converting video formats (For Hasbro's VideoNow) I know the

[impmon2]

I think the key is very simple: you must have a 3.5" disk with exactly 30 minutes of video on it. I believe this because the sampler cd comes with a blank track on the end that fills out the rest of the (unused) disk. if ever we can find a vender selling 3.5" disks then the key issue will be solved.

That could be it but I doubt we're going to find a supplier of 3.5" disks. Just about every CD player, CD-ROM, DVD player, and DVD-ROM has inner indentation for smaller 3.25" and 3.5" is not exactly standard. I doubt anyone will jump the CD-R bandwagon and make 3.5" CD-Rs on the off change an extra 6 minutes or about 50 MB would draw demands.

As an alternative to the key disk, how about hacking the mainboard to disable the key checking? Just pop in VNCD ready CD-R and play it, no need to swap key disk. I haven't had a good look on its mainboard so I don't know if this is even festible or not. The worse case scenario is a small PLC or something that watches the CPU and sends false key data when the player tries to seek and verify the disk.

i dont wait for the disk to slow down. i just stop the key disk with my finger and remove it. then when i put the vncd in i give it a little push to get it started.

Works for me. But I'm sure the less adventerous people would be afraid to stop the disk while it is spinning. I could suggest a trip to fabric store and pick up metal thimbles for the really nervous people. One thing for sure, homemade VNCD won't be appearing on eBay just yet.

[GregSmith]

Works for me. But I'm sure the less adventerous people would be afraid to stop the disk while it is spinning. I could suggest a trip to fabric store and pick up metal thimbles for the really nervous people. One thing for sure, homemade VNCD won't be appearing on eBay just yet.

i agree. i dont see 3.5" disks anywhere out there and i dont expect to see vncd on ebay.

i made videothen for people who were interested in creating their own content. i think the vast majority of people will just buy disks for their kids. i also expect this is a "fad" that wont last much past christmas.

as for mod'ing the device with a PLC, i think thats way beyond the return-on-investment for this device. a better solution would be to "fool" the burning software into writing a VTOC (volume table of contents) that shows a 30 minute collection of tracks - with the last track being a filler. this is much more do-able.

[mastersmurfie]

@ GregSmith

Wonderful tool!!! I had bought one of these players for my daughter a few weeks ago, looked to see if there was a way to "make" the videos for it...then found this. EXCELLENT!!!

A couple of questions though...

first....what's the "best" video format to start with? I have tried mpeg2 recorded with my capture card and can only get about 7 minutes of the original file to be able to fit on one 3.25" cdr...converted mpeg2 to AVI w/VDub...almost same thing...only way I can get more per disk is from DIVX source-then the audio on the final disk is WAY out of sync...(have one of my DVDs ripped to DIVX)

second...had to use NERO to burn (WMP wouldn't do it...then saw that you recommend WMP version 8-I have version 9) but NERO will burn as an AUDIO CD...

any suggestions or pointers in a different direction would be greatly appreciated.

All of my trials have worked so far...just looking for suggestions to make it easier for me! (not to have to split a movie onto a whole bunch of disks...)

Thanks for the excellent startup advice!

Smurfie

[impmon2]

I don't know what's the best original format but when converting, you need to make sure you save them in *uncompessed* AVI file and use "Save old format AVI" instead of regular save. Also check that you have the audio set correctly as well.

Beyond that, I don't know why you're getting only 7 minutes.

[GregSmith]

i have found the best format to start with is AVI, although i have worked from mpeg with good results.

as far as getting only 7 minutes, thats odd. double-check your settings. i have had as much as 13 minutes in one video without problems. and follow impmon2's advice - use "save old format AVI" and also make sure you have the audio set to 44100. also make sure you reduce the frame rate to 15 fps. you should be able to get around 20-24 minutes on a 3"-3.25" cd.

i have tried nero during my initial test phase, but abandoned it when wmp worked for me. it shouldnt make any difference what tool you use, because they all view the data as audio .wav files. i dont think this is related to your 7 minutes problem.

i dont know why you're having audio sync problems. although there is an audio setting the dictates how much audio information to preceed the video information with. the default is 500 milliseconds. videothen doesnt really care, so i dont know why it would matter.

im glad everyone is enjoying the tool. keep the bug reports flowing. i'll address them where i can. so far i dont have any bug fixs except possibly a .cfg file for virtualdub that has all the settings preloaded.

i have noticed one thing - and maybe you all can verify it for me. i have one disk with about 20 minutes of video on it. once it gets about half-way through the video becomes unstable - as though the unit has trouble syncing up. it looks a lot like intermittent static. does anyone else have this problem?

