Improve Hauppauge USB-Live2 capture quality

[Aro]

Hi again everyone.
I run into a strange issue trying to capture NTSC tapes using Happauge USB-Live2 card.
To start off, let me say that for months, it was working fine - but out of a sudden, I started getting a black and white picture on NTSC tapes. First I thought that the issue was with the tapes, but now, all it takes is changing from PAL to NTSC in the settings and the picture gets black and white even on default, with no tape in the VCR:

[Attachment 88036 - Click to enlarge]
It's also moved slightly downwards, which You can see with the menu on:

[Attachment 88037 - Click to enlarge]

Then, when change the settings to PAL, it's perfectly fine:

[Attachment 88038 - Click to enlarge]

I tried using the Hauppauge software instead of Amarec, using different computer and using different VCR - and it looks exactly the same each time.

Any idea what's going on? Is my capture card broken perhaps? I noticed that the picture on my capture got more jittery recently, but it's hard to say with differences between tapes and using different VCRs.
How long are capture cards expected to last, anyway?

Thanks!

[lollo]

Try to reinstall the drivers with any hauppauge capture software or wintv software, specifying NTSC when asked.

Upgrade then the drivers to latest release in stand-alone mode (driver10_6_0_119_39299-win7-8-36075.exe)

[Aro]

Try to reinstall the drivers with any hauppauge capture software or wintv software, specifying NTSC when asked.

Upgrade then the drivers to latest release in stand-alone mode (driver10_6_0_119_39299-win7-8-36075.exe)

Hey,
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunetely, it did not change anything.

[lollo]

Do you have a real NTSC workflow from VCR, to tapes, to software?

Check the cable, especially if S-Video.

Check the VCR output setting.

Enable NTSC in the set-up of the card (Hauppauge Cx23100 Video Capture).

[Aro]

First - I want to stress again, for clarity, that this issue is new, it developed out of a sudden. I digitised at least 25 NTSC tapes (Both 3.58 and 4.43) before without problems, doing exactly what I'm doing right now.

I do have Multi-system VCR capable of playing NTSC tapes, tapes are certainly NTSC - and as far as the software goes, both Amarec and Hauppauge allow You to change the settings for either PAL or NTSC capture.

It looks the same whether I'm using composite or S-video connection. Perhaps the last point I could try, but I wasn't playing with it before (nor do I know how to do it).

Ok, I tried one more thing. Turns out that on one VCR which allowes me to change colour system with 5 options, changing it to NTSC 3.58 (Regardless of the tape), or Auto allows me to play in colour - while setting it to NTSC 4.43 gives me black and white picture.

[lollo]

NTSC 4.43 uses PAL's color subcarrier!

[Aro]

NTSC 4.43 uses PAL's color subcarrier!

Could You please elaborate - about what it means in my situation? Sorry, I'm a bit stupid about those things.
I'm still a bit puzzled about why this situation developed out of a sudden. Even the other VCR, which has NTSC Playback, so gives this PAL60 signal, I was able to play it, while the colours were strange (As shown in the picture in the other topic, "https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/417246-Hauppauge-USB-Live2-vs-PAL60").
What could've changed?

Edit: Aah, ok I got it. I was confused about the difference between 3.58 and 4.43 NTSC. Now I get it.

[Aro]

Ok, so to clear it up - I'm now able to capture NTSC tapes fine through my Hauppauge card. What changed is that while I used to get very Green-ish type colour while trying to capture NTSC tapes on VCR with NTSC Playback option (so outputting PAL60 signal as I understand), now for some reason I get only black and white colours and that also seem to be the "default" now, as the colours are black and white before I put the tape in.. which was not the case earlier, so confused me - and I still have no idea what changed and what it means.

Also - I want to say big thanks to Alwyn, whose website:
https://www.aaproductions.net/
..has been enormously helpful.
Using DVD Recorder as a pass-through has been a game-changer for me with some problematic tapes. I used to get sort of a jitter on them, picture jumping - and it stabilised it beautifully.
So happy about that...

[TimA-C]

I don't know if this will help, but sometimes I needed to reboot the PC with the USB Live2 disconnected, and then connect it to the PC once it was booted into Windows. (I usually gave it about 5 mins for Windows and all the background stuff to sort themselves out before reconnecting the Live2.)

[rgr]

First - I want to stress again, for clarity, that this issue is new, it developed out of a sudden. I digitised at least 25 NTSC tapes (Both 3.58 and 4.43) before without problems, doing exactly what I'm doing right now.

When I tried to digitize the tape using Hauppauge Live2, it didn't work in either 4.43 or PAL60 (I didn't try 3.58) -- it was a black and white image.

I know, I wasn't much help

[Aro]

First - I want to stress again, for clarity, that this issue is new, it developed out of a sudden. I digitised at least 25 NTSC tapes (Both 3.58 and 4.43) before without problems, doing exactly what I'm doing right now.

When I tried to digitize the tape using Hauppauge Live2, it didn't work in either 4.43 or PAL60 (I didn't try 3.58) -- it was a black and white image.

I know, I wasn't much help

All good! Like I mentioned in another thread, I'm now able to digitise NTSC tapes using Pioneer dvr 440h as a passthrough and I'm happy with the results!
This issue I mentioned here is sort of puzzling, but pretty meaningless at the end of a day. Whether it's green-ish, or black and white, does not make a big difference.

What I'm still curious about is if there is other capture cards which accept PAL60 signal without such issues. My friend checked this with Elgato - and it's the same as with Hauppauge.

[Aro]

Hello everyone.
I would like to ask You guys for (well, another) favor. Could You please help me out as I'm trying to get the right settings on FFMPEG, converting AVI files to MP4?

Below, I'll give samples.
1) Original AVI Lossless capture (HuffYuv)
https://mega.nz/file/qchyTbQS#chGcCZcJ9m7wpUDFHioS65F0Z7owYDVsCp2-8rI5IdI

2) Handbrake (Using interlaced=1:tff=1 in advanced command field)
https://mega.nz/file/zIoQFJxA#ri_uDWN_fxZLHjw_Nxcviq7Q4qPnQtlBIEY3wT9kr_8

3) FFMPEG conversion.
https://mega.nz/file/7MBiBALZ#ZX-zOYSFyJ2uV7wxtNN0oW_gZ-kFs27GH5fazogzJv0

On FFMPEG, I used this command:
"ffmpeg -i input.avi -vf "setdar=4/3" -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 19 -x264opts tff=1 -flags +ilme+ildct -c:a aac -b:a 192k output.mp4"

What do You think? I would appreciate the help greatly.
What I wanted is to keep files interlaced, while I convert them to smaller size - and I also wanted to fix the dar (As the Lossless AVI gives 5:4 for PAL).

[Sharc]

Sidenote: You may want to crop the width of the .avi to 704 pixels before encoding for obtaining the correct 4:3 display aspect ratio of the active picture. Your current picture including the black sideborders has ~2.3% aspect ratio distortion, means the active picture is slightly too narrow. Not that it normally hurts, just nitpicking, so you know.
Alternativley you can replace the -vf setdar=4:3 by -vf setsar=12/11 (for PAL), assuming your player respects the sar signalling. Then you can crop or leave it uncropped. The picture will alway be played undistorted.
In case you crop you have to crop interlace compliant of course (mod-2 for your 4:2:2 interlaced capture).