Big PROBLEM with my ATI AIW 128 Pro capturing

[hotmat4]

This is one of the most annoying problems I've had with my ATI AIW 128 Pro. I've had to take chances when capturing, 75% of the time, after I've captured I notice all of the captured video or some of it, for some reason it takes a a short 1 sec clip and keeps repeating itself while a little bit above the repeated video you can just see the top of what it should be capturing. Hope this make sense. In other terms its just taken a 1 sec clip and overlayed itself of the top. Don't know why. Plz some1 help?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hotmat4 on 2001-10-22 05:53:11 ]</font>

[snowmoon]

This is explained 1 of 2 ways.

1) Macrovision: You are trying to copy from macrovosion protected tapes.

2) Poor signal: somtimes interpreted as #1.

If you are trying to copy from commercial VHS or other protected source you will need to get a black box "video cleaner" to strip the macrovosion signal. If #2 applies you will need to get a good TBC $$$ to clean up the singal for capture. Even the TBC may not fully correct all problems.

[mpack]

I used to have the same problem, and while it *might* be explained by capturing from an old, worn VHS tape, it certainly wasn't Macrovision.

You'll discover (if you haven't done so already) that you get the same looping effect whether you capture to MPEG or AVI - which tells you that the cause it buried way down in the driver layers of the card...

The solution for me was to go to the ATI web site and download the latest (unsupported) beta driver for the ATI AIW 128 Pro. You have to de-install your existing driver (and MMC I'm pretty sure), then install your new driver, then reinstall MMC.

This has cured the capture problem for me, but now I have a new problem in that MMC has stopped played MPEG2 files. When I click on them the file player opens and plays back the audio portion, but there is no video playback - there is not even a video window. MMC still plays AVIs and MPG1s perfectly though. I wish I knew what the hell it was doing.

The ATI website has a note somewhere that you only get MPEG2 playback if you install the DVD player - but I've done (both before and after installing the rest of MMC) and it made no difference. I presently have to reboot into Win2000 mode to play MPEG2s.

[shivan187]

How can I avoid pixelization that occurs when ripping from "homegrown" VHS like home movies and the like. Currently, I use the MMC to capture as VCD compliant MPG, demux using TMPGenc and remux using bbMPEG... Either it's a serious pixelization problem or audio sync problem as a VCD or when I try as SVCD it's really bad sync problem. I'm set up per this site and still experiencing the problems. No signs of it getting better either. HELP!

[mpack]

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How can I avoid pixelization that occurs when ripping from "homegrown" VHS like home movies and the like. </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I very quickly stopped using realtime MPEG capture with the ATI AIW - I suspected that the quality would be poor and I was right, and besides - with MPEG source files you can pretty much forget cleaning up the quality during postprocessing - MPEG is not a practical format for decent quality editing.

If you have the diskspace (and a fast enough CPU) then you should capture using Huffyuv - this last is a lossless compressor, so the best you can hope for is between 2:1 and 4:1 compression. To give you some idea of disk space, a 45 minute show that I recently captured at 480x576x25fps with Huffyuv compression needed 13Gigs of disk space.

Next you use VirtualDUB, or something like it, to filter the .AVI - check out temporal and spatial filtering to reduce the noise and color bleeds. Be careful not to inadvertantly blend two interlaced fields together: it's OK to do it deliberately if that's your choice, but its losing information so don't do it accidentally!

You then have videos ready for encoding to MPEG. The cleaned up videos will need another 10Gigs+ for storage unless you frameserve them directly from VDub into your mpeg encoder.

[hotmat4]

Thanx snowmoon, I thought I heard something about macrovision, but i didn't wat it was. Do u know how much this video cleaner will cost?

I think i'm getting the problems because I'm get the problems capturing from the sky digibox. Though my Pc is upstairs, my dad's put a cable from an out in the sky digibox and I get all the channels from the television downstairs. Does this macrovision have a time to act because I didn't have any problems capturing from Sky about 2 weeks ago. It could be a signal problem but the video is fine, I can also see my VCR is well. Everything goes through the digibox up to my room. Could be I'm capturing through the VCR, because I get a better signal of Sky through the VCR than a seperate channel.

I use SKY for capturing Music Videos mostly. From channels like The Box, Smash Hits, Kiss, MTV, MTV Hits.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hotmat4 on 2001-10-22 12:49:25 ]</font>

[mpack]

Hotman4:

I think you will find that your capture troubles are due to your capture card being intolerant of unstable video signals. Video signal instability *might* be due to Macrovision (not if your VCR records the same signal just fine though), but is just as likely to be caused by playing back the video from a poor quality VCR, or poor quality or old video tape, or a poor quality (old) recording, or running the video signal down a long, poor quality coax cable - etc etc. It could be any one of a hundred things.

But the device driver replacement I suggested earlier still fixes it, I assume by making the card a tad more tolerant of poor signals.

[hotmat4]

Yea, but the signals are fine coming through SKY. no glitches wat-so-ever. The VCR is fine. I don't record from the Video at all unless its something I recorded eg WWF.

Macrovision is annoying, but how much are the Video Cleaners??

[mpack]

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On 2001-10-22 13:26:56, hotmat4 wrote:
Yea, but the signals are fine coming through SKY.
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How do you know the signals are fine? Have you looked at them with an oscilloscope? If you are saying this because they look ok in the MMC TV playback, then that is no way to judge, since different devices (including two devices on one card) will likely have different tolerances viz signal quality. You have the problem of "looping video captures", and I've told you what that is, how to fix it (for free), and also that it is not (necessarily) caused by Macrovision. I think I'll stop there.

[hotmat4]

where can u get the video cleaner from?? sorry to be cross. I'm just annoyed with it.

[mpack]

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On 2001-10-23 14:39:17, hotmat4 wrote:
where can u get the video cleaner from?? sorry to be cross. I'm just annoyed with it.
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Go into any newsagent in the UK (where I presume you are). Buy a copy of "DVD Review", look in the ads. There are several companies selling anti-Macrovision "video cleaners". Whether they work or not I can't say.

Be prepared to discover that you wasted your money, because your problem has nothing to do with Macrovision. But who knows? Maybe a Macrovision cleaner will be useful to you in the future.