What is a good video capture that captures to AVI format?

[jxsam1@yahoo.com]

Hi all,

After months and months of research and countless hours at work surfing the web going through a lot of forums and boards, I ended up buying a Hauppauge 250.

However, I am sorry to say that this is the worse piece of crap I have ever spent and thank God I bought it at Fry's so back to the store later today.

Why is this a piece of crap you may ask? Well, the video captured is extremely picky and buggy. In other words, AV synch is a HUGE issue when burning to DVD. If you plan on using this card as purely a tv tuner or for encoding video to be played on your PC, you are fine but if you plan to put your shows on DVD, dream on.

I started capturing The Amazing Race (AWESOME SHOW BY THE WAY!!!) via the bundled scheduler. I got 2 episodes in MPEG-2 format VBR 8 Mbps max and average of 6 Mbps. (It's the Standard DVD template)

Once they are in my PC as MPEG-2, they bundled a software called Nanopeg to edit the commercials out and it's a relatively quick process as it does not re-encode.

Then the pain started. Every single freaking time, the files are either corrupted by this Nanopeg that you can't open in TMPEGEnc if you want to re-encode and most of the DVD Authoring programs will either have to re-encode this stream or once on the DVD it's out of synch. I've tried using the unaltered captured MPEG-2 file and the altered (Nanopeg) file and both have their own issues.

I read a bunch of threads regarding this issue on the Hauppauge PVR 250 synch issue and there are so many variables. Some say it's the VBR, some say it's the Audio Bitrate, some say it's the editing of the Nanopeg, some say run it through VideoReDo, some say run it through Womble, some say demux and mux, some say try Nanofix. Needless to say, I've tried Demux, Nanofix, Womble, VideoReDo and no luck. The video plays fine on my PC but on DVD it goes out of synch. On top of that, my DVD authoring s/w re-encodes the stream and if I use Procoder, it won't even open this up. I ended up opening this freaking MPEG-2 file in Vegas video, edit commercials out and re-encode and ... STILL OUT OF SYNCH.

This is really driving me nuts. I've really had it so I'm looking to buy a simple TV capture card that will capture in AVI and I'll just spend the time running through a s/w encoder (ie Procoder) to convert to MPEG-2 and save me more time and hassle.

SOOOOoooo... after my big ol' RANT... anyone know what is a decent TV tuner/capture card that will capture in AVI? I've read very positive reviews about the Compro cards but they only do MPEG-2 via software. It does not provide AVI capture. I've been considering the Leadtek cards. Any suggestions? I would prefer something that does not have to connect the audio seperately to the soundcard.

[lordsmurf]

If you're getting sync errors on everything, especially on good Hauppauge cards, your PC has issues. Did you ever try to play back the video on a tv. Maybe your system codecs are hosed.

[nelson133]

Get yourself a CanopusADVC box, it'll run you about $250 US, I bought one over a year ago and have never looked back. It (among other things) converts analog video signals to digital that can be captured with any number of free progams in avi format. The audio and video synch is locked by the box. I've recorded hundreds of programs and movies from the tv and never had a synch problem.
I works very well for video tape captures also and the macroprotection removal feature is important too. There are some here who quibble about the quality of the output, leading to long and involved discussions that didn't prove anything. Some push the ATI cards and they may get good results from them too, but the Canopus box is simply a plug it in and use it appliance, no tricky drivers or software.
I suggest WinDV, DVIO, or Stoik Video capture as free programs to get the avis captured. The Stoik is my current favorite because the other 2 (and some payware programs) seem to randomly stop recording on occasion with WinXP. Not everyone has this problem and they usually work, just a possible problem. Nyah Levi

[jxsam1@yahoo.com]

Thank for the reply. I'm actually looking for something that has a TV tuner though.

Canopus does make excellent products and I wouldn't go for anything else if I'm in the market for a Hardware encoder.

[jxsam1@yahoo.com]

If you're getting sync errors on everything, especially on good Hauppauge cards, your PC has issues. Did you ever try to play back the video on a tv. Maybe your system codecs are hosed.

Hi lordsmurf, thanks for the reply. I ruled out the PC as a variable. I am running WinXP on AMD XP 1900+ with 512 MB Ram. It's a clean system as it's my wife's PC. Only thing installed on it is Office 2000. Nothing else with the exception of the Hauppauge drivers and software. I even went as far as uninstalling Hauppauge, cleaning the regitry entries for Hauppauge and installing again.

The issue is very common as you will find in a lot of Forums and even on shspvr.com which is one of the most popular forums for all the Hauppauge products. There are just way too many issues and I think the best thing is to capture in AVI format and then I'll just do the compression on my own. It will save me much much more time instead of tinkering and cutting and re-editing and re-encoding the MPEG-2 generated by the Hauppauge card.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a noobie as I run a local video editing service and I master DVD's for people so I am fairly knowledgeable with video for PC. I used to own a Dazzle DVC2 h/w capture card as well.

