Problem with Hauppage USB-Live2 Green Band

[Alwyn]

do you do deinterlacing and cropping in capture software or afterwards in editing software?

I really wish you hadn't asked that!

If capturing Lossless, the impression I get is that you shouldn't deinterlace during. You do it later. How to de-interlace? I was using the Muksun deinterlacer in Virtual Dub (there are others). But the gold standard is QTGMC, which is part of Avisynth. I shudder every time I read that word, but I'm going to conquer it eventually. In the meantime, I have just started de-interlacing with Hybrid (which uses QTGMC in a graphical user interface which isn't too bad to come to grips with), then use the lossless file from that in my Editor (Movie Edit Pro).

Now do you need to use QTGMC? It is better than the normal interlacers in VDub. My view is that compared to VDub with Muskun, QTGMC doesn't hit you in the face but you can definitely notice when two stills are put side by side. QTGMC also does other good things which are still over my head. I had a crack at it with Avisynth last year, didn't achieve anything apart from constant error messages from VDub (you use it to open the Avisynth files) so gave up. I'm going to try again soon.

Do you need to deinterlace at all? VHS is interlaced. It's designed to be. A TV will know what's going on and will de-interlace when you play your file. Your computer won't, but as you have found, VLC player does have a deinterlacer. Your video editor may also de-interlace wen exporting to MP4 (mine doesn't very well although that could be operator error). I've read you should never give online sites such as Facebook and Youtube interlaced material, so you should do it yourself. The rule is don't deinterlace if you don't have to but then you've got to keep 2 sets of files: the interlaced ones and the deinterlaced ones. The upshot of all that is I just do it after capture and use that de-interlaced file to do all my editing on. Of course I keep the original capture in untouched condition.

Cropping? This'll be heresy to a lot of folks here but I just drag out the section effect (eg 4:3 shape for VHS) in my editor, size it to avoid all the edge fuzzy bits and the VHS noise across the bottom and hit Crop. I can't be stuffed fiddling around with pixel crops or and masks during or after capture. I figure the video is going to be re-rendered for the final delivery format anyway so I just do it the easy way; a very slight zoom in after the crop isn't going to upset me.

I shall now batten down the rabbit-hole hatch, put my flak jacket on and wait for the incoming!

My i5 is from 2011! Results in pretty painful rendering speeds, unfortunately.

[Rahneshin]

One should NEVER deinterlace and crop during the capture process. These are for post-capture.


BTW To answer your other Q. I am not from the Midlands (or even close - although the rumour goes that we still supply their water )


Born and still resident in 'Old South Wales'. The term 'lunch' typically refers to a meal taken on or around 12 pm whereas 'dinner' is typically on or after 6 pm. (unless you are in Spain and I know from experience that you can not get 'dinner', in Madrid at least, before 9 )


And do not worry about your CPU. Post-capture proceedures will just take a little longer. In fact your CPU blows mine out of the water.

Ah, thanks for the straight answer re crop and deinterlace.

Same for proc amp?

Lunch at around noon is also how I understand it and dinner around 6 as well, plus supper at around 9ish. But for some reason the guy from Coventry would call his lunch 'dinner', specifically 'me dinner.'

Cheers.

[Rahneshin]

I shall now batten down the rabbit-hole hatch, put my flak jacket on and wait for the incoming!

My i5 is from 2011! Results in pretty painful rendering speeds, unfortunately.

Thanks for your answers.

I've completely given up using vdub, either vers 2 or 1.1.9(?) since the sync issues are just too atrocious with the USB-Live2, which others have reported. So now I'm with Amarec which gives me no such trouble.

When using vdub I noticed during capture process it lists cropping as a "processing task" (as well as drop/insert frames). So I figured it's the same with amarec and best to disable it.

On deinterlacing, my tapes are analog Video8 tapes recorded in NTSC in the USA (now being played back on a PAL camcorder ). The avi files I get out of amarec and vdub are fairly heavily interlaced.

Amarec has different deinterlacing options which don't seem to make a bit of difference for me, so disabled them as well. VLC player has various deinterlacing options, but it does appear to degrade image quality and sharpness a fair bit. Will see what avidemux can do.

However, your comment has just introduced me to the wonderful world of Hybrid which I will soon start exploring!

Promised myself I was going to keep this whole transfer-of-my-old-tapes-to-digital as simple as possible. So much for that!

Cheers.