Capturing via S-Video - Sound but no video

[L0cutuz]

Guys ,


I have a problem with my newly ( from ebay ) bought WinTV PVR - PCI .
I mainly bought it to digitalize some old home vid's and stuff . To check this last week i hooked up the VCR via the antenna cabel to the PVR card. This worked more or less fine ( when i minimize the WinTV2000 application ). Yesterday i got myself a SCART to S-VIDEO converter plug and cables .
The plug has on one side a scart plugh (obviously) and on the other side one s-video and a yellow,red and white plug - which is composite i believe .
I connected the s-video to the the s-video of the PVR Card.The red and white audio connectors join into one 3.5 mm plug which is then connected to the Line-In of the PVR Card .
I then started up WinTV2000 and opened the channel suite selector menu .
There i have two options to choose
1. Composite
2. Composite/S-VIDEO

the s-video option has a little red flash on top of the icon - iam not sure wherever that means it is connected or not ?
Iam getting a picture on both of the options . When i choose the the s-video option i as well click the Svideo checkbox.
Anyhow i get a nice clean picture in WinTV2000 .

When i choose to record it i have audio but the video either stays totally blank - or it is green with coloured blocks.
I have tried this with normal storebought videos and ones that i taped from television .

Right now iam kinda out of ideas .. so i would really apreciate it if someone could help me !

Thanks already !

[flaninacupboard]

is it actually an s-vhs deck? if not i'd be surprised if it has an s-video output.
if you're recording normal vhs then composite video is the best you get anyway.

[L0cutuz]

To be honest iam not sure wherever it is a SVHS deck . I have it anyhow connected via the scart plug with an adapter .
The thing that makes me wonderis that i get a perfect clean picture when watching with the WinTV2000 application . The video is just blank when recording ....

So iam not sure wherever this matters if it is a SVHS deck if i can watch the video ok ?

[flaninacupboard]

hmm.
let me just check, you have the S lead connected, the red and white leads conneted, but NOT the yellow lead, correct?

[L0cutuz]

S-lead as in S-Video - yes . For the rest corrcet.

With this setup i can watch the video perfectly on my pc .

[flaninacupboard]

have you tried capturing with another application, like virtualdub or showshifter?
what codec are you capturing to?

[L0cutuz]

I actually bought this card ( WinTV PVR pci ) in order to be able to capture directly in mpeg2. I think due to the old drivers i need to use their application - beeing WinTV2000 - to capture .

With the other applications i can only capture in avi - which i dont want .

this is really a weird thing coz i can see the picture so clearly when watchin it . Thinking of it - the application crashes as well after a few seconds when playing those vid's . Sometimes they are green though with coloured blocks .

[SatStorm]

mainconcept 1.4.2 and powerVCR 3 is few of the applications that allows to the users of the simply PCI cards to capture realtime to mpeg 2 (if they have a CPU more than 1.7Ghz...)

[flaninacupboard]

have you tried playing back the files in a different program like windows media player, or media player classic?

[L0cutuz]

Yeah i guess i could try to do the avi thing - computer is fast enough for that . But it would defeat the purpose of the card i have bought


I have tried to play the files with 2 different types of apps. Windows media player - crashed . PowerDVD - crashed .

[SatStorm]

what about "windows media player classic"?

[L0cutuz]

I must admit i havent done so yet . Iam not sure wherever to get the classic version ?
Does it play any more formats then the newer versions ?
I will try to get hold of that one as well so i can try that . I hope it wont crash as well .
Even though iam wondering if there is nothing wrong with the WinTV2000 application - or rather with the settings - as everything seems to work fine except recording via s-video.
I think i might reinstall the whole drivers etc. this weekend if i get the chance.

--- EDIT

just found it on the net

[Dave2001]

Ok i did a reinstall of the software - and now i cannot capture via the tuner hooked up to the vcr either anymore . This has worked before .
Before the reinstall i checked and it didnt either anymore so i figured a reinstall would fix it all . It didnt !

When i capture now the picture has basically a black background with lots of different coloured squares moving around quickly. This is different to what i had before . I still can watch via the tuner and via the s-video but recording is totally gone .

Btw - i downloaded windows media player classic - it seems to be the only app that doesnt crash . Thats very nice but it shows basically the same . black background with lots of coloured squares ....

Iam really out of ideas now ...

-- EDIT

just saw that this is a different username ... damn autologin ... the other
one is from work .

---EDIT again

just tried the pause button - it gives me an error saying
Stream Dshow Error
Cannot playback the video stream : the video format is not supported.

[flaninacupboard]

sounds maybe your mpeg2 codec is knackered. try installing anohter one.

[Dave2001]

I just copied one of the captures i made to another pc - which has just PowerDVD installed - and it looks basically the same . PowerDVD doesnt crash - but the screen stays black and i have only audio . So i dunno if it is the codec ?

[flaninacupboard]

perhaps not then.

is is possible to try the card in another machine or do a clean windows install. it does sound like a codec issue and these can be more hassle than it's worth to sort out. if a clean install or another machine doesn't work i'd return the card.

[Dave2001]

I will try to put in the card into another pc tomorrow morning . That will be so to say a clean install i guess .

If that works i will have to do a reinstall on this pc as well .

Damn ....

[Dave2001]

Ok i installed the card into another pc this morning - but it is the same . Iam sure iam seeing something over the head as iam now not even able to capture from the tuner anymore . That was possible before .

[flaninacupboard]

hmm, sound slike a card fault then. if your ebay seller is a nice guy he may take it as a return. although a lot of people just instantly sell their junk on ebay
not having used the card myself it's hard to offer anymore advice.

did you try mainconcept 1.4.2 and powerVCR 3 as satstorm suggested?

[Dave2001]

I think i will try that one next to see if my computer is able to capture mpeg2 nicely directly from the card ...
i hope so - otherwise tis card would have been a total failure .

I dunno if i can blame the seller though - as it has worked - at least via the tuner - on this computer here before .

[Dave2001]

Tried to install PowerVCR 3 but it says my configuration is wrong and every option is grayed out ...

[SatStorm]

Hmmm....
Install Dscaler and try with it. If you don't manage to have picture with Dscaler, then you have tuff issues there, probably hardware related (dscaler use built in drivers)