Pinnacle DC 10 PLUS

[fabiohcruz]

Does anyone can capture using this card(dc10) with another software ?
I use Studio 8 and I hate it

Thanks

[Fairhope]

I've actually been watching your post all day hoping someone would respond.

I have the Pinnacle Studio 8 software with the DC10+ also and have tried using virtualdub and virtualvcr. Neither of these recognize the DC10+. They do recognize my digital capture device, but that does me no good for VHS tapes.

I posted this question a while back and was advised that the DC10+ does not work well with virtualdub due to the way Pinnacle has it capture.

I will say that I have been using a freeware called EndItAll which you can find using a search on Google or Yahoo. This program will shut down all unnecessary applications running in the background on your computer.

I have also learned to edit your captured video while it is still in the .avi format. Do not convert it to mpeg as Pinnacle will freeze or the audio will go out of sync with the video.

This is the only way I have been able to capture VHS. I hope someday to purchase another capture card not associated with Pinnacle so that I can try virtualdub and/or virtualvcr as they both come highly recommended from the users of this forum.

I still hope someone with more experience than me can respond to your question.

[vhelp]

.
.
you see.., the reason why you both can't get the DC10+ to work under
other SW apps ie, vdub or avi_io etc., is because (most probably) is due
to your OS's.

The DC10+ is ment for the older OS's ie, Windows 98 for instance. But,
there are some drivers for higher OS's too, I think.

Also, your OS's are WDM not VFW, as the DC10+ is a VFW driver oriented
card. Once you get a VFW driver installed (user choice) you should be able
to use any other SW app that adhirs to VFW driver support.
You XP os's are WDM, not VFW. By default, it installs the WDM drivers.
Since this card is VFW, this is your reason for it not working in anything
else other than Studio. But, I could be off on some points

FYI, vdub and avi_io are VFW apps, not WDM. There is a WDM to VFW
wrapper, but this is buggy and has limitations etc.

I'm under windows 98 gold, and as such, is VFW ready. I can and have and
still use vdub, avi_io and other SW apps w/ the DC10+ card

Good luck,
-vhelp 2031

[Richard_Cranium]

vhelp you pretty much hit the nail on the head.I just use studio 8 to capture and use other tools to encode(vdub,tmpgenc)with great results.

[housepig]

I had a DC10+ on a Win98 machine, and I was able to capture with Virtualdub.

Haven't worked with it lately as my main machines are XP, and I didn't think there were fresh drivers for it....

[vhelp]

@ housepig (and others) ..

If you have XP or higher than win98, I believe that as long as you install a
VFW driver, you should be able to capture from it.

If you installed Studio over XP, my assumption is that it may be using a WDM
driver inside that app, or it's utilizing a front-end to VFW (only during Studio's
load)

In any case, I still think you should be able to use it (even under XP) but
as long as you install a VFW driver. I can't see you having any issues w/
both drivers installed and running (WDM and VFW)

I have both on my main pc, and they both work. I have WDM because
my ATI-Rage Fury Pro card installs it by default. But, I also have my
ATI-TV Wonder pci card in this same pc setup and it works too. So, please
do give it a try. You should be able to find a VFW driver almost anywhere's
that carry's BTx's around - try Google.

-vhelp 2034

[fabiohcruz]

Thanks for all the replies .
But I tried to find the VFW driver and I have no luck
Can you give me a link?

Thanks

[Fairhope]

Vhelp & Housepig:

If I should purchase another capture card - one which uses WDM drivers - would Pinnacle Studio 8 recognize this new capture card even with a different driver?

[housepig]

If I should purchase another capture card - one which uses WDM drivers - would Pinnacle Studio 8 recognize this new capture card even with a different driver?

don't know - I don't use Pinnacle Studio 8, the version of Pinnacle software I have with my DC10+ is at least 4 or 5 years old.

[Fairhope]

Fabio:

I did a search on the DVDRhelp forum under capture cards for DC10. In one of the reviews of this capture card, a user advised to try capturing with a software call iuvcr.

You might want to look at their website: http://www.iulab.com/iuvcr/index.shtml

Although, I think your main concern was not the capture card, but the Pinnacle Studio software.

If you are still wanting to get away from that software, I think your best bet would be to do some research on Ulead, TMPenc DVD Author, etc. This forum has an entire slew of software for editing video. Of course, you might have to also buy a new capture card which would work with WDM drivers.

[fabiohcruz]

Fairhope:

I've tried all the softwares that you said and none have worked.
Including iuvcr . I think the best to do is change my capture card.

