WDM->VFW wrapper Quality

[Lamont Cranston]

I realize this is a subjective question but is there a noticable degradation in quality when you capture using WDM->AVI wrapper with win2K or other OS? I am growing tired of working around the 4G file size limit. My capture card is an ATI AIW 128 Pro.

[Triffid]

I tried the wrapper together with the nVidia WDM capture driver, and I definately got a reduction in quality compared to the vfw capture driver I had been using (asuscap). The problem was with the colour. It was off by a bit (maybe there was some reduction in the available colours). I even saw the situation where 2 adjacent lines from the 2 fields in the same frame had colour variation on a single colour background which gave the overall picture a poor look.

I use Win98SE.

I hope it works better for you!

BTW I went back to vfw and I love it!

[kjmacke]

under the tool's catergory go to caputure amd select free vcr. I have had good luck with it and it has a good tool for the 2 gig. problem. I have used this with my ati card for six month's with no problems.

[Lamont Cranston]

I tried the wrapper together with the nVidia WDM capture driver, and I definately got a reduction in quality compared to the vfw capture driver I had been using (asuscap). The problem was with the colour. It was off by a bit (maybe there was some reduction in the available colours). I even saw the situation where 2 adjacent lines from the 2 fields in the same frame had colour variation on a single colour background which gave the overall picture a poor look.

I use Win98SE.

I hope it works better for you!

BTW I went back to vfw and I love it!

Which version of MMC are your running?

[liquid217]

i don't suppose you could get some snapshots to prove this could you? im not doubting your statements, but i don't see how this is possible. The wrapper shouldn't alter the image in any way, but just translate the data to the vfw adapter. Unfortunately, i can no longer find the vfw drivers for the ati rage128 pro chipset. I would be interested in seeing the results.

[Lamont Cranston]

Unfortunately, i can no longer find the vfw drivers for the ati rage128 pro chipset.

You can find the win 98 & me VFW driver at http://www.ati.com/support/products/pc/rage128pro/win98/rage128prowin98driversvfw.html

[liquid217]

i thank you for your efforts, but i am running 2000 and i don't believe they were ever made for that os. once again i would be interested in comparisons. Do you believe vfw is inferior to wdm regarding quality, or is it simply the wrapper is not up to par? When i had 98, i had the vfw drivers installed, but i did not see any noticable differences.

[Lamont Cranston]

Right now I am at a loss as to what is going on. I am running win 98 SE and have been running the VFW ATI drivers(4.12.6292). I un & installed the DirectShow version(4.13.7192) with same version of MMC(6.1). Here is the mystery. I can capture WDM using compression codecs(picvideo...) with both AVI_IO and VirtualDub without the wdm->vfw wrapper installed. I Ghosted the system before I installed the wrapper so I know it was not installed at the beginning of each of my tests. I can't see where the wrapper makes any difference at all. On the flip side I can not capture with compression with Ulead's MSP V6.5. I made a similiar test with Win 2K and again I could not see any change after I installed the wrapper. Can someone shed some light?

Liquid217: When I ran under win 2k with MMC 7.1 my audio was limited to 44.1 KHz not 48KHz and there was a warniing of possible audio/video sync problems with long avi captures.

[liquid217]

well virtualdub's native mode is only vfw, there's no way that virtualdub can capture without a vfw driver or adaptor (the wrapper). Do a search for the file vfwwdm32.dll in your pc. If this file is present, then the wrapper is still present. also look and see what the capture device is in virtualdub, if its "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)", then it's still using the wrapper, although it sounds like you are only running the vfw drivers now. curious though.....what capture resolutions can you get with the vfw drivers? Also, what type of compression (if any) do you normally use? I appologise, but i misread ( to Lamont) your first post. I thought you were saying that there were quality differences, (duh, i didn't see the question mark). I personally don't see any major differences, and i generally capture uncompressed.

[liquid217]

i personally can't stand MMC. I used to use it, but it was extremely buggy and crashed often. now the only thing i use it for is watching tv. Virtualdub is far superior.

