s-video artifacts?

[vhelp]

i wonder if it is a shielding issue. maybe run a battery of svideo brand catures and run through that contrast to see if they all show the same or lessor issue. some equipment have regular tin plated shielding at the connectors assembly. while othes have copper or better, gold. the (svideo) cables may be acting as an antenna and ampify into noise or distortion of some sort. but i have my own problems, i have worse hatches (checkerboxes) in my analog captures off my directv though vcr (vhs) captures are clean of this issue.

[jagabo]

i wonder if it is a shielding issue.

I don't thing so. There's about 16 us between the main signal and the nearest reflection/induction. That would require a few thousand meters of cable. Of course, so would echos. So I think the problem lies elsewhere.

[sanlyn]

Some notes on the construction and insulation of BlueJean's Y/C 2 cable. But watch out for the BNC connector offering: I found it produced some mild edge artifacts.
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/svideo/index.htm

I still think the AR PRo-II is a little better. But be prepared to handle a rather thickly insulated AR cable.

[vhelp]

i just double-checked both patterns..in the 'store' pattern, middle gray box (left side of pattern) shows the ghosting (reflection) but i am set that the blame goes to the svideo cables used in that scenario bc the other patterns does show the same distortion..bc if it were the equipment, it would have shown in the other 'gray' capture, maybe lessor--but it didn't.

edit: maybe a better way to test this theory out is to recapture with both cables again and post a short 1-to-2 seconds worth in UT codec avi and review it to see if there is a consistant pattern of these distortions. otherwise, i'm pretty sure its a bad cable design.

[vhelp]

just for the heck of it, i would not mind blowing $20 bucks on a few new cables from rs, k-mart and cvs (driving distance) later, to test several captures to see how my equipment show whatever or similar artifacts. i have two vcrs, a jvc svideo and a sharp composite, if just to add to this discussion.

edit: oh, just realized, i don't have the test patterns on cd or other medium that i can use in these test captures. so that leaves me out. but i wouldn't mind seeing others post these tests later. i'd look forward to it but i will pick up some new cables anyway in case i find a pattern later.

[jagabo]

i am set that the blame goes to the svideo cables used in that scenario

I'm not saying the cable isn't the problem. I'm saying it's not a simple matter of noise leaking through the shielding, inducing the echo/reflection.

[jagabo]

oh, just realized, i don't have the test patterns on cd or other medium that i can use in these test captures.

There's a post somewhere with an MPEG 2 video of several test patterns. It used to be here:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/232830-Test-of-various-VCRs-Image-Quality-from-VHS-...%28Big-Pics%29

But the links no longer work. Here's a copy...

[vhelp]

yeah, all those links are dead, bin there and a few other places. i was looking for the one with the horizontal lines, to test the tbc performance. i couldn't find that, so i rebuilt it using an original png file i found elsewere but it too had artifacts, so i clean it up, i'll post later if its not included in the misctestpatterns.m2v file you posted. anyway. thank you for re-posting the pattens, much appreciated.

edit: will d/l later, connectin at work keeps timing out.

[Brad]

I made that M2V into an ISO for easier burning here.

Test patches certainly do tell you something, but not everything.

One thing the tests tell me is that this Sony player can't handle them properly! Every 10 frames it appears to drop one of the fields. I'm not sure whether it's the player or the capture device that then interpolates to create a full image again, but this player with three different USB capture devices shows the same issue. A different player with all three doesn't have the problem, and the Sony is fine with the Ice Age image.

[vhelp]

i d/l'ed the file. now, if i can only remember how to burn a dvdrw lol. its been maybe 6 years--i view everything from my hdd. oh well. aha..i just found nero, i see 'burn dvd-video files' so that must be it. anyway. i'll report back later. its been a busy day at work and store shopping for diner and cables and moving equip around and relearning how to author and stuff like that, and so on and so forth..pfew!
edit: ok, that didn't work..doesn't like .m2v, not part of dvd files..message said to try nero vision..trying that now..

[jagabo]

if i can only remember how to burn a dvdrw lol.

Use ImgBurn. "Write Image File to Disc" from the Ez Mode Picker. It will probably give you a warning about RW media. Just ignore that (assuming your player will play DVD images on RW media, some don't).

