Pinnacle PCTV - Resolution only 352x288 ?

[Mirko]

Hi everybody,
I'm capturing very successfull with Vdub via my Pinnacle PCTV-Card (Composite) in resolution 352x288 for VCD. But now I'd tried a higher resolution (for making SVCD or DVD), and I get the message "Video input device cannot be opened" (it's just a translation from german "Videoeingangsgeraet kann nicht geoeffnet werden"; hope I translated it correctly. Does anybody know how I can fix my problem?
Thanks, Mirko.

[dizidave]

Sorry, i dont know how to fix your problem.

But i want to ask what you think of the card? I am thinking of buying this card, would you recommend it?

Am i right in thinking that it captures mpeg-1 video? what is the quality like? Have you tried burning to VCD? if so what is the playback like on a dvd player?

Does it work with PAL video/TV?

Any info on this product would be great, THX

[Ronin2]

I've been using this card for about 8 months now and I'm very happy with it. The maximum resolution I'm capturing at the moment is 704 x 576 (PAL) in order to create SVCD's.
I'll try and type up my complete system config and capture setup this coming weekend and add it to this post.
I hope it will be of assistance to you.
Regards,
Ronin2

[afiorillo]

Mirko,
are you using the WDM drivers? or the one that ships with the card?
In the first case, I'm stuck too at 352x288; in the second one, I can capture at full DVD resolution without a problem.
The difference between the two drivers (beside the resolution) seems to be the rock-solid stability for the WDM version.
Does anyone know how to break the 352x288 barrier with the WDM drivers?

Bye,
afiorillo

[Bull]

Please write it down Ronin2.
I have had this card for month now and I'm getting pretty pissed at it, beacause I can't get it to capture very well.

So PLEASE write it down

[Dave B]

To capture above 352x288 on this card you must switch the on screen display of the card from "Overlay" to "Preview"

I have the PCTV capturing at DVD resolution without problems. I also found that my computer works better with AVI_IO than VDub (less frame drops + more reliable)

Hope this fixes it.

[deadpac]

What capture applications are you using with your PCTV cards. Do not I repeat DO NOT use the PCTV Vision, Studio, and that camcorder/web cam slash software they bundle with the card.

Use a 3rd party app like Virtual Dub or AVI_IO, both programs allow you to set your own 'Custom Formats' and capture at resolutions that are greater than the standard of 320x240 [their limit, 352x240 [NTSC], 352x288[PAL].

I've captured at resolutions such as 480x480, 740x480, 352x480. They have a set number of resolutions for both the horizontal and vertical and you can play with those numbers or in Virtual Dub you can even manually enter in your desired resolution.

I don't know why people capture with "Preview" on, but disabling both the Overlay and Preview modes when capturing should increase performance. I should know, there's a big difference when capturing 24bit Uncompressed RGB avi's.

'Set Custom Format' in Virtual Dub should do the trick. Can't remember if AVI_IO has this feature.

[zzyzzx]

If you want to capture at higher vertical resolutions then you need to turn both the overlay and preview off. Yes, this does mean that you won't be able to monitor the process.

[Dave B]

Unless you start dropping frames, there is no reason to turn off the Preview, even if you are capturing at a 576 or 480 vertical resolution.

I would only turn it off if I started dropping frames.

[Ronin2]

Mirko,
As promised, I am posting the system config & capture settings I use for capturing through the Pinnacle PCTV card. The whole purpose for the high resolution capture is to produce the best quality SVCD's I can with my current system setup.

For those of you wanting to apply this to NTSC captures, it should only be a simple matter of substituting the necessary resolutions, framerate and templates. Whether you should use NTSC or NTSC Film I can't help you there. This question has been posted many times before, so you will just have to do a search.


Capture System Config.

Celeron 850, DFI CS62-TC Motherboard with Intel 815EP Chipset
and onboard Avance Logic AC'97 Audio Controller running Win98SE.
256Mb PC133 Memory
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Video Card
Fujitsu 4.3 Gb AT HDD as Drive C
WD 40Gb 7200 RPM AT HDD as Drive D for capture purposes only.
AdvanSys SCSI Host Controller
Pioneer DVD-116 DVD-ROM IDE Drive as Drive E
Panasonic CW-7502 CD-R SCSI Drive as Drive F
Creative RW8439E CD-RW IDE Drive as Drive G
Pinnacle PCTV Capture Card
Intel based 10/100 Network Card

Current Capture/Encoding/Burning Software

AVI_IO Vers 3.22 with PicVideo Codec for capturing Virtual Dub Vers 1.4d for resizing and frameserving to TMPGenc.
TMPGenc Vers 2.02 (I'm staying away from Vers 2.50 at the moment)
Nero Vers 5.5.5.1 for burning (The latest version was causing problems)
Capture Driver - Standard Pinnacle PCTV Driver

VHS Tape Capture (my thanks to "skittlesen" for putting me onto this method)

AVI_IO
Capture Settings 704 x 288
Video Settings
Image Format - 24 bit RGB
Compression - PicVideo MJPEG Codec with Quality Setting of 18
Audio Settings - CD Quality

Turn both Preview and Overlay settings off before starting the capture.
Your choice of capture location, preferably a fast dedicated capture drive.