Thanks for the help

[fingernailX]

http://www.blumen-maedler.de/miro/video/video.html

This is an old German site that supports the Miro brand - predecessor to Pinnacle. If you email the webmaster as it says you can get instructions on how to allow the DC10+ to be used with any DirectShow capture program such as AmCap, IUVCR etc...... You have to have purchased the Studio software to avoid the warez issue

[fabiohcruz]

Thanks

[madymo3d]

Is DC10+ what I get bundled with Pinnacle Stuido 8 AV (as opposed to the Deluxe or DV)? I purchased it last Christmas and has had mixed success under Win ME (with PS8, not vdub). My problem is that it usually crashes right after it captures and doing the scene detection. So I've just wasted 20 minutes and put wear and tear on the 8mm tape. Crashing seems to be related to the duration of my capture. Few minutes is okay, but 20 minutes it crashes. I know I can just sit there and end capture every 5 minutes, but I just want to let it go for a while so I can do something else since I can't be using the computer while it's capturing. Is that too much to ask for?

I hope to try vdub soon.

Andy

[fabiohcruz]

I realize that pinnacle sucks......

[madymo3d]

Forgot to ask what mjpeg codec the DC10 uses. Is it proprietary? It's hardware based, isn't it?

[fabiohcruz]

I use Huffyuv. Very good!

[BobK]

I used Studio 8 with the DC10 for 6 months. I don't think the DC10 uses an mpeg codec- I could only capture in avi (but maybe if you have a digital source it can). That (and the fact that 6 months of Studio 8 hangups was enough to last me forever) was the main reason I finally bought a hardware based mpeg capture card.

[fourthquark]

The DC10+ uses a hardware MJPEG encoder. The encoding chip is a Zoran, same as the old Matrox Rainbow Runner used to use. If you are going to work with the video using an application that doesn't recognize the DC10+ hardware codec (likely most modern apps), you will need a software MJPEG codec such as the one by PicVideo (see tools).

[madymo3d]

If I use a software MJPEG codec, is the hardware contributing anything? I was under the impression that anything the DC10 outputs is already MJPEG compressed because the signal must pass through the encoding chip. Or does the software activate the hardware?

The DC10+ uses a hardware MJPEG encoder. The encoding chip is a Zoran, same as the old Matrox Rainbow Runner used to use. If you are going to work with the video using an application that doesn't recognize the DC10+ hardware codec (likely most modern apps), you will need a software MJPEG codec such as the one by PicVideo (see tools).

[madymo3d]

Are you using Huffyuv with Studio 8? Is that even an option? I thought your original post is about how you use Studio 8 and hate it (as do I)!

I use Huffyuv. Very good!

[fabiohcruz]

I tried others softwares
but this damn card only works well w/studio 8
What software do u use?

[fourthquark]

If I use a software MJPEG codec, is the hardware contributing anything? I was under the impression that anything the DC10 outputs is already MJPEG compressed because the signal must pass through the encoding chip. Or does the software activate the hardware?

If you want to use the encode/decode power of the harware chip, your software must be able to recognize the chip as a codec. If Pinnacle 8 was included in the package, I assume it recognizes the Zoran hardware codec for both encoding and decoding. However I have never used this setup so I can't say for certain. As a rule, when you have a hardware video encoder, your software choices are limited if you want to use the power of the hardware encoder to do subsequent video processing.

But the only time the hardware codec really makes a difference is for real-time video capture. A hardware codec should decrease or eliminate dropped frames during capture. This used to be a big advantage when computers were slow, but it's less of an advantage nowadays - with today's fast computers you can also do real-time capture using a software codec without dropping frames.

So one way to use your DC10+ is as follows:
1. Use Pinnacle and DC10+ hardware encoder for real-time video capture to capture MJPEG avi files.
2. Buy an MJPEG software codec (PicVideo, Morgan, MainConcept) and then you can use any video editing application for subsequent editing of the avi file.

If I recall correctly, the video capture capabilities of this card were quite good, allowing you to capture at bitrates similar to or even higher than DV video.

Some of the Zoran-based cards had the capability of passing through the unencoded video stream, thereby allowing you to capture and encode the video using a software encoder. I know you could do that with the Matrox Rainbow Runner but I think it required hacked drivers. I don't know if the DC10+ has that capability. But if you are going to use it this way, you may as well just buy a simple capture card like a Hauppauge WinTV card, which costs a lot less.