Hauppauge USB2 Mpeg-coding mess picture

[Andy_se]

Hi all,
Doing vhs->dvd capture. Tried many settings and selected 352x480 with 224kbps audio.
If I capture with the WINTV2000 default settings for Saturation, Contrast and Brightness (these are the only settings available no color setting at all) I end up with a video being god in some parts but other parts totally messed up. Like the snapshots below where some trees end up like radioactive sources without any details at all.
Looking at the TV directly from the video will show normal trees even if they are a bit green and light.
If I decrease the brightness from 140 to 50 the trees will look better but then other parts of the movie will be filmed in the middle of the night.
I've tried both S-video connection and composite with no difference at all.
brgds
Andy

[jmkeuning]

I do not know if this matters: when you play the tape through the capture device does it appear correctly on your PC screen? That is, is the video only messed up once you hit record and play it back?

I only ask because it might be a codec problem.

[Andy_se]

It looks the same on the PC screen.
/Andy

[jmkeuning]

Has the card ever worked? Does it mess up when you are just tuning in TV? If you can never get a good picture, I would remove the card, remove all the drivers, and reinstall it. You should also make sure you have the most recent drivers. If it has never worked, and you cannot get it to work, the card may be defective.

As a last resort, try to install the card on a different PC and see what happens.

[kosz]

jmk why don't you read the header its a usb2 hardware encoder and if he can watch tv on his pc and get a good picture then he ok but if not he might have installed the drivers wrong there is only one way for installing them usb driver then the middleware driver then wintv2000 then the remote

try this site

http://www.shspvr.com/

[jmkeuning]

kosz:

jmk why don't you read the header

why don't you READ THE FREAKING THREAD?

It looks the same on the PC screen.

Meaning - it's bad. By the way, have you ever heard of punctuation? You should try a question mark or period sometime.

If you are telling me that USB Encoders do not use MPEG codecs then you are teaching me something. But I can't tell what you are saying.

Great post, really helpful.

[karelj]

What he is saying, jmkeuning, is that it is a USB device. It is not a card to be installed as you suggested.

"I would remove the card, remove all the drivers, and reinstall it."

[edsmith77]

Andy_se,
I have the Happauge WINTVR 250 USB 2 capture device and I have not had the same problem you are having. However, I can recreate a similar situation by messing around with the video settings. To eliminate the simple minded mistakes, I would double check that I am using the proper settings (that is the ones that you wanted and not some other set that came with the device.) Also, it is strange, but I have four video settings in my situation. I have a Hue control whereas you did not mention that setting. This makes me think that you may have a corrupt installation. It is also possible that your installation could have taken a hit and not be correct.
As others have suggested, I would deinstall WinTV200 and ALL of the associated drivers. Happauge provides a tool for doing just that (hwclear).
Then reboot and reinstall, fresh.
Go at your capture again after making the necessary video and audio settings you desire.


Ed

[SHS]

Andy_se is this WinTV PVR USB2?.
1: Dose AIR TV Broacdcast from the tuner have the same over Brightness?.
2: Pass AIR TV Broacdcast from your VCR tuner input and tuner output back in to USB2 device besure test Composite output and if your lucky enough to have S/Video connection it as well.
3: Test your Home DVD Player.

[jmkeuning]

karelj:

Thanks! I did not notice that I did that. I will re-phrase:

"I would remove the device, remove all the drivers, and reinstall it."

[Andy_se]

I'll reinstall this weekend and definitely do the trick by passing Broadcast TV from the VCR through both composite and S-video to the WinTV2000 application. Didn't thought of that - good idea.
Broadcast TV directly to the USB2 device looks just fine in WinTV2000.
/Andy

[Andy_se]

OK done some research now.
First of all the hue control seems to only be enabled in NTSC versions, I have the PAL version.

I tuned in a cableTV channel in the VCR and then passed it through to the USB2 device via both S-video (homebuilt Scart (RGB) -> S-video transfromer) and composite.
The picture qualtiy was crystal clear perhaps even better than when passing the coax directly to the USB2 device. So that test acquitted the Hauppauge device as well as the cable setup.

I also found a way to somewhat enhance the picture from the VHS-tapes. I lower the contrast as well as the brightness.
I also found that the 352x576 setting amplifies the color leakage and changes the colors somewhat from what seen on screen during capture. So now I'm going for the DVD standard settings with 720x576 as the frame size.
/Andy

[Lester Burnham]

What he is saying, jmkeuning, is that it is a USB device. It is not a card to be installed as you suggested.

"I would remove the card, remove all the drivers, and reinstall it."

Sorry, but I've got a Hauppauge USB hardware mpeg2 encoder - and that analogy to a PCI card kinda stands, and is reasonably valid.

Drivers are used, and in some cases, the USB port used has been known to cause problems.

Removing it / and or using a different USB port, and / or cleaning the driver installation and re-installing is a reasonable approach to issues with these type of USB devices, in JUST the same was as it would be with the equivalent PCI cards.

And I might add, not that I'm suggesting is the fix, here (merely that it's as valid as doing it with a PCI card) - I suspect likely more success would be had tweaking the picture settings - I certainly did using wintvcap, before I finally established picture settings I was happy to record in.