AVerMedia CE310B issues (garbled output, macrovision)

[ConsumerDV]

Windows 7 64-bit. Drivers are from AverMedia website. WTF?

[ConsumerDV]

After fiddling with drivers I was able to get its native app to record something to MPEG-2 after I clicked "Enable Device". It does not want to record from tapes with Macrovision, so it would not capture Doc Hollywood. Biography of the Millennium seems to not have Macrovision. But VDub looks all distorted, is this some sort of encryption so that only native capture app could be used? This is evil.

[ConsumerDV]

I would expect a "professional" product to bypass Macrovision. Crap.

So, I can capture only using their app, only into codecs that they support. And I cannot capture Macrovision-protected tapes - all I see is gray screen. Thank you, AverMedia!

[DB83]

Very few capture devices ignore actual mv - the hauppauge usb-live2 is one such device as was an earlier pci-based card.

Devices often falsely detect mv from a weak signal.


The screen from vdub does not look like mv - that is typically a picture that goes from light to dark


BTW Dscaler, as I found out myself some months back, is not supported by Win7

[Brad]

Is the captured video in VirtualDub2 garbled, or only the display?

With my AVerMedia C027, the Overlay mode always wanted to show incorrect horizontal & vertical dimensions, leading to this sort of striping effect.


It's not a VirtualDub problem specifically; the Video Renderer in GraphEdit shows the same thing.

Meanwhile, Preview mode is no problem.


Captured video was fine either way.


The actual fix for C027: if I manually set the Capture pin and Preview pin both to YVYU instead of YUY2, the problem is solved and Overlay works as expected.

BTW Dscaler, as I found out myself some months back, is not supported by Win7

Works fine here. (Maybe have to disable Aero.) But DScaler's Capture mode only supports integer frame rates, so it's useless for NTSC (outputs 30.0 with dupes).

[oln]

Very few capture devices ignore actual mv - the hauppauge usb-live2 is one such device as was an earlier pci-based card.

I know at least some of the modern USB ones like the Diamond VC500 and others based on the same chipset just has some driver flag that lets the application know that there is macrovision present and it's up to the capture app to handle it. Third party apps like virtualdub will typically ignore it while e.g the bundled ArcSoft app will refuse/stop capture (though from what I remember you could change that for ArcSoft with a registry setting :S, not that that program is worth using to begin with.)

On the other hand the older Avermedia U3 I have (HDMI and component capture only) the driver seems to output a copy protection detected message as video if it detects copy protection - there is a "hack" to the official app that disables it and lets you capture component with copy protection and older HDCP protected HDMI variants but it doesn't work with external programs. Not sure why the card would even have the hardware to accept HDCP, e.g the blackmagic intensity usb3 just flat out doesn't signal HDCP support to the connected device in the first place, and seems to ignore copy protection on component.

[DB83]

^^ Very strange.

When I tried this some months ago (maybe I did not and just suggested this as a capture device only to be advised)........


But it does work - actually turns off Aero on start up as is with other s/w


Dare I add that the issue is driver related. In other topics the OP is refering to 'adjusting' drivers or wording to that effect and his system might have been comprimised by that. But, seriously, if the drivers are properly installed and the correct DS device is chosen then vdub and AmarecTV really should work. I do not use that other capture s/w

[ConsumerDV]

Very few capture devices ignore actual mv

Dazzle DVC 100 ignores MV, or rather it reports it, but VDub ignores it. You can see me expertly reporting on it in an expertly made YouTube video One more reason to like the humble Dazzle. No love for AverMedia though, as I expected a professional product - this is how they market it, although it is one of the cheapest products in their professional line - to not bother with it. It is ok to prohibit regular Joes to copy tape they borrowed from an neighbour, but professionals should be able to just breeze by it.

Is the captured video in VirtualDub2 garbled, or only the display? With my AVerMedia C027, the Overlay mode always wanted to show incorrect horizontal & vertical dimensions, leading to this sort of striping effect.

Awesome, you da man! Indeed, it is garbled in Overlay mode, but looks fine in Preview (system). So, this one has been resolved.

Now, if only MV can be defeated. When the card senses MV, it just shuts off the video - all I see is gray screen.

[Brad]

Glad that worked!

No love for AverMedia though, as I expected a professional product - this is how they market it, although it is one of the cheapest products in their professional line - to not bother with it.

AVerMedia's "professional" line is downright bizarre, IMO. Back when I was researching this consumer C027 card, I noticed they were also selling C727 "DarkCrystal HD Capture SDK - Complete SDK solution for professionals". Other than "access" to their SDK, I still can't tell what the C727 offered above the lower-end model. They've since gone through several board revisions, with chips differing here and there (compare the photos below to my original). But I think they started off with the same chips on both cards.

Additionally, there was the consumer H727, which was C027 board + European TV tuner soldered in the spot that's empty on C027.

[ConsumerDV]

Unlike the ones you show, the CE310B has Conexant chip. Hauppauge uses Conexant chips as well, BTW. When it works, it does not look bad. I added a sample file to my comparison thread and a frame grab to post #4. I can link to this frame grab here too. It is, probably, the cleanest of what I have so far.

JVC GR-SX950 (TBC ON) - SVideo - AVerMedia CE310B - VDub2 (uncompressed)

[ConsumerDV]

The card is weird. It was hard to get it going, then it was hard to get it switched to PAL, I re-installed the driver and started and stopped its own app a couple of times. The native app allows to select frame size, but not frame rate. Then I switched back to NTSC, or so I thought. VDub showed 29.97 NTSC-M, but I got this:

Video
Format                           : CineForm HD
Codec ID                         : CFHD
Codec ID/Info                    : CineForm 10-bit Visually Perfect HD (Wavelet)
Duration                         : 3mn 31s
Bit rate                         : 27.9 Mbps
Width                            : 720 pixels
Height                           : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 3:2
Frame rate                       : 25.000 fps
Standard                         : NTSC
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 3.224
Stream size                      : 701 MiB (95%)

The only reason I caught this, is Yadif showing that it deinterlaced into 50p.

