macrovision, but my DVD player have some kind of copy protection hardware built-in that doesn't allow any kind of copying in general. My 250 is definitely affected by this and it is not capable to capture anything from this player.

By the way, does anyone knows what's the "Audio CRC On/off" does in the Wintv application?

Also, I have some problem with the picture quality of my 250. For slow motion stuff or any show that doesn't have a lot of action such as talk show, soap opera... etc, I got great image.

Here's an example:




However, for shows that have fast motion like sport shows or movies, the picture quality is pretty bad; not only that it's very "grainly" but also a little bit out of focus if you ask me. The color of the captures are also less than desire; in fact I think my old geforce VIVO and AIW give more vivd color than this card. Is there any tweak that I can apply to improve the picture quality?

Here's some examples:




@thecoalman, thanks again for your help and your excellent advice.

Also, thank you again and any help is appreciated.

Sorry for my bad English.

[thecoalman]

This time, I got video signal but the pictures are only in black and white.

As I mentioed before the B/W images you posted before look simialr to when you have selected the wrong format between PAL/NTSC which is why I suggested the weird hybrid signal in my last post. I'm guessing but I'll bet your player is outputting a non-standard signal. If you do a search for Pal60 you'll get quite a few results. Anyhow good luck!

Sorry for my bad English.

If only people who speak it spoke as well.

BTW those caps look pretty good to me. Make sure your not deinterlacing and keep it interlaced if you intend to watch on a TV. The only time to deinterlace is if your going to watch on a computer, even then I prefer to use software such as PowerDVD to deinterlace during playback. The only time I deinterlace is for video I make for the web.

[SHS]

If look on this page Iamnotsam
http://www.shspvr.com/howto/custom_mpeg_pvr2.html
You fine
Audio CRC: CRC stands for Cyclic Redundancy Check or newbie term error checking, The CRC is 16 bits long and, if it exists, it follows the frame header. After the CRC comes the audio data.

I going have agree with thecoalman sound like your first DVD player is PAL-60/NTSC-50 (Multisystem DVD Player) which may not be a ture scan convert.

Some day we get World Wide Standards but I wouldn't count on it maybe in 50 to 100 years.

[junkmalle]

However, for shows that have fast motion like sport shows or movies, the picture quality is pretty bad; not only that it's very "grainly" but also a little bit out of focus if you ask me. The color of the captures are also less than desire; in fact I think my old geforce VIVO and AIW give more vivd color than this card. Is there any tweak that I can apply to improve the picture quality?

There is nothing wrong with your PVR. The blurry action shots are because the display driver is using a blend deinterlace. The contents of the MPEG file are interlaced video. This is how the video was broadcast and it is proper for the card to capture this way. When you display interlaced video on a progressive computer monitor you will see interlace comb lines. Here's a discussion with more information about that:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1320385#1320385

The WinTV2000 application uses a blend deinterlace to make it look better. There are better methods (BOB deinterlace) on the computer but they are more compute intensive. If you burn your MPEG files to DVD you won't see the interlace comb lines or the blend deinterlace.

My preference is to see the interlace comb lines on the computer so I know what I'm dealing with (the computer is not my final target display device). You can turn off the blend deinterlacing of the WinTV2000 application with this registry hack:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IviSDK4Hauppauge\Commo n\VideoDec]
"BOBWEAVE"=dword:00000002

Setting that registry value to 2 results in a weave (you simply see both fields with the comb lines). Setting it to 1 gives the blend deinterlace you are currently seeing. These do not effect the content of the MPEG file, just the way it's displayed by WinTV2000.

Regarding the colors, the PVR is also working perfectly. By design computer monitors have very different brightness/contrast/gamma settings than televisions. Captured video should look dark on a computer monitor unless the playback application compensates for this (ie, brightens the picture as it plays it back). Once again, if you burn your MPEG file to a DVD you should find that the colors look just like the original source.

If the colors are still off, you can use the proc amp controls within WinTV2000 to adjust them. Press the PREF button on the main control panel, switch to the Color tab in the dialog that pops up. These controls adjust the picture properties before the MPEG data is encoded within the PVR. Do not adjust the settings to look good on your monitor unless you are only going to watch on the monitor. If you do, and then burn a DVD from the MPEG file, it will look overly bright and washed out when playing the DVD on your TV.

The default settings were a little off for my cable box. I changed them to:

    Brightness:  130
    Contrast:    134
    Saturation:  142
    Hue:         128

But the correct settings for each source varies.

Here are two excellent web sites with lots of information about the PVR series:

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

You'll find all kind of registry hacks (including the above mentioned deinterlace settings) and utilities that Hauppauge should have included in WinTV2000!