[Lamont Cranston]

well virtualdub's native mode is only vfw, there's no way that virtualdub can capture without a vfw driver or adaptor (the wrapper). Do a search for the file vfwwdm32.dll in your pc. If this file is present, then the wrapper is still present. also look and see what the capture device is in virtualdub, if its "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)", then it's still using the wrapper, although it sounds like you are only running the vfw drivers now. curious though.....what capture resolutions can you get with the vfw drivers? Also, what type of compression (if any) do you normally use?

you were right. Both the dll and device driver are there but the dll is in the wrapper.zip is a leter version than the one installed on the system. Some other application added the files.

Whne I capture AVI wiht AVI_IO or VirtualDub I use MainConcept's DV codec and capture DV type 2. It is an excellent chdec with very high efficiency, compression ratio and you can recompress, if necessary, up to 6 times with no degraduation in quality. However, it can only be used at 720 x 480 0r 720 x 576.

I don't use MMC but it needs to be installed for ATI's vfw (6292) driver to work properly.

When you capture what is you audio compression? 48 KHz was available and is a requirement for DVDs.

[FiEND]

the wrapper can alter the image alot.

ok my reference.

1
standard mmc 7.1 install
virtualdub to capture.

the color, brightness settings that I set in MMC for the video input is what virtualdub would default to when capturing. So if I am watching TV in MMC and it's a bit dark, I put the brightness up to say 5400 (5000 is base).

now when I open virtualdub, it will use a brightness setting of 5400 cause that was what MMC was left at.

2
standard mmc 7.1 install, then sourceforge BTxxx drivers.
virtualdub to capture.

the sourceforge drivers use a different panel to adjust brightness and such. it also adds alot, such as white balance, sharpness, gamma and more. It appears that it does not take the settings from MMC, though I havent tested.

------------


thus, when you install different drivers or a wrapper, make some adjustments to the display settings. in vdub, you adjust them with the tabs when you select your input source.

edit: also something that bugs me. after installing the sourceforge drivers, the screen is no longer centered. the left side has a small black band down it.

other than that, no noticeable quality difference yet.

[liquid217]

normally i don't use audio compression (just standard pcm at 44Khz) most of my stuff either ends up on svcd or pumped back through DV, so 44 is sufficient. I will try 48K this weekend and see if i have any trouble.

[Lamont Cranston]

normally i don't use audio compression (just standard pcm at 44Khz) most of my stuff either ends up on svcd or pumped back through DV, so 44 is sufficient. I will try 48K this weekend and see if i have any trouble.

I would appreciate it if you could check to see if you can set pcm 48kHz.

Now something has gone south because when I capture with the wrapper 9/10ths of the picture on playback is green.

[energy80s]

Sounds like an ATI Macrovision problem to me.

[energy80s]

i personally can't stand MMC. I used to use it, but it was extremely buggy and crashed often. now the only thing i use it for is watching tv. Virtualdub is far superior.

Try Version 7.6, its far better than the 7.1 release that has been on their website for ages. Also get the brand new drivers as they stop the macrovision circuits triggering un-necessarily. The only thing I can't get MMC 7.6 to do is capture in WMV format. But AVI, MPEG1 & MPEG2 are very stable these days.

[Lamont Cranston]

Try Version 7.6, its far better than the 7.1 release that has been on their website for ages. Also get the brand new drivers as they stop the macrovision circuits triggering un-necessarily. The only thing I can't get MMC 7.6 to do is capture in WMV format. But AVI, MPEG1 & MPEG2 are very stable these days.

Will MMC 7.5 work with AIW 128 Pro?

[liquid217]

hello lamont well i tried recording at 48khz (in virtualdub), it went ok and sync was good, but the vt adjust had some crazy numbers on it and i dropped quite a few frames. Needless to say, i probably won't be recoding at that frequency for a while (unless i have a better sound card). I do have a suggestion, you might just record your audio at 44, then resample it to dvd standards (make sure you use some type of anti-alias filter to make it nice and smooth sounding) good luck