best settings for ATI600USB in Catalyst Media Center

[Blitzkrieg]

im using a ati600usb for VHS capture and am not really happy with even the best preset.
in wondering what others are using for custom settings to acheive best possible quality.

Digitalfaq was supposed to be making a CMC guide,
but it seems to keep getting pushed back and now the site keeps crashing.

[hech54]

You could try capturing with VirtualDub but the initial file sizes will most likely come as a shock to you. You don't NEED to use the software provided. My Hauppauge USB device came with WinTV7 and it sucks so I'm using VirtualDub or Magix Movie Edit(pay software).

[bglass88]

Please help us with this! Lord Smurf isn't publishing his CMC guide, and the Puzzler won't give us any details on what settings to use in the profile.txt file.

Thanks in advanced, Brian

[peg]

You might try providing more information:
What is wrong with the captures that you are not happy with?
What are you using to play your VHS tapes?
What connection type are you using?

It's hard for anyone to respond to very open ended questions.

[usually_quiet]

A while back I wrote these instructions for creating custom settings with Catalyst Media Center https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/321537-ATI-TV-Wonder-650-usb-software-issues?p=1995...=1#post1995816

You can experiment using higher bitrates to find out what you like best. I am currently using GraphEdit or Graph studio for my Theater 650 device and no longer have CMC installed, so I can't be of much more help at present.

[bglass88]

Thank you for your replies, I really appreciate the help.

I have a Panasonic AG-1980 S-VHS that I feed directly into one of my two ATI Capture Cards, an ATI 600 USB or ATI 650 PCI, via S-Video. I have been looking for a solution that will allow me to capture a collection of 6-hour EP home videos directly to Mpeg-2 at 720x480 or 352x480 for time saving purposes. I had used a Custom CMC Profile almost the exact same as usually_quiet recommends with my ATI 650 PCI, but the results I have gotten are much less sharp and colorful than the originals.

I have heard two things that are a potential problem with my setup, the first being that the Custom Profiles in CMC are much worse than the default ones (see post #54 by the PuzZLer). This leads me to want to modify the Profile.txt file for optimal results. The second problem could be that captures with the ATI 650 Theater cards are not as good as the ATI 600 USB cards. There are many threads that suggest this, but I have not seen this for myself.

Anyways, I am not looking for perfection here, only results that are similar to the orignals. AVI capture with virtualdub is a possibility, but I don't think it should be necessary for the quality I need vs. time I would like to spend. I am interested in using GraphEdit or Graph studio as usually_quiet mentions, but am worried that I may not know what I am doing enough with these tools to produce good results. Do you have any threads that would get me started on getting quality captures with these programs? Thank you very much for your time and expertise!

Brian

[usually_quiet]

These are graphs for my Theater 650 PCI card. The one for software encoding should be similar to what you would use for your Theater 600 USB device.

Both GraphEdit and Graph Studio are programs that allow building capture graphs from components provided with a capture device's drivers, and by the operating system, various other software, plus some encoders. Capture software does the same thing internally. These graphs are for capturing using MPEG-2. You would use different encoders and different muxers and file writers for other video formats and container files.

Here is a general description of how you might proceed using GraphStudio:

The graph is built from left to right by adding filters and dragging an dropping with a mouse to connect "pins" (little nubs on the filter) to build the graph. Once the graph is finished, and the options provided for the filters in the chain are set up, a user can click on the green arrow icon in the tool bar to start the capture. Clicking on the red square icon on the toolbar stops the capture.

One adds filters by clicking clicking "Graph" on the Menu Bar, then clicking "Insert Filters". This brings up the Filters window, and filters can be selected using the left-most dropdown list in the "Filters" window.

The first filter in the graph is the crossbar filter for the capture device, found under "WDM Streaming Crossbar Device". The second filter, also for the capture device, is found under "WDM Streaming Capture Devices."

If using software for encoding, the "VBI codec" filter came from Microsoft, and it is optional. You do not need it unless you want to record closed captions. Your TBC may even strip CCs. The next two filters to add are the video and audio encoders which might be listed under "Video Compressors" and"Audio Compressors" or "DirectShow Filters". I think the Monogram AC3 Encoder comes with Graph Studio

Next comes the muxer. The muxer in the hardware encodier graph also encodes. Look for them under "DirectShow Filters". I think the "Moonlight M71 Muxer" came with DVR-MS Toolbox. There is a "Moonlight DumpPos" filter that came with it for a file writer. There are other software MPEG-2 muxers and file writers available from Cyberlink if you installed Catalyst Media Center.

Choosing all the right filters and connecting them often requires some trial and error, as does configuring the settings for the filters themselves. GraphStudio can sometimes add a missing piece between filters to make a connection work.