corrupt avi files after capturing. pleaaaase help

[Richard Wyatt]

I'm capturing vhs to straight uncompressed avi in virtualdub 1.3. I use it 'cos i don't get the filesize limit problems that i do in version 1.4.9. I'm encoding a 2 hour tape, that when finished comes out at around 32 Gigs. However when i go to view the file in media player it freezes and then i have to quit program in the task manager.
I then tried to go into virtualdub and try and fix the file, but i get the error message 'cannot determine file type of d:/......etc' I've tried it twice now and get the same error both times.
I then tried to open the file in Premier 6 and it said, 'the file may be corrupt / inuse etc....' so i can't use premier either.
Previous to encoding the uncompressed avi, i encoded it with mpeg 4 and it worked fine, however it did look pretty pixelated in points, so i decided to encode the full uncompressed file.
I can't understand what i'm doing wrong!! i'm currently pulling my hair out!!

spec:
XP pro
Pinacle PCTV pro with standard drivers
40 Gig HD
512 MB RAM
Hercules XT 4000 graphics

[lpn1160]

since you have the original source (vhs), don't worry. first, is your HD formated in NTFS? If not and your avi is one big 32gb file it will not play, you know that fat32 has a 4gb file size limit. so if you have a fat32 partition you should re-capture the vhs and you use virtualdubs spill system specifing to split the files at 4GB,virtualdub can then reconstruct the 8 files (8x4=32gb)The one file you have now sounds like it is corrupted because of the file size limit. barring that you can use several different utilities to convert your fat32 partition to ntfs without loss of any data, then there is virtually no limit on file size and you can have one large 30gb+ file no problems

[Richard Wyatt]

well you see that's where my problem lies. I have XP Pro, which is of NTFS format, otherwise it wouldn't allow me to capture such a large file in the first place. I initally tried to capture in the spill system, but this just led to problems around the joins where the picture became distorted with a nasty green discolouration all over the screen. This happened on all the 4 joins that i had.

I have no idea why the corruption of the file has occured as 10 Gig compressed files could be edited in virtaul dub.

Any further ideas would be greatly accepted.

[lpn1160]

ok, what format in uncompressed avi are you using? RGB16, RGB24? try experimenting or maybe you should try capturing with huffyuv, which is really good capture codec and is lossless as well. the compression ratio with huffyuv is also about 2:1 so your file will be half the size.
I use huffyuv amd picvideo mjpeg and my captures are frighteningly good and I can honestly say I do 2hr captures maybe drop 3 frames and get great results, give the other capture codecs a try

BTW huffyuv is freeware, i'm sure there is a link on vcdhelp in tools section

good luck

[Richard Wyatt]

Tried the above, and i still get the same error. However the file size was brought down to 16 GB!!! Someone must know how to help pleaaaaase!!!!

[lpn1160]

I really think you got a problem with your capture card, do you have current drivers? In virtual dub you can select which cap drivers to use, for ex, wdm or what ever drivers you loaded with your card. d\l current drivers, what type of chip do you have on that card? bt848, bt878??
look into that angle