[GregSmith]

i just received an email from a videothen user who successfully created "bootable" vncd's using CloneCD. I will add his technique to the documentation as soon as I am able to duplicate his results.

[Pootle]

Below is the email i sent to Greg yesterday regarding bootable VNCDs. If anyone can help in perfecting this process it would be greatly appreciated.

Andy.
http://oldtimeradiouk.playntradeonline.com

********

I've successfully burnt a mini CDR that DOESN'T need
the disc swap.

It's basically taken four hours of trial and error
(and an increasingly big pile of wasted CDs) as i've
been unable to find any documentation on the values
and settings for .CCD files.

It appears that the length of the CD isn't the only
factor involved, although the disc does need to be at
least 29 minutes long or the VideoNow player goes
straight to the 'no disc' screen.

I've attached before and after versions of the .CCD
file, the one from the CD burnt straight from the
output of your program is called 'spongebak.CCD', the
modified one is 'spongeworking.CCD'

The main differences are the changes to the end of
[ENTRY 2] which alters the total CD length in the
VTOC, the 'control' value in each section which has
been changed to '0x02', and the addition of an extra
line in the [TRACK 1] section.

These changes were all made based on the settings from
a real VideoNow disc.

I have no idea what the 'FLAGS= DCP' line means but
adding it has made the discs boot far more reliably.

The 'control' value is normally set to '0x00' for
audio tracks, and '0x04' for data tracks on a CD. I
have no idea what '0x02' is normally used for but it
seems to make my VideoNow player happy

With these settings the disc will boot about 75% of
the time in my player, so its obviously not perfect.
Without the 'FLAGS= DCP' line the discs boot about 10%
of the time.

Also, the pause and stop buttons do not work while the
disc is playing, the only way to stop the disc is to
open the drive door.

These problems are definately not related to the CDR
media. I successfully copied the sampler disc to a
mini CDR (albeit without the end part) by using
CloneCD. The copy of the sampler boots flawlessly and
the buttons work fine.

******

spongebak.ccd

[CloneCD]
Version=3

[Disc]
TocEntries=4
Sessions=1
DataTracksScrambled=0
CDTextLength=0

[Session 1]
PreGapMode=0
PreGapSubC=0

[Entry 0]
Session=1
Point=0xa0
ADR=0x01
Control=0x00
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=1
PSec=0
PFrame=0
PLBA=4350

[Entry 1]
Session=1
Point=0xa1
ADR=0x01
Control=0x00
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=1
PSec=0
PFrame=0
PLBA=4350

[Entry 2]
Session=1
Point=0xa2
ADR=0x01
Control=0x00
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=22
PSec=10
PFrame=44
PLBA=99644

[Entry 3]
Session=1
Point=0x01
ADR=0x01
Control=0x00
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=0
PSec=2
PFrame=0
PLBA=0

[TRACK 1]
MODE=0
INDEX 1=0

********

spongeworking.CCD

[CloneCD]
Version=3

[Disc]
TocEntries=4
Sessions=1
DataTracksScrambled=0
CDTextLength=0

[Session 1]
PreGapMode=0
PreGapSubC=0

[Entry 0]
Session=1
Point=0xa0
ADR=0x01
Control=0x02
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=1
PSec=0
PFrame=0
PLBA=4350

[Entry 1]
Session=1
Point=0xa1
ADR=0x01
Control=0x02
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=1
PSec=0
PFrame=0
PLBA=4350

[Entry 2]
Session=1
Point=0xa2
ADR=0x01
Control=0x02
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=30
PSec=10
PFrame=44
PLBA=135618

[Entry 3]
Session=1
Point=0x01
ADR=0x01
Control=0x02
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=0
PSec=2
PFrame=0
PLBA=0

[TRACK 1]
MODE=0
FLAGS= DCP
INDEX 1=0

[GregSmith]

can you check your example? i dont see a [track 2] entry

[GregSmith]

curses! my dvd writer doesnt do DAO-RAW and won't burn those cds!

