Going for hardware assisted encoding...tips?

[smoki]

Try FilterManager to unregister (disable) the ligos mpeg audio filter?

too late i deleted all 3 components (made a backup just in case). will post after reboot if other filters will be used

[smoki]

ok test.avi now plays absolutely fine, the filter used is "mpeg audio decoder" by Microsoft. Gspot still reports Ligos as a possible filter but it gives an error that it cannot find the .ax file...no wonder. Main thing XP switched to something else. Now i guess i need to try that utility to de-register Ligos.

Btw did today morning a 45min recording in mpeg4+mp3 with no a/v sync issues, lost frames or stuttering. Will test more intensively tonight though, a 2hr show.

edit: unregistered all Indeo with Filtermanager and they don't show up in gspot anymore. Great tool btw, many thanks for the tip!

[smoki]

btw, if u want to de-register filters, following helps too:

regsvr32.exe /u "name".ax

[junkmalle]

So everthing is working now except you're stuck with that ugly blend deinterlace?

BTW, I never got that PM you sent me...

[SHS]

smoki what want is RadLight Filter Manager 1.4

[smoki]

So everthing is working now except you're stuck with that ugly blend deinterlace?

BTW, I never got that PM you sent me...

yes, all audio/video combo formats captured by TV402U play now ok. I didn't have the chance to record anything longer than 40min, maybe today...let's hope that stuttering is gone.
what PM?

[junkmalle]

what PM?

I thought it was this thread but looking back I don't see it... Someone said they sent me a PM but I haven't gotten any recently. I guess it wasn't you!

[smoki]

thanks everybody again for feedback, i'll post again with results after capturing and testing more.

[smoki]

so far so good, i am pleased.
recorded some more material divx/720x576/4mbps/mp2 and there are no dropped frames/sync probs.

if i need to archive the stuff i'll put it thru a 2pass insane quality encoding and i get less than 1/2 the size with no qual.loss. 5-6 hours fit on a DVD after this.

[junkmalle]

Did Plextor ever fix the interlace issues?

[smoki]

no

or should i say not yet?
the guy on the divx forums disappears months at a time so it's not reliable either.

[smoki]

yes, captured and encoded more stuff, no problems.
using avi.net to convert to 2x700MB for over 2hrs of material captured at highest settings (4mbps, 720x576), looks great.

now we wait for the new drivers, hopefully with deinterlace options. but so far i must say, not bad.

[gagnonf]

Smoki,

I'm considering buying the Plextor hardware encoder because, among other things, I can't seem to find the proper DIVX software codec settings that would give me a good balance between realtime capture quality and dropped frames... this drives me nuts! I have an Semptron 2800 computer with 512Mb RAM.

I figured a hardware encoder would probably be faster and less fooling around with every settings, am I right? (get me right here, I'm a computer scientist myself, so I'm an average user, but I hate playing and trying every setting when I'm trying to focus on archiving stuff and getting a job done!)

Overall, are you satisfied? Would you buy it again or chose an alternative?

Thanks!

[junkmalle]

There's one really big problem with the ConvertX cards: they always deinterlace when capturing in Divx. That makes them unacceptable for archiving anything important.

[gagnonf]

Why is that so? If what I'm archiving is to be transferred eventually on a DVD to be viewed in a DIVX compliant machine, is that a problem? I'm looking for an archival method for the future, and I've heard that we're generally going away from interlaced signals, is that correct?

[gagnonf]

Just to clarify, I mean transfer stuff on a DVD disk in DIVX format, not in MPEG2 format. I would do this only on a need basis, since I intend to archive my stuff on the computer.

I have several hi8 and other home video footage to transfer.

[junkmalle]

Interlaced frames contain half of two separate pictures. Each picture is only every other scanline. One field contains all the even numbered scanlines, the other all the odd numbered scanlines. When you watch this type of video you see one field at a time (the other field is left blank). Each field is shown once, then onto the next pair of fields. So you see 59.94 fields per second on an interlaced NTSC device, 50 on an PAL device.

All deinterlacing methods do one of two things: blend/blur the two fields together, or remove one field (at best, only the parts that appear to be moving). Once a video has been deinterlaced it can not be restored to two separate pictures.

The ConvertX's default deinterlace mode is Blend. This doesn't look too bad with small motions. But with large motions each frame looks like a double exposure. With telecined NTSC films you get very annoying strobe effects.

I believe it also has a mode where it throws away one field and replaces it with a copy of the other (or data interpolated from the other). The result is slightly jagged edges on objects, especially near horizontal lines. This also reduces the temporal resolution in half -- motions aren't as smooth. Especially noticeable on smooth panning scenes.

Even if the ConvertX had a true interlaced mode you probably wouldn't want to use it. There are no (at least I don't know of any) devices that can play back interlaced Divx files properly (ie without obvious comb artifacts or jerky motions). Even Divx's own player doesn't handle it properly!

If your intention is to preserve as much detail as possible in your archive deinterlacing isn't a good idea. If you're preserving irreplaceable video tapes of your family you don't want to deinterlace. If you just want to squish some old video down to clear shelf space (stuff that could easily be replaced anyway) and don't care about picture quality then you might be happy with the ConvertX.

[gagnonf]

Thanks very much for that comprehensive and understandable answer!

[Sulik]

As a general rule, it's better to stick with MPEG-2 for anything that is interlaced (interlaced video is failry well supported by most MPEG-2 decoders, as it is the standard for DTV/DVD/MCE).

MPEG-4 codecs are more appropriate for low-bitrate usage, where disk space is more important than preserving the original content quality (most improvements in MPEG-4 come from the video post-processing which 'hides' the blocky artifacts of iDCT-based codecs).