[vhelp]

i picked up fresh 10pk of rw's and it seems that my drive is not see the disc. very frustrating. am now digging through other discs in hopes to find one that will work in this external usb dvdwriter.

[jagabo]

i picked up fresh 10pk of rw's and it seems that my drive is not see the disc.

8x RW? Many drives can't handle that. Even if you burn at a lower speed.

[vhelp]

rats. after choosing your suggestion, ImgBurn says Destination: No Writers Detected!
i just put a toshiba recorded dvdrw and it played. even directly playing .vob via VLC.

[vhelp]

no, 1-4x, i wanted to be safe. they are sony DVD+RW, if that helps.

[jagabo]

I wouldn't expect any problems with 4x DVD+RW media. I don't know why ImgBurn isn't seeing your drive. I've never used it with external USB drives. But I can't imagine that's a problem.

[vhelp]

lol. i think i figured out why..i looked on the back of the unit, its a DVD-ROM drive what the hell!

model: ADV01US, made by Targus.

[jagabo]

So you don't have a DVD burner?

[vhelp]

i have an internal but its not working for some reason, and a buffalo blueray/dvd writer stored away. i'll have to check. otherwise i'll have to buy a new one tomorrow, preferably usb.

edit: all sorted out..picked up an LG dvd writer usb2, used nero to author disc since imgburn does not author (create) dvd-video, it only burns from imags and such.

[Brad]

[Attachment 17475 - Click to enlarge]

So here's a new one to chew on. Same player, same cable. Two other capture devices.

But these two capture devices share a common heritage. In fact I only "installed" one. For the other, Win7 just loaded up the exact same driver from 2009 by Beijing Geniatech Inc. Ltd. without me having to use its CD.



The name-brand one is clearly better all the way around, but how? Someone did some investigation into these devices here but I don't see a conclusion as to whether the hardware is identical. The chipset is by Conexant and is apparently very similar to the Hauppauge USB-Live2, which sells for about $7.50 more than the Diamond VC500 on Amazon currently.

Is it possible that the little soldered-on S-Video cable built into the device is what's making the difference?

[jagabo]

The Mygica cap has bad levels and is slightly oversharpened. It has dot crawl artifacts in the colored areas and echo noise within a few pixels of vertical edges.

The Diamond cap has better levels and no dot crawl artifacts. It isn't over sharpened but has similar echo artifacts.

The layout and isolation of the analog section of capture devices can make a difference in noise, echoes, sharpness, etc.

[Brad]

I could swear the same brand of dollar store cable worked fine in another environment (RV park vs apartment downtown) so I guess it depends on the local EMI.


[Attachment 17476 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 17475 - Click to enlarge]

Back to the Easycap results: I reacquired the cable that I was pleased with and it didn't come from the dollar store at all. I definitely didn't buy it deliberately, so I don't have any clue as to its actual origin. I think someone mailed it to me with a DVD recorder I bought. The jacket says such things as "e300060 awm 2919 30v vw-1 csa ll204790 ft1 low voltage computer cable", if those mean anything to anyone.

[Brad]

The layout and isolation of the analog section of capture devices can make a difference in noise, echoes, sharpness, etc.

I was rather shocked to discover that they are virtually identical inside. There are little differences here and there, but if anything the Diamond (bottom) is the one that looks more shoddily constructed.

I do notice that the top three wires on the left, which come from the S-Video input cable, go red-black-green on the Mygica as opposed to green-red-black. Could it be miswired?

[zerowalker]

Interesting, could probably be miswired, but haven´t really followed what´s going on. What are the artifacts/issues you get?
Cause if non of the wires are correct, i don´t get how you should be able to get a picture at all as nothing should be where it should.

Opposed to Composite at S-Video where chroma and luma is on both and not separate, and the artifacts come from it decoding as they should be separate, which get´s a nice artifact that is flipping all over the place.

[jagabo]

The layout and isolation of the analog section of capture devices can make a difference in noise, echoes, sharpness, etc.

I was rather shocked to discover that they are virtually identical inside.

Is that the devices used in post #230? Most of the differences could be explained by different default settings. Sometimes chips are configured partly by their input pins and there may be different value resistors or capacitors connected to those pins. That might explain different luma/chroma separation by the comb filter and the different sharpness.

[Brad]

Post #230, yeah. Guess there's no way to know without some tool to probe the chip itself.