[impmon2]

I don't have CloneCD but I could get it. If you can explain how to do this, I could check it out on my PC. If my DVD burner doesn't do DAO-RAW, I have 4 different retired CD burners I could test with.

[Jeromy]

I just tested my burnt southpark episode on a VideoNow player and it worked(I used the key disk). My cdr doesn't do DAO RAW either.

Use this tool to see if your drive supports DAO RAW
ftp://ftp6.nero.com/InfoTool.zip

[Pootle]

For the record, i've been using a Pioneer DVR-105 to burn the bootable discs.

I've got a few ideas about getting these working properly, i'll be trying out some of them this evening and will post the results tomorrow.

I've got a feeling that the problem with longer tracks losing tracking may just be a limitation of the format. There are no video tracks on 'real' VideoNow discs longer than 7 or 8 minutes.

Andy.
http://oldtimeradiouk.playntradeonline.com

[GregSmith]

i'm not sure what the tracking issue is.

there are different "sync-byte" values. some tracks have 0xe1 others use 0xd2, 0xc3, etc... see a trend? i dont know what the particulars are.

the static/tracking issue appears to be related to depth of track. the further out from the center of the disk the more likely a track is to lose sync.

videothen uses only 0xe1 for video sync and 0x5a for audio sync.

[GregSmith]

i would be grateful if everyone would post their experience with the tracking issue. i'm beginning to believe its my unit and not the copy process.

i just created a full 24 minute video of "Frosty the Snowman". I found the NEXT button doesnt really work. I want to try changing the sync value from 0xe1 to other values. possibly a shift from one value to another indicates a track change??

"Frosty" was authored in 5 parts, about 5 minutes a piece. it worked really well with a miniumum of skipping.

<hr>

i made some changes to the videothen program.
1) i had a bad computation for the average bytes per minute - which may be frustrating some of your attempts to create long videos. the current computation makes the video look like its 2x as long as it really is.
2) i removed the "Rendering complete. Writing WAV File" dialog box. it was mostly for debugging use and makes the process difficult to use.
3) i am thinking of offering a setting to change the sync value (0xe1, 0xd2, etc...)

I will be releasing a new version (1.0b) this weekend

[tomoki]

While I wait for someone to explain using CLoneCD to burn discs, I decided to see if I could use a standard 5" CD-R in the player. I had to completely dissemble the player in order to remove the physical limitation (the case itself)

Since the VideoNow is basically a CD player with video display and extra circuitry, I figured a 5" CD-R *could* work. When I put the 5" in, it does fit and spins freely but I don't think the laser can reach that outter 1" of the 5" CD.

My experiment will serve a few things:
*To see if the VideoNow is capable of playing more than 30 minutes of video (however useless it may be since most people won't want to take apart the player
*to see how many individual video segments VideoNow could handle. (I have 12 12-min. segments)
*to save my limited stock of remaining 3" CD-R blanks. I won't have any more money to spend until the week after this Friday.

I'll work on this theory later as I'm tired after trying to bite more than I could chew today. (the power failure caused by wind didn't help me at all as I spent nearly 30 minutes to get my main PC back up and running!!!) Add to that I've been up since 2 am...

I did notice that VideoThen seems to have a problem handling video larger than 18 minutes. The workaround is to break the video in smaller segments. I don't know if this is a bug or what.

Just one thing: how do I properly convert from a source that is not close to 15 fps? If I do a plain 15 fps conversion with Vdub, it simply alters the playback speed. ie if I reduce the video from 30 to 15, it causes the video to play only at 1/2 speed. Does anyone here know how to change the framerate, either by dropping or adding frames without altering the original playback speed?

I have included a sample shot of the image on VideoPlay for anyone who hasn't tried this project and the original source image of the same frame:

Looks pretty good despite the 80x80 greyscale.

PS: here's a suggestion for future VideoThen fixes: why not make the preview window display the image closer to 4:3 ratio rather than exact pixel for pixel? VN player's horizontal resolution is roughly 30% wider than vertical resolution even though they are 80x80. A quick and cheap way to do this is to double up every 3rd horizontal pixel.

