High contrast on SAA7134!

[raindance]

Hi, been recording via S-video (also tried composite) using an SAA7134 based card (Pinnacle pctv stereo). I record using VirtualVCR. After burning the video on DVD, i find that the whites are too white, and i'm losing detail. I then went back to VirtualVCR, and view the colour histogram while recording. I found that the contrast is too high, and the blacks and whites are clipped! i tried lowering the contrast in the options, but all it does is compresses the colour spectrum... the extremes are still clipped!

Did anyone else encounter and solve this problem? if not, then i would say the SAA7134 chip is seriously flawed and can't be used for recording via s-video/composite....

[FulciLives]

What codec are you using when you record?

Are you sure you have the correct format selected?

For instance there is NTSC-M and NTSC-MJ with the second one being for Japanese NTSC only and the first one for just about any other type of NTSC.

There are also multiple different PAL settings etc.

Having the wrong format could screw up the "contrast" in the way you mentioned.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[raindance]

Hi, yes I've tried all the 3 different types of NTSC (M, J and 433) options available, and they are all clipped at the extremes.... I'm capturing with the huffyuv codec....

I'm thinking its more of a driver and/or hardware issue.... coz if I were to decrease the contrast, it just compresses the available range, it doesn't restore back all the clipped values...

anyone else has encountered this before?

[FulciLives]

I use the PICVideo MJPEG codec (with the 19 quality setting) and never experienced the problem you are talking about.

PICVideo MJPEG on the 20 quality setting (the highest) will give you quality very nearly as good as HuffyUV and even 19 is so high in quality you won't be able to see a difference.

So give it a try and see if you get any different results.

Though you might want to load one of your captures up in VirtualDub and see if HuffyUV is the "decoding" codec being used.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I think HuffyUV can be set to RGB or YUV/YUY2 so if you have it set to RGB try YUV/YUY2 which is what you should be using.

PICVideo MJPEG uses YUV/YUY2 by default.

[Steen4]

I used to have a similar problem on a Philips-based card (saa7108, Gainward geforce3 powerpack!!!) . Try the method outlined on this page:

http://www.envynews.com/forums/?showtopic=3967

and I will cross my fingers. There was also another page with similar info on the Envy News site, and the topic was:

Huge Video Capture Problem 8200 T5 Deluxe

but I could not readily find the thread, although you are free to root around for it yourself (oddly enough, google is "envy news"-agnostic...dunno why). I would paste my local version of the page into this thread, I'm not sure what the forum rules are regarding pasting material from other sites...

[luigi2000]

Asus GF3 Deluxe bios does not properly initialize the analogue video interface (DAC IC).

Captured video should be previewed before committing the results to disc.

I have not been amazed by anything from Pinnacle including Studio 8.

[raindance]

Thanks for replies guys.

Steen4: I been to that page, but they only have drivers for SAA711x and 7108... I don't think i can use them?

luigi2000: So you don't think installing those drivers will help? but its definitely a SAA7134 issue, and not unique to pinnacle. I previously tried with a compro video mate gold, and i get the same problem.

FulciLives: I also don't think its a codec issue, coz i already see this clipping in the preview, before I do any actual capturing...

btw, do you guys think it could be a macrovision issue?