How to capture interlaced signal with August VGB100 capture card

[Hamilthon]

Hi, I got a Canon MV930 Camcorder and some MiniDVs to capture to my pc.
I bought an August VGB100 capture card and it works perfectly fine.
But i noticed that my capture were 25p and not 25i which means i lost the smooth footage to a choppy one when capturing.
I looked on this forum and found that the interlaced video depends only of the software i'm using (i used the one that came with the Capture Card "Vhs to DVD")
I tried virtualdub but the software is kinda old and whenever i choose my audio source (The capture card) i get a black screen.
I got a PAL camcorder shooting in 16:9 so i guess the resolution should be 720x480 i guess.
Anyways, i got a bit of trouble getting an interlaced video, how should I proceed?

Thanks for considering

[davexnet]

You could try using the Amarectv software if you want to capture the camera's analog out.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/AmaRecTV
Why don't you get a firewire card and capture the digital content as is ?

[Alwyn]

I'll second Dave. Firewire is the preferred option.

Re using AmarecTV, I have written a guide here. The VGB100 will output Interlaced using AmarecTV and VDub.

[Alwyn]

Perusing the manual, the 930 doesn't appear to have a S-Video port, so only Composite video Out (apart from Firewire).

The recommendation is therefore to use Firewire if you can. You'll get better-quality video.

[Hamilthon]

Thanks for your answer, i'll check out for firewire but do you have some recommendations ?

[Hamilthon]

I managed to record well with amarectv the only thing i wonder is if i must record 25fps or 50fps to capture the 50 fields from interlaced signal

[davexnet]

Set it to 25 and use a lossless codec, such as UT codec
https://www.videohelp.com/software/Ut-Video-Codec-Suite

[Alwyn]

For UTVideo, use the YUV422 BT.601 VCM (ULY2) codec:


[Attachment 80319 - Click to enlarge]

[Alwyn]

Thanks for your answer, i'll check out for firewire but do you have some recommendations ?

This topic has the most up-to-date info. For Win 10/11, I'm recommending a VIA-based Firewire PCIe card.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/414349-Best-1394B-PCIE-Card-That-Still-Works-with-DV-Camcorders

[Hamilthon]

I knew I should have asked sooner, you are a great help guys!

[Hamilthon]

For UTVideo, use the YUV422 BT.601 VCM (ULY2) codec:


[Attachment 80319 - Click to enlarge]

How do i make it record in 16:9, the video is squeezed in 4:3 and there's no such settings the codec settings

[Alwyn]

That's all done in post-capture processing. All digitisers (generally speaking) capture either 720x480 (NTSC), or 720x576 (PAL). There's no specific aspect ratio established at capture. That said, all analogue captures will be 4:3, so if you have a 16:9 video (I assume from your camcorder?) then, in whatever software you use to process your video into a viewable format eg MP4, you will be able to establish a 16:9 video so your Widescreen MiniDV will be correct.

Throwing a spanner into the mix, because analogue AVIs don't have any stored aspect ratios at all, software generally interprets the video as the actual pixel count ratio. For example, MediaInfo (widely used) will give an AR of 3:2 for a NTSC capture of 720x480, when in fact the video is correct when viewed at 4:3. Similarly, 720x576 is interpreted as 5:4, when once again, it's correct AR is 4:3.

So, don't worry about the squeezed video; there's nothing you can do about it and you will correct in POST.

A DV/Firewire capture, on the other hand, will have no such oddities and will output with the aspect ratio that the tape was shot.

[Hamilthon]

alright thank you

[Hamilthon]

For UTVideo, use the YUV422 BT.601 VCM (ULY2) codec:


[Attachment 80319 - Click to enlarge]

And about the other codec of the suite, differents results or essentially the same ?

[Alwyn]

IMO, essentially the same these days. The common ones are HUFFYUV, Lagarith, UT. I use MagicYUV (paid version) because that works best with my editor.

They vary in compression amounts/file sizes and speed of opening, but with a modern computer I don't see any significant difference in performance. If you were going to do a lot of digitising and HDD space is an issue, pick one that creates smaller files. You can easily check that by doing a few test captures and compare CPU load (better to be lower) and file size. Check the files with Mediainfo.

More experienced users may have other ideas...