And this is what I got from AverMedia's own Capure Studio

General
Complete name                    : H:\AVER-01\1_20220421_134931.mpg
Format                           : MPEG-PS
File size                        : 12.0 MiB
Duration                         : 15s 348ms
Overall bit rate                 : 6 538 Kbps

Video
ID                               : 224 (0xE0)
Format                           : MPEG Video
Format version                   : Version 2
Format profile                   : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP            : Yes
Format settings, Matrix          : Default
Format settings, GOP             : M=3, N=15
Duration                         : 15s 348ms
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 6 144 Kbps
Width                            : 720 pixels
Height                           : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 3:2
Frame rate                       : 29.970 fps
Standard                         : PAL
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.593
Stream size                      : 11.4 MiB (95%)

Audio
ID                               : 192 (0xC0)
Format                           : MPEG Audio
Format version                   : Version 1
Format profile                   : Layer 2
Duration                         : 15s 336ms
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 192 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Video delay                      : -27ms
Stream size                      : 359 KiB (3%)

This card does not like switching modes, and when it does, it gets confused.

[ConsumerDV]

A couple of screenshots: AverMedia CE310B vs. Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100. Captured from a Sony SLV-N50, the tape recorded in EP mode. CE310B does not claim to have any TBC-like qualities It does advertise "outstanding 3D Y/C separation", but I see dot crawl artefacts. DVC 100 is cleaner, if blurrier.

[ConsumerDV]

It seems that the latest 64-bit driver (6.0.64.19 circa 2021-12-24) breaks A/V sync. The earlier 6.0.64.17 circa 2016-02-20 seems to work better. I did four captures: two with 6.0.64.19 and two with 6.0.64.17 and got the same result: with 6.0.64.19 A/V sync was about 3/4-second off 45 minutes after start of capture. Feel free to compare.

Also, check out how an old tape recorded in EP mode causes severe flagging/skewing with the DVC100, but with the CE310B the frame is straight.

[DB83]

I just checked out the 1st and last clips. A couple of 'observations'

1. The flagging would be time-base errors. So does this card have an internal TBC ?
2. Noted that these samples are done with huffyuv. So is that the ffmpeg fork (internal vdub2 codec) or the standalone official one ?
3. I fail to see any advantage in full RGB over 4:2:2 which is what huffyuv normally outputs and at significant less bitrate.
4. Does the card internally convert from interlaced to progressive ? I was always 'taught' on here that interlaced sources should be captured as interlaced

[ConsumerDV]

I just checked out the 1st and last clips. A couple of 'observations'

They are not real observations then?

1. The flagging would be time-base errors. So does this card have an internal TBC ?

Feel free to google the specs as well as to find my note regarding this issue in the post #12 above. I haven't found anything regarding TBC in their informational materials.

As for ## 2, 3 and 4 - I just chose a codec that I thought would be accepted by the community. VDub2 came with it, so I guess it is internal. I personally prefer Cineform. The whole tape was grabbed into Cineform Filmscan 1 first, then I did output the relevant fragments in something I deemed compatible.

I was always 'taught' on here that interlaced sources should be captured as interlaced

So, you weren't really taught that? Your use of quotes leaves me confused. It is interlaced, TFF. MediaInfo often does not get the metadata right.

[DB83]

Sorry if my use of English confuses you. The use of '.....' is a means of emphasis.

But these are not true captures then and any 'observation' falls flat.

[ConsumerDV]

Sorry if my use of English confuses you. The use of '.....' is a means of emphasis.

'Thank you' for the explanation.

But these are not true captures then and any 'observation' falls flat.

Indeed, they are second hand. I apologize that you downloaded 500 MB only to come up with mismatched 'observations'. I'll try better next time.

[DB83]

No need for sarcasm. You post clips and expect some feedback. Else why would you post them ?

We use mediainfo since it may not be 100% accurate but is is nearly so and thus we tend to rely on what it tells about a vid.


So I conducted an experiment. I took a mpeg2 TFF clip and imported it in to vdub2. Selected ffmpeg/huffyuv as the compression but changed the chroma to 4:2:2. Saved the avi. Then did the same but now selected the stand-alone huffyuv. What I noticed is that the chroma selection options for both codecs do vary. You can see the results in the image of the mediainfo reports below - the stand-alone is the left panel. There is one 'critical' difference between the two. Is one wrong ? I do not think so and the result is simply down to the options available with the codec.

[ConsumerDV]

I made a three-minute video for those who like this sort of light entertainment. Never happy with my creations, I re-edited the yesterday's version, adding more fluff at the end



DVC 100 pros:

• Inexpensive and abundant on secondary market
• Connects via USB, can be used with a laptop
• Decent video quality, especially when the VCR has line TBC
• Passes through Macrovision-protected video

Main usage: capturing a dozen of family tapes or some prerecorded VHS movies

CE310B pros:

• A riser card form-factor and a "professional" moniker elevates its status
• Handles time base errors better than the DVC 100 (the official AverMedia materials do not advertise TBC functionality)

Main usage: permanent installation in a desktop machine for capturing unstable signal not protected with Macrovision

[AfterNight]

I hope this isn’t too much of an inconvenience, but I didn’t want to create a new thread for this question. Would any of you be so kind as to help me find drivers and software for Windows 11? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.