MainConcept 1.4 MPEG capture, quality = garbage

[lordsmurf]

No flames. The post title is mainly to get your attention.

I tried it today, and got nothing but dropped frames. About 10 per second. Since the capture function is so new, I'm curious how everybody else's results are.

I'm sure it's decent, as long as we work together and figure out some good settings. Dropped frames aside, the capture did look pretty decent.

Let's discuss.

I was using MC 1.4 and 352x480 capture NTSC_M and 352x480 MPEG settings. I rarely use MC ouside of the Adobe 1.3 version, and I typically use the default DVD settings with no problems. That did not work this time

FYI: Anybody wanting to try can download a free demo of MC 1.4 at www.mainconcept.com. This capture software appears to be a viable MPEG capture solution. While I'd never use it with my ATI card, it would be a nice piece of software for my new Aver card (which I use for PAL capture).

[vmesquita287]

Hi LordSmurf,

Please take a look in this KVCD.NET thread where I posted my results.

http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6492

It is strange that you can't cap at 352x480, since you have a high-end system. I was able to capture at DVD 352x480, and putting mainconcept in High Priority I could even capture and use the 35% remaining CPU power to browse the web, with zero dropped frames. Tested this for 15 minutes with no problems. I have an Atlhon 2000+

I could even do 704x480 if I disable Half-Pel search or something like that, but using 90%-98% processing. (So no browsing while capturing )
But zero dropped frames, even in this case. If I enable Half-pel search or got up to 720x480 I get dropped frames, no way around this.

What is really annoying is that altrought you can change many settings (I've never seen something like that), most settings don't work. Bitrate is one of then, GOP lenght is other one. Quality is great, there's no deinterlacing (thank god) and produced files seems perfectly compilant (tested with DVDMaestro and no complains)

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[ZenZen]

I'm capturing with both the ADVC-100 and DataVideo DAC-100, and using MC 1.4 both of these units will capture in real time without any frame drops My longest capture was over 2 hours, with the Video-Audio in sync, and no dropped frames. My DV units capture in PAL and with the full D1 DVD size. I set the MC bitrate to 6000, and the end result is pretty impressive.

Having said that, two points to ponder.
1) Capturing in real time is only useful if you do not need to edit or add filters to the incoming video source. Editing Mpeg2 files is difficult
2) I have read a few posts (do a forum search on MainConcept) and it seems most users have frame-drop problems with internal video card captures. But don't blame MainConcept, as I can confirm the realtime capture does certainly work without framedrops

[feenix]

Tried it a few days ago I was able to capture PAL 720*576 mpg2 with no dropped frames. This was through an ATI AIW Radeon.

But as I can do this with ATI MMC and I think that just has the edge on quality I probably won't be using it. Admittedly I didn't try to tweak the settings away from the default too much (if at all - can't remember)

[vmesquita287]

I have a BT878 Based card (Pixelview PlayTV Pro) and only one 40 Gb HD. It's an internal and very cheap card, altrought great quality can be obtained with it by using alternative open-source drivers.

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[zanos]

I got a ton of dropped frames after about a minute but I think that has something to do with my horribly fragmented hard drive.

[BJ_M]

ZenZen seems correct .. i tested it with a laird sdi to dv convertor and had no problem at max settings capture of about 30 minutes ..
but i see lots of problems with ati and some other internal cards noted here .. i have no way to test this though ..

im working on how to change/keep settings ..

[lordsmurf]

Been a few days... anybody else have success stories or failures to report?

[FOO]

I am getting a huge amount of dropped frames.
I have a 2000 MHz CPU running at 1600 Mhz (gets hot)
I also cant get MC to remember its settings very well.

[vmesquita287]

@FOO
This is wired, I am doing 352x480 and 704x480 with no problems using my 1.666 CPU (Atlhon 2000+) Also there's no way to make it remember settings, and you can't create new profiles.

