capture settings advice

[gilbates]

Hi Guys

can someone pls advise me if i can achieve better quality captures please

i have a hi8 camcorder connected with svideo input to a pinnacle pci rave tv card

i have been using v/dub to capture with settings as listed
uncompressed
25 fps ( no frames dropped , above this drops frames )
48,000 khz
7465 kb/s
res 352 x 288 ( cant go higher must be card limitations )
pix depth rgb24

is there any way of capturing with better quality at all , i have tried the other codecs that v/dub lists but they give pretty poor quality

i`m editing the footage and then putting it onto dvd after converting to mpeg2

would a better capt card be better and if so which one for analogue caps

any advice please

my machine is ok on specs
3000+ amd 2.16
1 gb mem
100 gb h/d regulary defraged

the cam corder has no fire wire as its Hi8 so fire wire capturing is out the question

[Turtle49]

Try Lordsmurf's site

Hope this helps

[andie41]

Did you try the BT8xx driver and VirtualVCR to capture that I suggested in your previous thread? Works great for me.

[gilbates]

sorry m8 , you must think i`m rude not replying earlier

Thanks for your replys to both threads and yes i did try the virtual vcr but to be honest , i didnt like it at all , but many thanks for your replys

i realy need to update what i put earlier about better quality capture

ya see i have been doing a Hi8 to pc then edit and convert to dvd for playback

i ended up using as i said v/dub but wasent over the moon about quality of capture , looking at the avi i eventually created on the pc looked less than perfect that the original did

what i hadnt tacken into consideration is how it would look after converting to mpeg and burning to dvd

ITS GREAT , so ok great is good but there is still room for improvement , in the darker parts of some scenes there seems to be some grainyness , but over all i am really impressed with the conversion

i have a 36 inch w/screen tv which will show any imperfections in quality and that it did without doubt , but all things considerd it was i`d say 8/10 quality and 10/10 for editing , heheh , coz i did it .........

but i would like to capture in the best quality possible in future , if i do this again , which i have a feeling i will , so i think i will need a decent capture card of sorts

but as yet no one has really given any advice on it , i dont think i can improve much more with what i have

so i want a decent capt card for analogue capture with svideo input

[FulciLives]

It sounds like your capture card uses WDM drivers in which case you need to use a capture program that works with such drivers and unfortunately VirtualDub is not the answer.

Some options (in no particular order)

VirtualVCR
iuVCR
TheFlyDS

Those are the 3 most popular that I know of ... as for myself I've tried all 3 and I like TheFlyDS the best for what it's worth.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[andie41]

My experience with the Pinnacle software is that it would not allow higher resolution and I uninstalled the Pinnacle stuff and installed BT8x drivers and then I could select all the way up to 720x480.

[trevlac]

uncompressed
pix depth rgb24

i have tried the other codecs that v/dub lists but they give pretty poor quality

Well, most people pointed out how to maybe get the resolution higher. Makes sense because High 8 has more detail than will fit into a 352x288 frame (both horizontally, and vertically).

I'd like to 'ramble' a bit about pixels/colorspace/codecs. My advice is at the end.

Colorspaces and your signal

A color space is a mathimatical representation of possible colors. For video there are usually 3 numbers (primary colors) that are mixed to represent a given color.

Hi-8 Tape
I don't know how the info is stored on this tape. But it gets converted to PAL analog when it comes out of your camcorder.

S-Video to your card
YUV is the color space of an analog PAL signal. I belive, the Y is a .7Volt signal that runs on 1 pin of an s-video connector, and the UV are mixed in a .7Volt signal that runs on the other pin. BTW, a normal s-video connector has 4 pins, 2 are grounds. Y contains the luma (or black and white) info, and UV contain color differences (y-b, y-r). It's setup this way because we see more detail in the black and white than in the color. So the color info is seperated and the resolution is reduced. Component connections contain the full color resolution, but they are considered marginally better than s-video (y/c) (At least compared to the jump from rca to s-video.