DVD Capture (as above with the following changes)

Change AVI_IO Capture Settings to 704 x 576.
PicVideo Quality Setting may have to be reduced to 17 or 16 if AVI_IO locks up because of excessive buffers being used.

Virtual Dub resizing and frameserving.

As the finished product is to be 480 x 576 PAL SVCD the AVI needs to be resized before frameserving to TMPGenc.

For VHS capture, resizing to 480 x 576 use precise bicubic resize filter as enlarging from 288 to 576 is required.
For DVD capture, resizing to 480 x 576 use precise bilinear resize filter as only a reduction from 704 to 480 takes place.
For frameserving details refer to the VCDhelp Guides.

TEMPenc Template Settings.

The standard SVCD (PAL) Template is used with Encode mode set to Non-interlace and locked in as read only so it can't be altered, I've done this as my Yamaha DVD player can't handle an interlaced video stream. Motion search precision is set to High Quality and the Constant Quality setting is set to 100.

I treat the widescreen image and top & bottom black bars as a 4:3 display, so both the Video Stream and Video Source Aspect ratios are set to this format.

The above settings are the main ones I use, everything else is left at the default values.


Points to note: (in no particular order, only as I think of them)

* "Shit In equals Shit Out". With tape captures try to use the best quality tapes and equipment you can afford. You are only fooling yourself if you think you can compensate by using noise reduction and edge sharpening filters because of a poor quality or old well used tapes.

* If you are capturing a TV program previously recorded onto a tape, try to use the same VCR for the capture process. I recently recorded a TV documentary using a Panasonic NV-FJ600 VCR, a Panasonic NV-HD670 VCR was used to for the capture. The resultant AVI file had a slight jump every second even though no frames were dropped during the capture process. It could only be noticed in scenes with slow movement. It wasn't noticed with still scenes and fast movement scenes.

* If you get a large number of dropped frames during a tape capture, let the tape go all the way through, rewind and have another go. I find that on the 2nd or even 3rd passes the frame drop rate reduces considerably. I put it down to either tape tensioning or temperature stabilizing of the
equipment. I may be wrong but this method works for me.

* Download and install the DirectX8.0a update and it's capture plug-in from Micro$oft. I found that I wasn't able to get surround sound from my VCD's until the update was done.

* Don't use YUY2 image format if you use the PicVideo Codec, I read in a previous post that there is a bug in PicVideo that causes the colors to be washed out when using YUY2. I found this to be the case with my own testing and so I stick with 24 bit RGB as mentioned above.
This may have been corrected with the latest revision.

* If TMPGenc locks-up when trying to open the AVI created by the frameserve, first open one of the original capture AVI's and then try to re-open the frameserve AVI again. This is the only proceedure that worked for me when I was playing around with TMPGenc 2.50.

* With Virtual Dub load your processing settings (i.e. the resize filter) before you open the capture AVI. I found that if it was done in the reverse order the frameserve would stop at frame 77177. This happened on about 3 or 4 occassions before I picked up on it.

* If you are using Virtual Dub for your capture and it takes longer than 71 mins, you will get a message at the end of the capture stating that VDub has encountered a problem with the capture driver and has worked around the problem. It has to do with a software timer reaching the end of it's limit and has rolled around to start at zero again. For a more complete description go to the Vdub site and look up the Capturing Documentation. It also affects other cards based on the BT878 chip and other models of Pinnacle cards. AVI_IO doesn't report this problem.

* For some strange reason I find that AVI_IO drops more frames at 352 x 288 than at the higher resolutions I use. I'm buggered if I know why, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

* Later versions of VDub have 3 different settings for the Precise Bicubic resize filter. I don't know what they do, I stick to the KISS principle - "Keep It Simple Stupid".
I'm not a thrill seeker, thats why I'm still using Vers 1.4d.


I welcome any comments or suggestions from the more experienced members and I hope I have made the hassles of capturing a little easier for newer members with this method.

Best regards,

Ronin2

[Mirko]

Hi everybody (again...),
thanks to all of you for the help (especially thanks to ronin2!); I think I will try the most of your tips to get my best solution for capturing. (Only with ronin2's I will have something to do for a few weeks...). C ya !
Regards,

Mirko

[ezequiel182]

Hello people
I know this has been asked and replied to before but I really need somebody's help. I've been trying my best to capture over 640X480 but i really can't do properly. With Virtualdub, no matter the quality of audio I choose, the frameloss easily adds up to the number of frames captured and even excedes it! It's like a picture slideshow the quality I get; and this has been tried out with preview and overlay on and off. With EOVideo some error seems to appear..
If anyone here succeeded in capturing to SVCD please help me out, I'd appreciate it.
cheers!

ezequiel182
PIII 866
40 gb
256 RAM
Pinnacle PCTV

[jimnick]

I had the TV-pro by pinnacle. TheTV immage is so bad I had to return it. And it picks up Radio interferance too on the sound track. I dont have cable TV that is probably part of the problem. It always captured Video from my Video Camera recorder well though. I am going with Zoltrix tv-geni Wonder ?? but have yet to install it.