PSS my DVD burner and my modified Iomega ZipCD both supported DAO but what's the difference between DAO-RAW 16 and DAO-RAW 96?

[geekstud]

First I want to say thanx for all the hard work that has gone into getting videothen out. But unfortunately I haven't been able to successfully convert using videothen. I follow the steps listed for converting with vdub and try to run it through videothen, but when I hit start render, it immediately goes to rendering complete and done and I end up with a 10k file. I don't get any error messages of any type. Anyone know what I am doing wrong? I have tried several different files all with the same result.

[GregSmith]

tomoki: i'm looking forward to your 5" results!

i believe there is a bug in videothen 1.0a which will be fixed this weekend. it generates a file that appears to be 2x as long (timewise) as it is supposed to be.

as for using virtualdub, i have had no problems converting from 30 fps to 15 fps. videothen only accepts 15fps so i think perhaps you did not get a true 15 fps file from virtualdub. i will publish a .cfg file this weekend for virtual dub that does what i think it should be doing.

there should be no limitation to videothen processing (ala 18 minutes). but i have noticed that there is a flat file restriction of 4GB. if your data files take more than 4GB then the filesystem returns a failure.

i might be able to add 4:3 aspect ratio to the videothen playback, but that seems superflous since its just a display to let you know its working. so far, my results on video then are really good - no aspect ratio problems.

geekstud: i dont know why you're having trouble. please email me at glsmith-at-alcorgrp.com and i'll see what i can do to help out

[mastersmurfie]

I have had the same problem as geekstud...the immediate rendering of the avi, and the 10 kb wav file...but only with original avi capped...now im having a problem burning...the first one i did, rendered from a divx cap worked well, cept for audio was way out of sync...i try to burn "audio cd" w/ nero and it tells me that there is not enough space to burn to this medium...nothing that i have tried will work...




[/img]

[GregSmith]

i just released videothen1b to sourceforge.net

it fixes the 2x problem and adds a configurable sync byte.

I have had the same problem as geekstud...the immediate rendering of the avi, and the 10 kb wav file...but only with original avi capped...now im having a problem burning...the first one i did, rendered from a divx cap worked well, cept for audio was way out of sync...i try to burn "audio cd" w/ nero and it tells me that there is not enough space to burn to this medium...nothing that i have tried will work...

i included a .vcf config file for virtualdub. i hope that clears up some of the 10k issues. if they persist, email me at glsmith.at.alcorgrp.com

i dont know what you mean by "capped" or "cap". usually i take that to mean capacitor.

the not enough space usually means that you are trying to burn more than 24 minutes of video.

keep me posted.

[impmon2]

i dont know what you mean by "capped" or "cap". usually i take that to mean capacitor.

I believe that refered to capture as in via video capture card

[geekstud]

Kudos to the latest and greatest update. It has cured my 10k wav probs! But now I've found when I go to burn the wav file with nero as an audio cd it doubles in size (over 400megs) making it impossible to fit 20 min video on one cd, (Is it me goofing up settings again somehow?), so instead I found if I make an audio nrg in ultra iso it will stay at about 220megs for a 20min video then I can burn the image with nero. But instead of burning it onto a mini cdr, what I do is to burn with nero onto a reg cdrw so then I can take that cdrw and make an image file with clonecd. Once I have an img file i can apply the ccd changes posted earlier. Voila, one intermittantly selfbooting cd. Am I making this too complicated or is there an easier way?

[GregSmith]

i'm glad the newest release is working for you.

i have no experience with nero so i dont know why it might expand 2x.

i have tried to burn cdrw by for some reason that doesnt work for me.

[tomoki]

Looks like I goofed when I had trouble with framerate conversion. I only changed the source setting and not convert to x frame. Older version of VirtualDub didn't have the option to convert framerate so I downloaded 1.5.9

Now I can properly convert some of my vids that are 30 fps. I noticed this only because the Virtualdub setting you included with the zip file wouldn't work with the 1.5.1 due to lack of framerate convertion.