1 step in your card

Convert analog to Digital

Your card digitizes and 'decodes' the PAL signal. This means it turns the analog voltages into numbers and seperates the uv parts. What you end up with is YCbCr. Most people call this YUV, but there really is no YUV in digital. YCbCr is basically the same concept as YUV (Cb=U,Cr=v), but the range of values is different. The (601) spec says what a Standard TV YCbCr 'pixel' looks like. Because the analog YUV info as limited UV resolution, the YCbCr pixel is created by your card with limited resolution in the CbCr part. 4:2:2 is a reference to YCbCr where (for 2 8-bit pixels), you get 8 bits for the y of each pixel and then they share the same 8 bit Cb and Cr values. For example 2 pixels in YCbCr 4:2:2 ==> Pixel#1Y( 8 ) + Pixel#2Y( 8 ) + SharedCb( 8 ) + SharedCr( 8 ) = 32 bits / 2 = 16 bits per pixel.

THIS is the natural output of your card. YUY2, UYVY, YVYU are all 4:2:2 YCbCr formats. The difference is in the order of the bytes when they are stored in a file.

Optional 2nd step in your card

Convert to a different color space such as RGB or 'sub-sample' down to 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 YCbCr.

If you choose RGB24, your card converts (and interpolates) your pixels from 16 bit to 24 bit pixels. Where r=8 + g=8 + b=8. AKA, this takes xtra space, but there is no xtra info. If you had component RGB 4:4:4 inputs, you could have xtra, but you probably don't. Summary: YUY2 takes up 16bits per pixel. RGB24 takes up 24 bits.

RGB32 includes an alpha channel. There is no alpha in YCbCr so there is no info to put there. Some more wasted space. RGB16 has less luma info than YCbCr 4:2:2.

YV12 and IYUV are storage formats of YCbCr 4:2:0 data. This is the same that is on a DVD. Here, the 2 color parts are shared between 4 pixels on 2 lines. For 4:1:1, the color is shared across 4 pixels on 1 line. NTSC DV uses 4:1:1.

Optional 3rd step in your capture app (not card)

Compress Your output

There are quite a few types of compression. For capture, most people pick Huffyuv or MJpeg. Huffy is called lossless, because it can reproduce the exact same bits that went in. It simply 'predicts' what pixel values are most common and uses a (shorter than 16-bit) code to represent the value. It then stores a code table with the file. MJpeg actually removes some info. How much depends on what settings you pick. I doubt you would notice in the output avi. This 'removed' info may make it harder for the mpeg encoder to compress. Huffyuv compresses RGB24 if you want, but that would be a waste as described above.

Conclusions:

The right color space will produce a smaller file, with no loss of info. The right codec will produce a smaller file with no loss of info. YUY2 + Huffyuv does this. This may make it easier on your system to cap a higher framesize.

Cheers,

Trev

[gilbates]

Trevlac m8 your ramble was very interesting indeed sir and i thank you for that , a most informative article indeed

but , and i say that with a heavy heart , i am still not winning
i have tried all the various software options that everyone has kindly advised with just about every available option , i have looked on lord smurfs site , still nothing i do at present , gives me good clean capture , lossless huff + yuy2 , uncompressed , you name it i have tried it , i have created another user on my xp machine , just for video so that only the bare bones start up with only a few resources running , and still i get dropped frames above 25 , thats with huff and yuy2 , capturing above the native card settings just dosent want to play ball on my system

the Hi8 standard is a good standard to record with and i`m not willing to ditch it yet , so buying a DV camcorder is not for me

but i am willing to try another capture card , the radeon 9800 seemed like the one for me untill i visited there web site and found that the card has no svideo input only output ( unless i missed something )

so to enable me to get good quality captue , right from the start , odviously using the proper software and settings , can someone please suggest a capture card with svideo input , price is not a big issue , hey i`m no millionaire , but with ebay and a patient search i`m sure i can whittle prices down

with a quality card that natively supports higher frame rates due to onboard processing , newer chipsetes and the latest drivers , i`m sure i can crack this little monster of quality

so guys please give me some suggestions for a nice new capt card , that will finaly sort out my ever decreasing h/d space , due to downloading every piece of capt software ever produced

your faithfull student
gilbates

[trevlac]

There is not much room for improvement in hardware.