I think the Hauppauge works great as a TV Tuner and as a PVR type device but the problem comes in when you try to convert that into a DVD. There are GOP errors on the unaltered MPEG file as it does not open in several s/w encoders such as TMPEGEnc and Procoder. There are tons of 3rd party apps that supposedly fix this or try to fix these MPEG files but I does not exactly work 100% of the time so I rather just get a simple TV Tuner card with AVI capture and I'll do the rest as my other rig can churn out MPEG-2 files fairly quickly.

[lordsmurf]

I'd still be sure to re-check codecs. If it was not wiped the day you started, you never know if she clicked "yes" on some magic pop-up that should have been "no".

[iantri]

lordsmurf: There is a good bit of evidence that Hauppage PVR-250 and 350 cards have some rather serious issues with audio sync -- it can go when edited due to issues with the source (something to do with how the card handles bad video -- the MPEG-2 hardware encoding does not produce entirely valid files that cause trouble when edited).

It seems that if you are affected by this, jxsam, you'll simply need to get a different card. Now, that said, for best quality get a something that captures DV. For straight-to-AVI, All-in-Wonders seem to produce very good quality, but ATI's software is horribly quirky. If you are on a budget, any Brooktree 848/878 card will do reasonably well, but expect sync issues and you will need to tune the video settings as most come poorly configured.

With any device that does not capture audio and video together there is a chance of sync issues; the video and audio are being captured different devices that do not necessarily sample at an exactly perfect rate. Quality equipment reduces these problems, but they can still happen. That's why the DV solutions, like the ADVC-100, produce excellent results.

[lordsmurf]

I know it can happen, but I'm just going from the "more likely" point of view.

[jxsam1@yahoo.com]

Thanks iantri. I'll see what I can do with my budget. What I've done in the past was use my Camcorder and record any show recorded on my TIVO then just capture that via the DV and then re-encode.

It works well but it's a lot of hassle as I have to keep pluggin and unpluggin my devices. Especially for the next 12 to 13 weeks worth of Amazing Race.

I have been considering an ATI AIW card like the 9600 XT. It's about time to upgrade one of my video card for these new games coming out (Doom 3 and HL 2). So this may be a good opportunity to get an AIW card. I no longer set my expectations as high and expect a HW encoder that I can get files that I can burn onto DVD easily. I may have to fork out the cash for a Canopus but just can't really justify for now.

[deckard8]

I think PowerVCR II is still the best realtime mpeg2 capture program - once you've turned off the de-interlace with a registry hack. I use a cheap Pinnacle Rave card and this software never has any a/v sync issues unlike everything else I've ever used and the quality is very good for realtime too.

[deckard8]

Yeh, I know he's asking about avi capture, but why bother if your source is good? Just wastes a lot of time.

[diat150]

Ok since you are tivoing the program just buy the canopus and output the saved tivo to it and voila... you have avi. or you can get the mainconcept mpeg encoder and you wont have to go through the long process of encoding with tmpgenc. I have that junk pvr250 collecting dust in my computer right now, what a waste of money.

[jxsam1@yahoo.com]

Ok since you are tivoing the program just buy the canopus and output the saved tivo to it and voila... you have avi. or you can get the mainconcept mpeg encoder and you wont have to go through the long process of encoding with tmpgenc. I have that junk pvr250 collecting dust in my computer right now, what a waste of money.

Hey diat... the TIVO is a temp solution. It's a big hassle because I have to move the TIVO around the house to my PC in order to capture that.

Thank you all for the responses.

[iantri]

BTW, if you want to, there is a good bit of information on the internet about how to modify your tivo to get the recorded streams off it -- not re-capture, but extract the recorded MPEG-2 streams, which aren't, unfortunately, DVD compliant, but many DVD players will take it anyway. If not, you can always re-encode -- the quality will be better than passing it through an analogue device.

here is some information.

[jimmalenko]

I got a Canopus ADVC-100 about 6 months ago because I had the dream of so many others and wanted to put VHS onto DVD. This is an excellent device, and there are a couple of different Canopus products that can do what you wish to do. I have even had the XBOX hooked up to it. To provide TV capture capability, I simply use the VCR as a TV tuner.

The ADVC-100 can input and output as Analog or Digital whereas the ADVC-50 and ADVC-55 cannot output in Analog.

I capture to AVI using ScenalyzerLive and the Canopus DV codec, edit if required with Virtualdub, encode with TMPGEnc Plus, author with TMPGEnc DVD Author, and burn with Nero Express.

[junkmalle]

In defense of the Hauppauge PVR 250: I've never had AV sync problems. I haven't used their Nanopeg software though. I edit with VirtualDubMod or Womble MPEG Video Wizard. I'm quite happy with the card.

The default settings filter and sharpen too much when recording from clean signals. Good for VHS captures though. Unfortunately the capture program doesn't let you change the filter settings. You have to use third party programs or RegEdit.

[Goonch]

I'd still be sure to re-check codecs.

How do you do that?

[lordsmurf]

I'd still be sure to re-check codecs.

How do you do that?

DXMAN to start