Intermediate Newbie - Capturing with Virtualdub and ADVC-100

[Tolwyn]

I've worked hard over two days trying to find exactly what I need on this great site, but apparantly I'm just missing something...

I'm purchasing Scenalyzer, TMPGEnc, and have downloaded G-Spot, and some 5.93 Mega Codec Pack.

I have VirtualDub installed and the Canopus DV Codec.

I'm using ADVC-100 to attempt to capture Hi8 in order to burn to DVD for archival purposes.

I cannot get Virtual Dub to capture from this source.
Movie Maker (UGH) will, but the resulting file cannot be opened in Virtual Dub.

What am I missing here? I've attempted to find a guide that surrounds my problem, but I can't figure it out.

Will VirtualDub work to capture my stuff from ADVC-100, or would Scenalyzer be better?

What "format" should I be "editing" in before encoding to MPEG-2 for DVD? What is this Huffy Format and is it needed for my purpose? Is Huffy used for space saving instead of uncompressed AVI or DV?

Any help would be appreciated and in return, I'm hovering over that PayPal link and will throw cash at this community.

[onetrueday]

the one thing I didnt like about the advc100 was that you couldnt use avio(sp).

My favorite program for capturing is pinnacle studio, although that is all I use it for. virtualvcr should work as well.

[Tolwyn]

Hi, onetrueday... I appreciate the response...

Do I assume that virtualdub cannot be used to capture with my hardware?

[hockeymike]

I had the same question. I think you're right. VirtualDUB can't do Canopus advc100. In fact it doesn't like to capture from firewire devices in general.

Details from http://www.virtualdub.org/docs_capture .....

VirtualDub says I don't have a capture device, but I know I have one.
VirtualDub needs a Video for Windows capture driver to capture. Most Firewire (DV) devices do not provide a VFW driver, and thus cannot be used by VirtualDub at all. Also, ATI appears to be shipping their current devices with a WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver only; this can be used indirectly by VirtualDub through a Microsoft wrapper, but it is crippled in functionality and it also appears that the wrapper is buggy.

The wrapper will show up as "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)." If it works for you, great.

For capture from the advc100 I'm looking at DVIO or WinDV (both free) or ScenalyzerLive ($35). Pretty simple capture tools, then take it to something else to edit. (like VirtualDUB).

Mike

[thing914]

I'd say go for Scenalyzer also. I got the advc100 based on the great reviews then tried Scenalyzer based on another thread. Works great and $35 is cheap. Easy to use. I then use Virtualdub for simple cuts/edits.

Beyond that I'm still in the experimenting newbie phase myself. But having a lot of fun

[Tolwyn]

Sounds great. I can live with that, no problem.

I really appreciate the responses!

[Metaluna]

I use Scenalyzer most of the time, however WinDV also works great and is free. There's also a very barebones app called DVIO but it's a little too spartan for my tastes. Like Scenalyzer, WinDV has a video preview window and stop timers so that you can set it up to record for a time and then stop, rather than filling up your hard drive with blank video after the tape runs out. If you want to use VirtualDub or AviSynth for editing and filtering, make sure you capture to Type 2 AVI file, and then install a DV codec.

[fourthquark]

If you have the ADVC-100 connected to your computer via Firewire, the computer does not see it as a "video capture device", it sees it the same way as it sees a digital video camera. I don't use VirtualDub myself, but I think this is the crux of your problem. Firewire "video capture" is really a file transfer, it is not true "video capture" (i.e., no analog to digital conversion of video signal is being done - the video is already digital).

[Tolwyn]

fourthquark.

That was a great explanation.
Sounds good.

[vhelp]

I was curious, after reading this these posts.

I went to the virtualdub website (according to the link posted above) but it did
not specifically say that vdub can not capture DV through firewire. I'm sure
that someone else will figure it out and post How To instructions on it (I'm
not good at that sort of stuff) ..but its just a matter of time when it happens.

Never the less. I'm using avi_io (and vdub) w/ my firewire (under w98gold) and
have no trouble. I'm using avi_io because vdub seems to keep the CPU resources
at a constant 100% ..and that spells trouble to me. AVI_IO does not, and I have
good resources. heck, I can even surf, and do other things while it captures. I
can even do a "parrelle" capture using my DVD Xpress unit while samultaniously
capturing through DV. I know.., sound crazy and soo untrue, until I stunned
even myself in this little endeavor. It's fun to experiment, and pushing the
envelope past, "It can't be done".
.
I'm also doing all this DV stuff over one multi-I/O (MIO) card that has Firewire (FW)
and USB2 connectors.