Software is where you get the bigest change. The driver change mentioned (btwincap) will allow the use of many software tweaks, but this can be complicated.

IF you insist on hardware, the safest/easiest way seems to be an external device like the ADVC-100. They are not xtra cheap. I do not have one. I believe these are only 'better' because the 'software' is incorporated into a dedicated specialized device. A general device <such as a computer> can do the same job, but getting the software correct is a pain.

As far as a card goes, newer ATI's sound like they come with software that works for many people. I do not have one. I do however, believe that ATI's are only 'better' because their software is easier to use.

There seems to be a vast amount of info about dropped frames. You would have to take a systematic approach to find your problem. Skinny down the software you use, turn off sound, no codecs, etc. This may be difficult for you to do, and possibly not worth the effort.

[gilbates]

Trevlac m8 yet again your advise is appreciated sir

i am only a beginner but am learning ( slowly ) the ins and outs of this most complicated topic
i am amazed at the complexity of what i initially thought was a simple task , which was ...... to take holiday footage from my camcorder , edit it and put in onto dvd

Still , i am not giving up , on the quest for the best quality capture i can achieve , i guess this is where all decipels of audio/visual use , end up treking , i guess i`m not alone .

Trevlac you have made me aware of many things huf , yuy+2 and now hardware , or the fact that its not what youve got but how you use it and the additional software

i think my next task in my quest is to re-read this thread and look again at all the replys from the helpful posters , maybe i have missed something along the way

it is very difficult to accertain , what would look good after capture and edit and conversion , on a dvd played back on the tv , and to try all the combinations of software and settings is just not possible

This is where advise from knowledgeable people becomes invaluable

Thanks to all

THE QUEST CONTINUES

[andie41]

gilbates

I don't wish to become repetitive and/or obsessive, but I have been around the same bush as you - a number of times. I have had a Pinnacle card for 2 years and have tried many combinations. Some of my observations and conclusions:

You need to get a higher resolution in your captures. I used 352x480/576 for a time and it was quite good, but 704x480/576 is better IMO. You do not need to be using uncompressed RGB (nor should you, as trevlac explained thoroughly - thanks for the detailed info), HUFFyuy is excellent and for my purposes better than MJPEG.

So you need to capture 704x480/576, Huffyuy YUY2.

To do this and do it well, you need to get other software going. VirtualDub is an outstanding program, but it's best feature is not in capturing. VirtualVCR is my recommended capture program. It may not have the slickest interface, but it works, doesn't require a lot of computer power to operate, and is FREE. To use it, you need WDM drivers. If you have been capturing with VirtualDub, I suspect your drivers are VFW (unless you are using a VFW Wrapper- but we won't go there.)

Pinnacle has VFW drivers and their newer software supports WDM - again I strongly suggest removing the Pinnacle software, driver and capture program. The Pinnacle capture program will not allow higher resolutions. To my knowledge, there are 2 other choices for drivers- BT8xx and BTWinCap. For me, BTWincap worked well with iuvcr, but not VirtualVCR, and BT8xx worked well with Virtualvcr, but not with iuvcr - go figure.

Iuvcr is also a good capture program; however it is not free and I have noticed, after reading other comments, that it sometimes dropped frames without indicating it had done so - a nice interface, though. I also tried TheFlyDS and it seemed ok, but again wasn't free (at least the version I tried) and I didn't spend a lot of time with it.

