Monsoon SnappySoft for analog capture

[AndyO6322]

I am looking for a long-obsolete software called Monsoon Multimedia SnappySoft to use with my Dell capture device. Is anyone aware of a source for this application, since the Monsoon website has been idle for more than 6 years? I have not been able to find a reliable download site for the full software files (rather than a free trial limited version). Any help is much appreciated.

[jwillis84]

quick history lesson then a couple answers.

Monsoon was sued for copyright infringement using opensource and disappeared literally overnight many years ago. That trial is all that is left and it really only works on XP completely, and on Win7 kinda with broken bits.

Years later the trial was hacked to enable without an activation key.. beware.. it does work, there is only one file you have to replace to fully enable it.. but there are better solutions.. and whether its legal or not is controversial since it disappeared under infringement.

So the info of where to get a trial is easy go to archive.org it has all the trials most are of the last version from the old website.

PowerDirector also understands how to use the Dell "Angel" USB capture device as well.. but not great... its unstable and flaky.

Nero (the CD/DVD burner company known for Nero Burning CDROM software) is from a German Software company that built up a very good suite of Software with codecs, one of those was Nero "Video" or Nero "Vision" which was a Capture and Video Editing suite.. within a suite. Many people bought just the subset of Nero Burning ROM which did not include the video capture, some bought the more comprehensive suite with all the backup tools and video capture and video editing tools.. all accessed from a central suite launcher program.

Its probably the "best" software for using the Dell "Angel" USB capture device.. but you have to be aware.. Nero software has to be activated. So buying an old copy that has been used, will be detected and eventually deactivate itself.

Nero version 9 was designed for XP/Vista but runs on Win7, but not great.. it has its flaws.. but works really well. It installs a suite of programs, the video capture program is listed as [ Capture Video to Hard Drive ].



Angel USB was designed for SD - Standard Definition video capture, has a Tuner, Composite and S-Video input, it uses the combo NEC time base corrector and hardare MPEG2 compression chip and outputs MPEG-PS format video ready for DVD burning direct.. its a very rare.. very good device and format.

Variants also had ATSC and NTSC Tuners on separate RF input jacks as well as Composite and S-Video Inputs.

A PCI (not PCI-express) variant card used the same chip and also exposed one of its Dual Capture Inputs for producing raw YUV video capture.. so best of both worlds, uncompressed and compressed video capture.. but you had to contend with an old PCI interface card. The USB version does not have an uncompressed video capture input.

This is really old stuff at this point.. but I played around with it back in 2017 and learned a lot about it and other choices. NEC was a chip giant in Japan and was early to market with MPEG2 capture using hardware chips and recognized a need for time base signal correction early on.. combining it all into one chip.. but for various reasons their capture devices and stablizers didn't make it to the US or Canada except mostly in some VHS to DVD recorders.

The PCI card is awesome.. but hard to use with modern PCs, the USB version is a lot easier.. and for SD video its more than adequate "if" MPEG2 is sufficent.

Apple by-passed using MPEG2 and went straight to h.264 for their iMovie and later FinalCutX video editing and playback software, Microsoft delayed and standardized on MPEG2 for TV tuner capture, Fujitsu of Japan came up with a combo chip for capturing MPEG2 and h.264 video and transcoding between them all in one chip. And that led to the after 2009 Game Capture devices and later better streaming capture devices that captured direct to high profile h.264 formats.

MPEG2 was from 1995 and served adequately for SD and wide aspect SD video on DVD for years, but had problems; artifacting in the form of Mosquito Noise and Macro Blocking on fast moving video. h.264 came along much later and eliminated much of those artifacting problems, but it was introduced for low band width web streaming with low profiles, and later adopted to replace SD NTSC with HD ATSC video over the air; and then the last best chips introduced wide bandwidth high profiles and MPEG2 was surpased as the standard for Bluray discs, Blueray could still use MPEG2 but most just used h.264 video for storage. Also the licensing issues with MPEG2 after Microsoft abandoned SD video left the world using h.264 for just about everything today until h.265 came along.. but thats a longer story.

Today Apple and Microsoft both natively support h.264 in the MP4 file format natively and MPEG2 and .mp2 or .mpv is all but a memory and kind of wonky to find good players for it. Windows Media Player for MPEG2, Windows Media Center for MPEG2 capture of TV tuner files, and VLC works on most platforms.. but MPEG-PS is better than MPEG-TS. Apple generally avoids or requires manual installation of software or an MPEG2 codec add-on merely to play MPEG2 back.. or a Third Party DVD playback program.

Anyway.. after the SD video age, came HD video, and Nero updated their offering to Nero version 10 and that is really stable on Win7 and Win10.

It also includes the ability to save in MP4 format and trancode to AVI or MPEG2 and to customize the parameters of the transcode.



The Preview window is blank in this image, but its fully visible with video on my desktop.. I think they changed the choice of the video render filter used in the updated Nero10 code... probably to make it faster and more stable.

The [More>>] button opens a panel downwards where you can check a box to hear audio from the video during preview or capture. Any USB crackle or pops in the audio during Preview do not show up in the recorded video. Preview on Windows has always been a lower priority "best effort" playback chain, reserving the most system resources for the actual record to hard drive file chain.

Its really pretty awesome and stable.. much better than Monsoon ever was.. but its hard to find a copy of Nero10 Suite with Vision for the capture software that hasn't already been used.. and I think they only sell licenses for the much newer suite today.

I (think) I checked with post Nero10 Vision versions.. and they just stopped working with the Angel USB, mostly carelessness or lack of interest in supporting hardware so old. they probably didn't regression test it. My recollection was Nero11 Vision got stuck in a loop on Win7, and Win10 and I never tried Nero11 or above on Win11.

The trick is to stay with Nero10 Vision and make sure it activates when you install it. If you install with a used key, it may temporarily activate and then detect it in a little while and deactivate itself.. I think it still calls home to Germany periodically and they still have the servers answering it.

Its a true shame they don't sell a special version of Nero10 Vision with a full key direct from Germany Gmb to support these older devices.

The Vision capture software is pretty darned sweet.. it works with Angel USB MPEG, Microcom Uncompressed PCIex and Magewell PCIex and Magewell USB AIO capture devices and the Cloner Alliance Virtual Streaming device driver when using their capture devices for S-Video or HDMI capture.. its much more refined and simpler but also more intuitive and powerful than OBS Studio.. and I have used Angel USB with OBS studio.. but its wonky. It does not work with Game Capture Fujitsu MPEG2/h.264 chips their device driver graph filters are very stange and require a longer and different chain than simple Uncompressed or MPEG2 capture devices, for those I run to OBS Studio.. and they sometimes work, sometimes not. I haven't found a reliable universal Fujitsu chip video capture program.. they all have their problems.

Another bonus is Nero10 Vision also recognizes and captures video from ADVC-55 boxes if your into DV and presents full scrubbing and tape controls, I'm sure its legacy dedication from programmers long gone.. but its very versitile with older capture dongles and things.. you just have to have a 64 bit device driver on Windows to use the device. YUAN made many, and other companies had little capture sticks little more than a matchbox with a video encoder and audio capture chip.




Its also pretty good at working with multiple drivers supporting a lot of different video capture hardware on the same PC, be that PCIex, USB, or Over TCP/IP as with the SiliconDust tuners. Your mileage may vary.

I've noticed some weirdness with some devices when they have no signal already on their inputs blanking the entire video screen for about 30-45 seconds before returning to the device driver saying "no signal" or something like that.. but thats up to the device drivers and wouldn't ding Nero Vision for that problem.