Some help needed to get Ati MMC running.

[wijdbeens]

Trying to capture analog and after some advice installed the Ati MMC software (Radeon 9800XXL) cause this should give best results.

Got myself the tv icon know (thanx to lordsmurf) but no capture device (camera-button), guess the probs are caused by following probs :



I don't get it .... i installed mmc 9.1 as well as catalyst 4.11 and the wdm capture driver (all from ati site) and updated my directX at microsoft 9.0b to 9.0c (which i allready thought/think it was running oke)

Some tips to get me any further would be appreciated.

Thanx

[lordsmurf]

reinstall cap drivers ONLY

[wijdbeens]

I did run the setup.exe in folder c:/ati/support/tv-capture wdm 6 .....

Must be doing some wrong then, but what ?

Thanx

[wijdbeens]

Can probs be caused by the fact that the capture-card (tv-card) is separate from the graphic card ?

The capture is an Medion 7134 WDM device (with cable connection) the composite video-in is mounted at front-side, i can play my vcr and see it in the ati tv box, but as said no capture, can't find any drivers to re-install, but they should work (?) cause VDUB can handle up to 320x240.

Better buy new hardware else ??

Haven't had much sleep last days, dying to solve this.

M

[BrainStorm69]

I don't know if you will be able to get MMC to work with that card, but you definitely need to use capture drivers other than ATI's. It has a Philips chip on it.

[wijdbeens]

Oke thanx, tried a lot of things and none worked, so this underlines my thoughts.

In meantime i'm using virtualvcr, this works only audio is later than video(movement e.g. of mouth)

Guess this is (again) a soundcard problem ....

[FulciLives]

Guess this is (again) a soundcard problem ....

Try buying a SoundBlaster 16 PCI audio card. You can get this for about $30 at a retail store ... probably cheaper if you order on-line.

It's a very simple audio card but it is more than good enough for captures ... in short a good solution over motherboards that have a built-in audio chipset.

As for the ATI thing ... it sure looked like you had an ATI AIW/VIVO in your other thread ... this is why I suggested you install MMC.

I don't think I was the only one fooled into thinking you had such a card.

It pays to describe exactly what hardware you have and are using when seeking help.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[wijdbeens]

i.m sorry for "misleading" u all, but i even thought for myself that i gave the correct info. just don't know much about hardware, learning step by step....

Hope u ain't mad, im very happy with all the answers i get here, i helps me further everytime.

when buying a new soundcard (which was advised earlier) it problaby even works with pinnacle 9, my first question, so the circle would be round then.

In meantime i managed to get virtualvcr working, with correct audio as far as i can see/hear (still need too test with long piece of capture)

Can someone tell me which video-compressor is best to use ? i tried huyufy and picvideo mjpeg, but don't want to try em all .... or should i just leave the box uncheckend ? (guess that means "no compression)

Thanx

[BrainStorm69]

I'd try Huffyuv unless you don't have much hard drive space. If that's the case try Picvideo on quality setting 19.

Fulci, have you got any other Picvideo configuration setting info since you do so well with it? I'm kinda interested myself since my caps looked so crappy with it.

BTW, for your audio synch problems make sure you use the audio in VirtualVCR set to "dynamically resample."

[FulciLives]

Fulci, have you got any other Picvideo configuration setting info since you do so well with it? I'm kinda interested myself since my caps looked so crappy with it.

I know Trevlac said at least once that he prefers PICVideo MJPEG on the 20 setting (highest setting) rather than use HuffyUV because at least with PICVideo MJPEG we know what is going on with the luminance levels.

I think there is some "issue" with HuffyUV when used with AviSynth in regards to the luminance levels. Not sure exactly what the problem is other than what Trevlac said (i.e., prefers PICVideo MJPEG).

As far as PICVideo MJPEG goes I don't think there is much of a "trick" to setting it up.

Here is how I do it:


This is what it looks like on the 20 (highest) setting:


The only reason I don't use the 20 setting is because I drop frames BIG TIME. As I have said before my computer is old and slow and just on the borderline of being able to capture. So at this point most people have a fast enough computer (my dumb ass aside) to capture at the 20 setting. Lucky me I drop no frames on the 19 setting. Ironically I can capture HuffyUV with just the odd dropped frame here or there. Seems PICVideo MJPEG 20 is "harder" on my computer than HuffyUV.

Anyways the captures I did for VAN HELSING in that one thread were done with PICVideo MJPEG on the 19 setting as per my image above.

Please note I have the older 2.x version of PICVideo MJPEG. My understanding is the newer 3.x version works basically the same. I just haven't upgraded because there is a fee to do so and there ain't nothing wrong with the version I have.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
If you are doing a PAL capture then you should change the threshold from 240 to 288

[wijdbeens]

doesn't make much of a diff in drive space, capted 15 minutes and with huf it was just 300mB smaller .... little confused know again about what to use > huyufy or the picvideo in 20 mode (my pc p4-3.0 is fast enough i guess)

Audio:

first i checked all the boxes under avsync, that didn't work, system went back to default ... then i accidentally choose for compression audio (other tab), that gave strange noises in capted material, finally i choose only the dynamic resample and that works fine indeed.

After all i worked 2 days to get it together with S9, 2 days investment in mmc/vdub and ... 20 minutes in virtualvcr, which worked almost instantly

lets say sometimes u can only learn the hard way ...

[lordsmurf]

lets say sometimes u can only learn the hard way ...

Sometimes? 8)
With video, more like "always".

[trevlac]

I havn't done caps for a little while. But when I did ... I used PIC 18.

I don't know that I could see the difference between 18,19,20 on real source (I ususally capped TV. ) I did do a buch of test one time comparing various DV codecs to MJPEG on VHS. MJPEG gave better compression and >18 looked no better than 18.

I also like mjpeg better than huffyuv because if you cap yuy2 and want to get rgb back from the codec .... huffyuv will adjust so that the rgb looks better on the PC .... but this can cause out of range values to be truncated. Depending upon what outputs the analog signal (VCR,TVBox,SATBox) the signal can definately be out of range. Even different plugs (s-video vs rca) make a difference on the same box.

Anyway .... because mjpeg does not truncate, it allows you to fix the problem in software (like virtualdub). BUT it also requires you to pick certain settings in your encoder or mjpeg will not have the proper brightness and contrast.

Frankly .... this stuff is just xtra and fun to learn. Huffyuv and PICVideo are what most people use. Compare them in your process and use the one that produces the best result for you.