So my suggestions:

- uninstall all Pinnacle software
- use VirtualVCR with BT8xx driver and Huffyuy YUY2 compression 704x480/576

This should give you a good quality source avi from which to encode to MPEG2 and author to DVD. Good Luck.

[gilbates]

no worries there m8 , your not repeating yourself at all , just trying to get me to see sense

i have tried all the software ya mention m8 , but stupidly i didnt change the drivers , inexperience and lack of knowledge there i feel

your piece about the drivers is very very useful and i will follow your steps as described

i tried earlier tonight to download the BT8xx drivers but for some reason the donload went strange on me

the download window opened up but when i clicked save it just disapeared , so i retried several times to no avail , eventually i opened the source instead and just dragged the files , which where the Bt8xx inf file and the other file ( name escapes me ) and followed the manual install approach , but things didnt work out after i had edited the inf file to suit my card

so i have uninstalled the pinnacle software totaly now

shame realy as i like to watch telly sometimes and the pinnacle software aint that bad just for watching tv

i`m now gona reread your post here and have a go at your recomendations

cheers ( wish me luck )

[andie41]

Good, give it a try. You are right about not being able to watch TV without the Pinnacle software. It is possible to keep the Pinnacle software for TV viewing and use other capture programs, but get everything working first, and then experiment.

[gilbates]

am doing just that m8

just got the zip to download and am using the version with an installer

which helps a lot , have uninstalled any referenvces to the bt8xx from my previous attempts with the same installer and just come back from re-boot

just about to install for proper now

let ya know how i get on soon



ok i`m back installed with no probs

with regards to v/vcr
can ya give me a few pointers on the settings , frame rate and size please , also i notice that the video processor works now , where as before there was no control, it was greyed out , so thats promising

i guess compressors is gona be set with the huff , what about filters , i tried before to use the programe and it came bach with an error saying something like no filters installed in the filter directory when i had actually done so

maybe the new drivers will make this stop throwing the error message

what about pre filtering do i need something there or not

and underr the audio tab do i need to compress and to what lame ?

sorry to be a pain but just maybe i can see some light at the end of this very long but most enjoyable tunnel

Famous last words

and it was

just tried to capture and am getting that error message error adding flow meter make sure your filters are installed in the filter directory

ok what am i missing . i can read it but what filters and where , in the program perhaps , i have done that and selected huff , or does it mean in a directory on my H/d somewhere ?

ok so i re-installed and the probs gone but a new one has arisen

it dosent want to capture to hard disk ? all seems to go well but when i look in the cptured directory theres nothing there , any thoughts

hang on found the captures , i was running full screen with this web site and the capt software but when i minimised , i found the captures , on my desktop , strange , the capture file was set but it put stuff on my desktop , oh well i`m sure i`l figure that one out soon , now to try some settings

[Toucanjoe]

Anyone tried AMCAP,nice little capture program similar to virtual VCR.

[gilbates]

ok guys

i`m now capturing 704 x 576 huff yuy2 30 fps , in the right directory or file if your not old like me

the overall quality is much better than i have seen before detail is more evident and colour seems more faithfull

why does there appear to be lines on the edges of the images though , they only become apparent when there is camera movement in a scene

and wil this be visible when converted to mpeg after an edit session

and thanks for everyones patience by the way

[andie41]

Amcap is a nice little program - as I recall, my biggest complaint was not being able to save settings. It has been quite a while since I tried it.

gilbates,
sounds as though you are making progress. Before Christmas, I bought a Digital 8 camera and have removed my Pinnacle card and associiated software and am working from memory - not without its limitations, I'm afraid.

When you are capturing, you don't want anything running in the background - close all other programs. I would suggest not compressing audio (with lame or anything else) - leave it as uncompressed PCM and if your sound card supports 48000 HZ, I would use that and you will not have to convert when making your DVD.

I assume you are using Pal and should be using 25fps, I believe.