Here's my setup for DV projects:

--> VCR -> advc-100 .. FW -> MIO -> PC
--> USB2 HD Enclosure kit -> MIO -> PC

or

--> VCR -> DVD Xpress .. USB2 -> MIO -> PC
--> USB2 HD Enclosure kit -> MIO -> PC

Regarding the above, I capture both DV and DVD Xpress 's MPEG to
the USB2 HD Enclosure kit (a 40g harddrive)

-vhelp

[jimmalenko]

I went to the virtualdub website (according to the link posted above) but it did
not specifically say that vdub can not capture DV through firewire. I'm sure
that someone else will figure it out and post How To instructions on it (I'm
not good at that sort of stuff) ..but its just a matter of time when it happens.

Correct, it doesn't say you can not, 100% capture DV through firewire.

Read this bit again:

VirtualDub says I don't have a capture device, but I know I have one.
VirtualDub needs a Video for Windows capture driver to capture. Most Firewire (DV) devices do not provide a VFW driver, and thus cannot be used by VirtualDub at all.

It says that your device (in this case, your firewire card) must have a VFW driver to be able to do it. I don't think there's many (any?) firewire cards that have VFW drivers AFAIK. So it's not totally impossible, just unlikely, that's all.

[vhelp]

It says that your device (in this case, your firewire card) must have a VFW driver to be able to do it. I don't think there's many (any?) firewire cards that have VFW drivers AFAIK. So it's not totally impossible, just unlikely, that's all.

You're right.., there's not -- probably not at all. I too, have *never* seen
sucha firewire card w/ any *hint* of VFW drivers. I have FOUR such cards,
and all that do come w/ drivers are either W98SE / ME / W2K / XP
related, because these OS's are assumed to already come w/ their own set
of drivers. And, facts are.., they all come *ONLY* with WDM drivers.
.
The only way you're gonna get any VFW drivers, is only if you go to a web
site that is *still* hosting such drivers.., probably for an older software.
.
Hauppauge used to have loads of VFW drivers on their website. But I think
that they too are getting rid them.
.
But, installing VFW drivers on one's system is not enough. There *IS* some
hacking around you still have to do to get Firewire to work inside AVI_IO
(or vdub) and at the moment, I can't exactly remember how I did it, though
I did write some things down as I went along (case I had to do another
reinstall of Windows 98 again) There are *holes* in my notes.., or missing
steps. Anyways. I'm sure someone will someday post a successful set
of instructions on how to do it. I wish I had an accurate road map, but then
again, nobody really seems interested, and that's why I didn't put much
effort into it. Oh well. But take my word for it, * it is possible *

-vhelp

[gastorgrab]

Has anyone tried WebCamDV from OrangeMicro? The description of the product says its a Firewire to VFW bridge?

In theory it should work, but i suspect that the resolution might be limited to a standard webcam size of 320x240. A small registry hack might be in order.

(No, i havn't tried it!)

-----edit----

Maybe the drivers from the Firewire webcams lik ADS PyroCam could be modified to do the same. I'll check to see if the ADS webcam is available in VirtualDub and check back. (as soon as my power comes back on)

[trock]

One thing to bear in mind is the the author of AVI_IO states that it doesn't currently work with or support XP and may be a while before it does. I got it to work once with XP a few months ago but not since.

trock

[vhelp]

.
.
As long as you have a VFW driver installed properly, it
should work regardless of OS (including XP)
.
I would suggest, that if you already have WDM installed
for good reason (your other apps and things) you would
install VFW last. Never install it first, because WDM might
alter it so that it becomes the "default", if you know
what I mean.

That cam idea is a good one. Follow through on it. I
suspect that it would work, IF the drivers *utilize* the
registry for their settings. Not all software do this.
But lets hope that some VFW drivers (or the respective
app does)

Glad to see some more interests in this.

-vhelp

[gastorgrab]

OK, power is back on, so........

I know for a fact that the ADS Firewire cam works with Yahoo messager, and i tried it with the the Microsoft WMCap.exe and it worked fine. It never occured to me at the time to try it with VirtualDub.

This will have to wait until i'm sure the power is On-To-Stay.

The WebCamDV thing looks like it has a better chance of working right out of the box. I certainly hope it doesn't replace the current driver with its own!

[thesnow]

Try the panasonic codec
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Panasonic_DV_Codec

[gastorgrab]

Partial info about WebCamDV from Toms Hardware

640x480 seems to be the max resolution. (at least it's not 320x240!)

----edit-----

None of the sample pics appear interlaced. Is it throwing away one field?

[gastorgrab]

Well, it seems to work;



But its not quite what i expected;



It's RGB24 only, 640x480 max resolution, and appears to be Progressive Only!

[wwjd]

Try using WinDV for capturing from the firewire of the ADVC-100. It is
free, very simple and easy to use. No settings to mess with. All you want
is a program that will facilitate the downloading of the DV data from the
ADVC-100 via the firewire to your hard drive.

The site for WinDV is http://windv.mourek.cz/

wwjd