@LordSmurf
I tried capturing a 1h25m VHS tape using 352x480 and 192 kbps MP2 audio. Picture/Audio quality was great, but bitrate has also high, the whole thing took about 2700 Mb. Audio got progressively desynched, might be a problem with my BT878 card, since I use an option in VirtualVCR to keep the audio in synch. Or maybe a problem with MP2 audio.
I decided to drop using MainConcept this since in the end it doesn't make a lot of difference. I could save encoding time if I do realtime, but I always have to spent 1 hour compiling the project and another hour burning at 1X. So I created a basic tool to automate the encode video/encode audio/author(no menus)/burn process and I run everything overnight. I can put more stuff in a disc doing like this, and since I encode overnight, makes no difference if it takes 2 or 7 hours.

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[SaSi]

I tried MC 1.4 capture function. It allows to capture using any of the installed codecs, just like VirtualDUB capture.

I guess people here tried to capture using MPEG2 settings, i.e. capture directly to MPEG-2. If so, then it would be stretching things to extreme. Several people have problems capturing to AVI codecs, such as DivX or hufyuv, if the CPU or HD can't keep up. Using MPEG-2 can be overwhelming for the CPU.

I tried, however, the same, but using as conservative (in CPU load) settings as possible. A high, constant bitrate, a short motion detection range and no half pixel search. On a 2.8GHz HT machine it captures without any dropped frames - using a totaly empty, reformated 200Gb 7200rpm disk.

Tried to decrease the bitrate, make it VBR (single pass) and increased the motion search range settings as well as enabled the half-pixel search setting. Had lot's of dropped frames - not too much about 1 or 2 every 10 seconds. However, too many to make the exercice worthwhile.

Capturing with another codec - such as hufyuv - is quite simple and no frames are dropped. Even CPU utilization is moderate.

Now, the real question is, why should anybody want to capture directly to MPEG2. By definition, after capturing, the video needs to be edited - at least trimmed. MPEG2 is not the best format to do editing.

[FOO]

I don't really see the point of MainConcept adding a capture
function if It can't do MPEG2. There are billions of capture
programs around. They should concentrate on encoding.

[vmesquita287]

Sasi,

It seems that Womble MPEG Vcr is able to trim MPEG2 Streams very fast and precisely. So you would just finish capture, trim the video and burn.
The problem is: authoring a full DVD takes about 1 hour and burning takes another hour (I always burn 1X, why go fast and get a worse disc?). So in the end, I'll have to wait at least couple of hour so it is not worth it. If authoring and burn were faster, than this would be a great alternative.

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[David K]

I've been trying out Mainconcept 1.4 capture directly into mpeg 2. There is a buffer setting that you can check, and when you do this, I get no dropped frames, but it does not allow more than half and hour's worth of capturing. I suppose the buffer gets full and the encoder cannot encode fast enough to clear the in-coming DV capture, so it just stops capturing. I cannot figure out any setting that would increase the buffer size or that would solve this. I'm capturing using the video pass-through of a Sony digital 8 camera, by the way. The direct to mpeg result looks very good, even at full DVD resolution.

Also the timer setting (which demands that you enter the entire time in seconds!) doesn't seem to work at all. Has anyone had luck making it work?

[Dwight]

Captured while reading this forum (Opera browser 8 windows open)
and running DC++ and MSn Messenger and two explorer windows.

Resolution 352 x 576 PAl-B,mpeg-2 settings, 192kbps audio and
I unchecked the box 'Do half pel search'

Captured 276.199seconds, filesize 146mb from MTV Broadcast while doing all this multi-tasking, zero drops. Picture quality is quite nice no sync
errors. But, I guess Vdub->Tmpenc is the way I'll go for the important
material.

My setup is
1,7ghz, XP Pro and PCTV Rave PCI.

298.781 seconds, SVCD capture settings, MTV Broadcast, again
zero drops, the svcd quality however isn't that good IMO. It's acceptable
, but perhaps I'd still use Capture->Tmpgenc encode route over this.

Oh and in both cases PREVIEW was off while capturing.
I tested with preview and I did manage to capture mpeg-1
and low-q xvid-mpeg4 with preview perfectly, but
mpeg-2 was hopeless and droppe, without preview
both worked splendidly and I could even multi-task while doing all this.

I guess I'll use this if I want some documentary or short
clip from tv done fast and am not too strict about the quality
being 'highest possible'