[gilbates]

progress indeed

before i disapear for tonight any ideas how i can install my pinnacle software , and not interfere with the bt8xx drivers

[duhmez]

use huffyuv for your capture codec. Thie is a lossless codec, no quality os whatsovver, and will result in files 1/2 to 1/3 the size.

[andie41]

A few more suggestions:

When capturing you may need to turn off preview - extra load on the computer.

If you have problems with audio not synching (especially over longer captures), go to the audio tab and try different settings. I found the default auto adjust (or something similar) worked fine.

You should check the configuration for the Huffyuv codec. I forget which tab this is in, possibly video - somewhere you select the codec and there should be a config option. I couldn't really discern a difference, but generally selected "predict gradient best". If your editing program has problems loading your capture, select "always suggest RGB for output." Some programs will require this, but I don't believe Premiere will need it checked.

Once everything is working satisfactorly, save your settings and make a backup of your settings somewhere you can find them, if you need to reinstall VirtualVCR.

Make final test to DVD - your movie will look a little or a lot different on TV as opposed to the computer monitor. The ProcAmp is a nice feature and will take a little testing to figure out what settings give the best final output.

As to using the Pinnacle software for TV viewing. It has been a long time since I used the Pinnacle software, so it is going to be a little more trial and error - perhaps someone else can help. You will need version 5.01 or later of their software. I don't know what you have. "Pinnacle support" seems to be somewhat of a contradiction in terms. If you don't have these later drivers, I don't know where to get them. I searched for a while, but could only find thew 4.02 drivers. I know they are available, I have downloaded them previously.

Once you locate (or already have) these drivers, uninstall the BT8xx driver and install the Pinnacle software with drivers. You will need do some reboots. Once installed try VirtualVCR - I can't remember if it will work or not; if it doesn't, reinstall the BT8xx driver (uninstalling any other drivers as it suggests.) I believe it should give you both the Pinnacle software for TV viewing and VirtualVCR for capturing. But again, this is from memory and may require more trial and error. But at least you will know that you can get good captures and how to do so.

[gilbates]

thanks mate

but i`m afraid there was no joy in that line of thought

i have already tried that and i just get an error msg saying hardware initialisation failed , so somewhere pctv is looking for something that the bt8xx drivers change

i have tried changing the drivers for pctv and use bt8xx drivers still to no avail

i`m not as you know an expert with drivers for this sort of stuff so i`m kinda gropping in the dark trying to find answers

and now i have blanked totaly

maybe a few more details of what i want to do with pctv will help in the eventual answer

watch tv
record tv programs at scheduled times during the day
and still use the bt8xx drivers for capturing with v/vcr

heres a whacky thought maybe theres a piece of software that lets me do all that in one without pctv software at all ...... hmmm
i have got v/vcr but theres no schedule settings for record

maybe its just too much too ask

[andie41]

Uninstlled BT8xx driver (if it installed).
Uninstall Pinnacle software - drivers, everything. Reboot and completely install the Pinnacle software - you should at least be be able to use the Pinnacle stuff. As I said, I don't know what version of software you have, but you need version 5 or later to use a program like VirtualVCR.

[gilbates]

blub blub

do ya no guys , i have uninstalled and re-installed pctv countless number of times tonight and with it comes another re-boot

for some god forsaken reason i cannot , just cannot get my pctv software to install properly now ..........aaahhhhh

i have uninstalled the bt8xx drivers about a billion times as well , each time i run the uninstall , it seems to be uninstalling files

but then after a reboot and i re-run the uninstall out of curiosity it seems to go throught the same files as before ? didnt it just get rid of them ?

i have run a reg cleaner and junk file remover as well

i have had everything uninstalled , installed the pctv s/ware , run setup , but when the pctv assistant starts which checks various files for installation , it says the cards not there ?

so where do i look to manualy delete files that appear to be affecting things ?

windows /sytem files maybe ahhh i dont know

[andie41]

strange stuff, that Pinnacle software. I never had a problem uninstalling and re-installing, but I have read many posts from people who have had great difficulty.

