Capture problems using ATI TV Wonder HD 750

[SKot]

Hello...I've been a member since 2005, but I believe this is my first posting. I've had various types of video capture cards since the late 90s, but have never considered myself an expert by any means. The best results I've had were with a Leadtek WinFast A310 TD card that sometimes had issues with audio sync, but captured some rather nice uncompressed video from VHS.

Earlier in 2011, I finally upgraded my outdated Pentium 4 system and in the process had to go from AGP to PCI-E, so that meant the A310 was out the window. Since I had a limited budget, and I didn't want to be stuck with no capture ability whatsoever, I bought an ATI All-In-Wonder package deal with a Radeon HD 5570 graphics card and a TV Wonder HD 750 capture card. So far, the results have not been at all satisfying.

Most of the time I'm capturing from VHS tapes. I haven't had a lot of time to experiment so far, but right now out-of-the-box with the drivers and software (ArcSoft TotalMedia 3.5) installed, I'm getting captures that look horrible with a lot of "combing" during movement and very noticeable jaggies on diagonals. Settings are minimal and hard to find, and I haven't been able to find anything I can change that will alter the results. Here is a screen grab from VLC player to demonstrate the issues:





When the picture sits relatively still, the capture may look fairly good:



But most of the time it looks terrible. I never had this issue with my previous capture card. I'm guessing it's an interlacing problem, but I haven't found any way to alter it.

I'm quite prepared to accept that I probably bought a crappy capture card, and may have to find a better standalone solution to do any decent capture work. But there's also the possibility that with better settings or software this card may do a nice job. Anyone have any suggestions here?

--SKot

[jagabo]

Don't post resized images. Post at the original captured frame size. But I think you are seeing normal interlaced video.

[SKot]

Don't post resized images. Post at the original captured frame size. But I think you are seeing normal interlaced video.

Hmm...I haven't resized these images; they are just as they were captured. If I click on them a couple times here, I see them full size.

--SKot

[jagabo]

Nothing captures at 720x540. Your images have been resized by the software you are using to make screen shots.

If you don't want to see interlace comb artifacts use a player that deinterlaces on the fly. If you are going to make DVDs leave the video interlaced and encode interlaced. That's the standard state of NTSC video. DVD players and TVs know how to deal with it. Film sources can be inverse telecined back to 23.976 fps and encoded progressive with 3:2 pulldown flags.

[usually_quiet]

There is other capture software you could try for capturing if you are dissatisfied with what you have, but the controls you have available using the card's drivers and the VFW or DirectShow filters installed on your system could still be limited.

[SKot]

Nothing captures at 720x540. Your images have been resized by the software you are using to make screen shots.

Ah, that must be VLC Player resizing it then. Why it should do that, I don't know.

If you don't want to see interlace comb artifacts use a player that deinterlaces on the fly. If you are going to make DVDs leave the video interlaced and encode interlaced. That's the standard state of NTSC video. DVD players and TVs know how to deal with it. Film sources can be inverse telecined back to 23.976 fps and encoded progressive with 3:2 pulldown flags.

I tried playback with WinDVD and it does look a bit better, so it probably handles the deinterlacing on the fly better than VLC does. It's still not great, but I think there is a bit of jitter in this particular tape that makes the problem worse than normal.

There is other capture software you could try for capturing if you are dissatisfied with what you have, but the controls you have available using the card's drivers and the VFW or DirectShow filters installed on your system could still be limited.

Hmm. Can you recommend any software in particular that might be good with this card? I dislike TotalMedia's interface all around - it's obviously trying to copy Windows Media Center, but I'd prefer something with more of a classic interface.

--SKot

[intracube]

Ah, that must be VLC Player resizing it then. Why it should do that, I don't know.

Standard definition video is usually stored in a 'distorted format' (non square pixels). If you view this on a computer uncorrected, circles will look oval.

VLC is correctly resizing your video from 720x480 -> 720x540 (4:3)

You're probably seeing interlacing artefacts for one of two reasons:
- the software you're using to do the video capture isn't embedding an interlacing flag into the video. VLC wouldn't then know to deinterlace the footage.
- the video does have an interlacing flag - but VLC's de-interlacing has been disabled.

To check; play one of the videos in VLC, check what Video->Deinterlace is set to. It should be on 'automatic' or 'on'. If it's already on automatic, it'd suggest the captured video has no interlacing flag set - if so, you could try forcing VLC to deinterlace by choosing 'on'.

Then try setting Video->Deinterlacing mode-> to Yadif and Yadif (x2). Yadif (x2) should give smoother playback (depending on the source).

[jagabo]

If you provide a short sample we can tell you whether the video is correctly encoded or not. Upload a few seconds that clearly displays the problems you are seeing.

[usually_quiet]

There is other capture software you could try for capturing if you are dissatisfied with what you have, but the controls you have available using the card's drivers and the VFW or DirectShow filters installed on your system could still be limited.

Hmm. Can you recommend any software in particular that might be good with this card? I dislike TotalMedia's interface all around - it's obviously trying to copy Windows Media Center, but I'd prefer something with more of a classic interface.

--SKot

Virtualdub is very popular but has some issues with your capture device (and mine), although some people do make it work. Since I don't need any virtualdub-only features, I have experimented with AmaRecTV, Graphedit and GraphStudio and my ATI TV card for capture. All these programs use a nuts-and-bolts approach, configuring the card and various DirectShow and VFW filters encoder filters to use for capture. AmaRecTV is the most user friendly, but the other two allow more flexibility.

The encoders/filters that came with your card's driver package and some others are only available using GraphStudio or GraphEdit, but if they are installed, there are other encoder filters (UTVideo, HuffYUV, Lagarith, XVid, x264VFW) are available using AmaRecTV.

I have an ATI TV Wonder 650 HD PCI card, which uses the same Windows 7 driver package as the TV Wonder 750 HD. The Windows XP drivers for the TV Wonder 650 HD devices are supposed to allow access to its driver's proc amp controls, and perhaps other controls, that are not accessible when using Windows 7 drivers. It might be worthwhile to find out if the Windows XP drivers for your card also provide access to more controls. I have no experience using Windows 7 Ultimate, but you could try using Windows XP for capturing with 3rd party software and see if you have access to the Windows XP drivers that way.

[Cauptain]

Hello SKot, Happy new year!!

Mate, try both softwares below:


VH CAPTURE:


VIRTUALDUB:



I make a good tutorial from AMARECTV too. Get here: http://www.multiupload.com/U9I79D8RIK

Any question, reply.


Claudio