MPEG Capture quality- WinFast TV2000XP Deluxe

[Pasty]

I'm capturing using a Leadtek WinFast TV2000XP Deluxe card and there are some problems with MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 captures in the WinFast PVR application.

Computer is an Athlon 900 with 768MB of RAM and a dedicated 20GB EIDE UDMA Hard Drive and Win2K Pro.

I am not getting dropped frames, but I do get very annoying (to the point of being unwatchable) blocks of solid color (pink, green, red, blue) on my MPEG Captures. I can capture using other codecs and I do not have a problem. VirtualVCR captures with no issues.

This problem occurs without fail whenever I capture using the MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 options in WinFast PVR. I have FDISKed and reinstalled to verify that the problem occurs on a clean system, and have had the same results. All drivers (VIA, WinFast, Promise, DirectX 9, etc.,) are the most recent updates. Normal TV Viewing is spotless; this only occurs in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 capture (sorry to be a broken record).

A friend of mine has a comparable system (Intel P3-933) and the WinFast TV2000 Expert card and his MPEGs do not have this problem.

I have e-mailed Leadtek support and honestly don't expect much of a reply. I was hoping some of you could point me in the right direction on this one. I would tend to think my system is underpowered, but for the fact that my friend with a very similar setup had no such problems. That and DivX and MS MPEG4 v2 work without any issues at the same resolution.

Please find the example photo attached. I have more examples if necessary.

I'd sure appreciate any insight you could provide.




Pasty

PS--Sorry 'bout the political content...really just captured what was on <grin>

[Northstar]

I think it has something to do with the way you install other codecs, have you tried removing all codecs - xvid/divx and others you dont need (for the moment), then uninstall the card and reinstall it, then try it again. I know ive had this problem in the past, i dont use the pvr thing anymore now so havent seen it since. The only way i remember really fixing it was to reinstall, then tried the card without xvid and divx installed and it worked perfectly, thats why im sure it has something to do with how they are installed after, maybe a reinstall of xvid/divx BEFORE installing the card?

[spectroelectro]

I use a LeadTek Winfast 2000 PVR and capture directly to MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 on occasion. I observe no artifacts. However, I use a P4 2.4.
Your CPU might not be fast enough. Mine is barely fast enough to cap to real-time MPEG-2. I also found I had to reduce my video preview window to absolute minimum size to get decent results without motion artifacts.
If you have a codec pack installed, yank it out. I installed the Nimo codec pack and has problems until I pulled it.
Also try fiddling with the overlay settings in the preview options.
However, I'm not sure an Athlon 900 is fast enough for real-time MPEG-2. Should be fast enough to real-time MPEG-1. If you're getting these artifacts on both MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 RT caps, then the problem isn't the CPU speed.
Have you tried yanking the LeadTek out and putting it in a different PCI slot adn then removing and re-installing the LeadTek PVR software and drivers?

[Pasty]

Thanks, guys, for the responses. I blew away my entire OS and only installed these 3rd party codecs: DivX, DivX 3.11 , and HuffYUV.

I have not juggled my slots yet, but with two tips in that direction, I might just try it. Thanks for the advice. I'll keep you posted.

Pasty

[Pasty]

Well, I said I'd keep you posted, so here goes.

Over the past couple of days I have tried these things (all to no avail):

Moving card to different slot, removing all other cards (except for video) from slots, swapping RAM with PC-133 DIMMS, and swapping TV2000XP Deluxe for TV2000 Expert card.

I have removed all Divx and that hasn't fixed it.

I also took the Deluxe card and put it in my wife's old P2-266 that isn't even up to the spec for WinFast PVR, and while the frame rate is cruddy on captures, the blocky, multicolored artifacts ARE NOT present. <ARGH!>

I have come to the conclusion that there is something about my machine (maybe the Promise IDE/RAID driver, CPU glitches, slight motherboard faults, I dunno) that I cannot easily swap out or test, which is causing my system to misbehave.

For the time being, I can just use VirtualVCR and live with the fact that an integrated program guide just isn't available now. Maybe I should just figure out how to code that myself (yeah, right).

Anyway, any other tips would be GREATLY appreciated. Love this forum...

Pasty

[andrewe77]

I have the exact same problem! Any ideas how to fix it?

[andrewe77]

The problem is with the MPEG decoder in the current version of Winfast PVR. If you uninstall and install version 9/17/03 from

ftp://ftp.winfast.com.tw/tv_tuner/WinFast_PVR/application/030917/

the problem will cease.

PLEASE email Leadtek and complain of the problem so they'll fix it.

[Pasty]

Andrewe77,

I bow to the Buddha nature in you.

I installed the older version of WinFast and it fixed my problem, too. I'll e-mail LeadTek and hope that they do something about it. We can hope, at least, that they'll fix it in new versions, eh?

I just did some more poking around and found out that the working WFMVE.ax has the following attributes:

File Size: 152KB
Company Name: Leadtek Research Inc
Product Name: WinFast TV
Product Version: 3.0.0.2229

while the offending WFMVE.ax has these attributes:

File Size: 308KB
Company Name: Cyberlink Corp.
Product Name: Cyberlink MPEG Encoder
Product Version: 4.0.1008

I'm going to try backing up this .ax file and using it with the new WinFast. I have doubts since there is such a wide divergence in file sizes and product version types but it's worth trying. I'll keep you posted to let you know whether this hack works.

Pasty

[Pasty]

Well, apparently post-9/03, the WinFast PVR app needs the newer .ax file. No luck in copying the old one. Well, it was worth a shot!

I'll e-mail Leadtek. Don't you love being the beta tester?

Pasty

[tw1965a]

It seems that WinFast PVR (after 09/17) is conflict with PowerVCR.
If you un-install the PowerVCR, then un-install the WinFast PCR.
And re-install the newest WinFast PVR.
Is the problem gone or happen still?

[tw1965a]

It seems that WinFast PVR (after 09/17) is conflict with PowerVCR.
If you un-install the PowerVCR, then un-install the WinFast PVR .
And re-install the newest WinFast PVR.
Is the problem gone or happen still?

[Pasty]

In my case, PowerVCR was never loaded on the system. I did a fresh install of Windoze and loaded Winfast once all critical drivers (sound, video, etc) were loaded. The MPEG encoder that the Winfast uses, however, is the same as (or a modification of) a Cyberlink DLL, and I could see this being a problem for some.

We'll see how Leadtek responds...

[andrewe77]

Want to continue to beta test and see if any versions of Winfast since 9/17/03 have the correct version 3.0.0.2229 of the file? I know that back to 12/16/03 the mpeg is broken but I'm not sure from 9/17 to 12/16.

[NetReamer]

I have provided an update on this topic at a discussion being held at the following:

http://www.tv-cards.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=4245&sid=2b40d9485a935355a783b2f9fad521e1

I point you there because I only want to post further updates (if I get any) in one place and that will be there.

[mundia]

i am using (winfast PVR) this card to capture vhs (via coax) with ati radeon 8500 running on a P4 2.7, XPpro, SBlive.

I had this fixed but when i updated to cat 4.3, the horisontal green lines returned.

Is this a problem with the wdm drivers or the PVR application?


also where can i find the s-video to rca composite cable?