Try this:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/support/display.asp?ProductID=306&SubDocTypesID=67

and download and run "regdelete" and try reinstalling

[gilbates]

i am of the same train of thought mate

untill tonight my pctv s/ware has been faultless , using 5.5 build 110

its never let me down , in use or installation , thanks for the reminder about the reg thing , seen it before but just forgot about it , never needed it

off i go then

cheers m8

[dwiesel]

Andie41…something you said caught my attention:

"You need to get a higher resolution in your captures…So you need to capture 704x480/576, Huffyuy YUY2. …. The Pinnacle capture program will not allow higher resolutions."

I use Pinnacle Studio 9 and really thought the captures were at the "optimum" resolution for best quality…are you saying that VirtualVCR will always give me a better image because it captures at a higher resolution? Can anyone please comment on this as well? I thought I was capturing in Pinnacle at 740x480 (it's NTSC).

Also, I capture to YUV…is this as good or comparable to YUY2? Thanks!

[FulciLives]

Andie41…something you said caught my attention:

"You need to get a higher resolution in your captures…So you need to capture 704x480/576, Huffyuy YUY2. …. The Pinnacle capture program will not allow higher resolutions."

I use Pinnacle Studio 9 and really thought the captures were at the "optimum" resolution for best quality…are you saying that VirtualVCR will always give me a better image because it captures at a higher resolution? Can anyone please comment on this as well? I thought I was capturing in Pinnacle at 740x480 (it's NTSC).

Also, I capture to YUV…is this as good or comparable to YUY2? Thanks!

What capture card do you have and do you capture direct to MPEG-2 or to AVI and if AVI then what codec (i.e., HuffyUV, PICVideo MJPEG, etc.)?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dwiesel]

Thanks John...I use the PCI capture card that came with Studio 9 AVDV...after trying a couple of others, it seems to capture very well...

...and I capture direct to AVI, the codec I've chosen is listed in Pinnacle as "YUV uncompressed" (it's the only uncompressed option I see in Pinnacle's choice of AVI files).

I've been pursuing the ultimate quality capture for a few months, and this seems quite good....but being far from an expert (and learning something new everyday), any pointers you can give would be greatly appreciated...many thanks, Dave.

[FulciLives]

Well does the Pinnacle software (which I don't use so I'm not familiar with it) give you a resolution option?

If you are unsure you can load one of your captures ito VirtualDubMod and click on FILE then FILE INFORMATION and this will give you details about the file such as resolution.

You don't need to capture uncompressed for good quality but if your computer is fast enough and you have the HDD space then go for it!

Otherwise the HuffyUV codec is nice because it compresses around 50% the filesize without any real visual loss due to the compression ... it is considered a lossless form of compression.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
My understanding is that YUV and YUY2 are pretty much the same thing. However I thought uncompressed captures were always RGB?

[dwiesel]

Without having my PC in front of me (I'm at work), I can't comment on the resolution option, but I know I'm using the highest it offers (and am definitely going to check as soon as I get home).

I agree on the capturing…I have the room and I find the quality is noticeably better when (capturing to /rendering from) AVI.

As far as YUV/YUY2, I think they are about the same…are they truly uncompressed…the old debate (Pinnacle uses the term "uncompressed" in it's YUV codec)…I guess they are to a small degree, since RGB files are bigger, but YUV/YUY2 are huge as well. I used to use Ulead, and compared RGB to YUY2 AVI files…I couldn't tell a difference….maybe it's because I'm color blind and that's where (I'm pretty sure) some of the loss/compression is. If one was definitely better than the other, I thought someone in this topic might know.

I know you recommend using a TBC…my captures from VHS and LD look VERY good…will using a TBC improve the quality even further?

A final question (sorry folks for breaking forum protocol): did you see the remake of DOTD, and if so, what did you think? I'm a HUGE fan of the original "Dead" movies.

Dave