But it seems now I'm having problem a few other has reported. When I start rendering, it says 'Done' right away and I get an useless 10K WAV file. When I look at video.dat and audio.dat they are 22K and 0K respectively. But when I reloaded older VirtualDub 1.5.1 and manually set according to instruction, VideoThen works fine. I think the current version of VirtualDub (1.5.9) may have an inadverant default setting somewhere that is incompatible but I don't know where. Unfortunaely the old version doesn't have any option to convert framerate so I'd have to use the current Vdub to change the framerate and then use the older 1.5.1 to convert.

One thing for sure, newer version of Virtualdub is causing the odd 10K problem. When I still used the older version, I never had that 10K wav file issue. What version are you using anyway that has convert framerate and works with VideoThen?

Now for the 5" CD experiment. I couldn't cram in as much as I wanted to. I forgot that 5" CD can hold up to 80 minutes of audio and 12x12 is 144 minutes. So I'm using half of my original plan, 3 full episodes rather than 6 full episodes.

Aside from taking the top cover off, I also had to move the LCD display a bit further back. If I left in original position, I would need to shave about a cm off the edge of the disc. This also means the push button would also be harder to reach and press. An entirely new top case would be required if you wanted to have 5" CD-R and not have the player's gut hanging around.

It plays although it seems rather touchy. I guess the size and weight of the larger disc is putting a bit of strain on the motor. The first single 22 minute episode went through without any problem so VideoNow can handle a single show of 22 minutes long. I guess it'll hold 24 minutes long as it's the max size of the off-the-shelf 3" CD-R.

My player went right to the next episode on the disc without a delay. The 5" disc seems to be spnning a bit slower but the playback remained consistant. The second episode played without any problem. It went on to the third episode but unfortunately I bumped the disc about 3 minutes in and the display froze. APparantly the player can't recover from bumping or skipping at this distance from center of the CD.

So that's about 47 minutes total before it crashed. IOW the player can go beyond the advertised 30 minutes but by then the player seemed touchy and prone to hiccups with every bump and other vibration. I'll try again when I get some foam pad to rest the player on and avoid touching the player.

If you have little kids in the same room as your computer or are senstive about nudity, turn away. You are about to see 2 pictures of naked vide player


Yep, ThunderCats again.

--burning disc--

I had problem when I tried to use Nero and I could never figure out why but if I try to use Nero to burn the disc, the wav file mysteriously bloated to 2x the actual size. Maybe Nero tried to convert the wav to something else like different bitrate? For now I'll stick to using WMP since it seems to handle the file size correctly.

Greg- I didnt notice any skipping or noise like you described some posts ago. The only time I get garbled video is if I bump on the disc while its playing and the video corrects itself within a few frames. Might be a design variation or a defect with your player?

PS Videothen 1b can now handle a single 22 minutes video without getting EOF problem. Not sure what its max size are but I have a DVD rip of Finding Nero I might try next. Thank you!!

[GregSmith]

tomoki - that 5" experiment is very impressive.

all - i'm very concerned about the 2x issues people are having. it appears that one variable in the .wav header (avg bytes/sec) is being interpretted differently by different burners. i dont know how to address this issue as it should be the same everywhere. also the differences between virtualdub versions is very confusing. i am using 1.5.3

greg

[impmon2]

I believe you can still download a working demo of Nero so you might want to try Nero and see what it's doing that are different from WMP. DOes anyone here uses a different burning software like EZ CD? I'm sure we'd like to know if they are also bloating the wav file or not.

Also for others who are still having problem with VirtualDub, here's a link to many older versions: http://divxstation.com/softwareId.asp?sId=129&svId=393

It's been established that 1.5.1 and older doesn't have convert framerate and 1.5.9 is causing 10K wav issue. Since Gary is using 1.5.3 with no problem, I'd suggest downloading and using 1.5.3 for now. There are regular and P4 optimized version at the above link.

[tomoki]

Regarding the odd issue with VirtualDub version, I went and download every versions from 1.5.2 to 1.5.8 to see which version caused the problem. (1.5.3 has been established to work fine with VideoThen and 1.5.9 doesn't)

There is no 1.5.7 listed but I found it anyway so I guess that version was never officially released. FWIW I used P4 optimized version when available (only 1.5.4 & older, newer versions didn't have P4 version), I hate waiting.

