Captured AVI frames broken/split/badly aligned

[cyclometric]

Hi,

I have searched and searched for this issue on this site and others and probably just don't have the right words to express the issue, so I have posted several frames that show the problem. These frames don't have the problem in the source video, only in the captured AVI. I have included 2 pictures. Most usually the split frames are of the first type, that is, it seems as if the lower half of the image is shifted right compared to the top half. The second type of split frame consists of a bottom half from a previous scene and the top half from the scene change which begins fully in the next frame. Weird! How can I prevent these from getting into my captured AVI, or, if I can't, how can I clean them up without screwing up the I/B/P frames, a/v sync, etc.?

I'm using PICVideo MJPEG as the capture codec, and often the results are good, but often I get these split frames (not sure what else to call them) sometimes every few seconds or frames, sometimes only very sparsely if at all. I have also used HUFFYUV codec with similar results, so I don't think it's a codec question... maybe it's a DirectShow question, or ffdshow? The source video is a WMV9.

Not sure if this would depend on my GPU, but I'm running an Nvidia 8400GS with 512 MB memory on an Athlon 64 X2 Dual Proc, with 4 GB Ram, and have 3 distinct SATA disks set up separately, one where the source file plays from, one that holds the temporary files for capture, and one to write the output.

http://bayimg.com/IAlcbAAbb

http://bayimg.com/iAlcDaaBb

Thank you to any & all who might have some suggestions.

Regards,

[Baldrick]

What software are you using to convert the wmv to mjpeg or huffyuv? Windows Movie Maker?

And I think this is more a video conversion issue than any video streaming or capturing...or are you capturing the video? How?

[cyclometric]

Oh, I apologize. In editing my posting, I must have deleted the first sentence, which was that I am using Total Recorder to do a screen capture of a DRM'd WMV file. I would use other means to remove the DRM (since obviously I do have a license for the file), but I am running Vista and haven't found any acceptable workarounds, other than Total Recorder, which mostly seems to be a good product (better than Camtasia, Tunebite, and Snagit, IMHO).

I suspect the issue might lie with Total Recorder, because I have confirmed that the "blippy" frames do not appear in the WMV itself, and haven't found the same issues when using other screen recording software (yet I still find TR to be the best. It seems to top all the others but for this issue).

I seem to have reduced the problematic frames by checking the boxes in WMP Options\Performance, to "drop frames to keep a/v in sync", "Use DirectX video acceleration for WMV files", and "Use video smoothing", so I thought I might look further into hardware settings in the Nvidia control panel.

Thanks,

[jagabo]

The problem is the capture software doesn't know when the screen is being updated with a new image. So it's capturing some frames as they are being updated. The result is frames which are part of one frame (of the source) and part of another.

Look to see if there is some kind of vertical blanking interval setting in the capture and playback programs.