1.5.1: doesn't have convert framerate, won't work properly unless source AVI is 15 FPS to begin with.
1.5.2: converted OK
1.5.3: converted OK
1.5.4: converted OK
1.5.5: crashed when I tried to load Videonow.vcf setting file that came with 1.b, This version was listed as experiemental so I skipped this one.
1.5.6: converted OK
1.5.7: converted OK
1.5.8: created 10K WAV and reported 'Done' too quickly
1.5.9: same as 1.5.8, current version

I also have the older 1.3c (kept it because of asf support) and aside from absent convert framerate option, it works fine with VideoThen as well.

This conclude something changed between 1.5.7 and 1.5.8 that broke VideoThen. Here's the bug fix and changes in 1.5.8, maybe you could see what was changed that kept VideoThen from working properly.

Quoted from VirtualDub 1.5.8 help"

Current build (1.5.8, stable):
[features added]
* DirectDraw support is disabled when Terminal Services
or Remote Desktop clients are detected to work around
a DirectX clipping bug.
* Re-enabled places bar on open and save dialogs.
* Disabled FPU state warning and made the fixup silent.
WAY too many drivers are screwing up the FPU unit.
* Edit lists can now be omitted from configuration
files without needing to close the source file.

[bugs fixed]
* Main window is disabled during MPEG-1 scan to prevent
crash if main window is closed.
* Previous-key and next-key movement commands were not
correct for B-frames in an MPEG-1 file.
* Fixed decoding of MPEG-1 B-frames at the start of
GOPs with broken_link set.
* Palette change blocks no longer appear as garbage
video streams. In-stream palette changes are still
not supported, however.
* biSizeImage was incorrect when using fast recompress
in YV12 mode.
* Sequence appends failing on the first file now throw
an error rather than a warning.

[regressions fixed]
* A race condition in the fast write code occasionally
resulted in spurious write errors.
* Fixed swapped 00db/00dc tags in AVI output.
* Fixed display of 8-bit paletted video.
* Program starts under Windows 95 again.

[GregSmith]

* Fixed swapped 00db/00dc tags in AVI output.

thats the culprit. my VideoThen code is very sensitive to the position of chunks in the AVI input file.

thanks for the extra work on the virtualdub compatibility issues. i'm really impressed with the VideoNow "community" - together we are really making videonow a toy worth having.

here is an interesting article on videonow where the author echos our concerns about the proprietary format.

http://toycollecting.about.com/cs/toystores/a/videonow.htm

cheers...

[tomoki]

That didn't take long to find the cause.

I sure wish I could do that, all I can program is BASIC, HTML, and the 2 obsolete languages: LOGO and PILOT. (PILOT is a low level graphic code, LOGO is high level graphic code)

Isn't JAVA mostly based on C++ code? I think I'll see if there is such thing as C++ for Dummies

Oh yeah, you might want to add VideoThen revision number in the title bar. The 3 versions you have out just says "VideoThen" in the title bar. He next version you have out could say "VideoThen 1c" so that I know I'm not using the old software.

[GregSmith]

i will add the version number the next time i release. sorry about that.

i exchanged my VideoNow for a new unit - the sync problem disappeared. i must have damaged the unit somehow when i glued the switch shut. now i have to find a way to glue the switch shut without opening it up.

[mastersmurfie]

ok...now i'm completely confused...my version of VDub says "Version 1.5.1 (Build 15786/release May 10 2003)"??? does this mean that it's version 1.5.7??? this version supports framerate changes, and even specifically states that "Note: Changing the framerate will cause audio/video desyncronization." which is part of the problem that I am experiencing. The other one (which I now see seems to be a NERO thing) is that my NERO burning software doubles the size of the "AUDIO CD" when going to burn. I am in the process of trying "Easy Audio CD Burner" which I just D/L a trial version, as I have not tried any other burning tool, and don't have access to any others at this time...

@GregSmith (and thanks impmon2)

from an earlier post, I was referring to "cap"tures from my video card. These are the files that I have been using to convert with VideoThen. It will capture in uncompressed AVI (which after converting with VDub gets the 10k wav file-still haven't figured that out yet...(i captured at 80X80, 15 FPS, 8-bit MONO and just convert to greyscale with VDub-no luck) and MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...so far, only the MPEG-2s have worked for me...