Best way to capture video from a VCR?

[Gazza]

I am a complete newbie at capturing, and wanted to know a good, relatively cheap capture card that can do this well. I bought an ATI TV VE (Value Edition) and it was horrible. Software with it wouldn't run, and with Virtual Dub, I was dropping frames like no other. The sound was also horrible (Static, gaps, etc, and I am on a P3 700MhZ with 128 megs of ram.) Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Beavis]

You could try a WinTV-GO, which has much better drivers and software than the ATI cards. As for you VirtualDub problems, capturing is an aquired skill as opposed to an instant plug-and-play process and it will likely take you some time to get it all figured out and working well on your system.

[Gazza]

So could it just be that I didn't have Virtual Dub tweaked right and that is why I was dropping frames? And one more thing, does the audio in from the VCR plug into the MIC plug? If not, that is what I did and is probably why the sound was horrible.

[Frisco]

Hi,

I was also having the problems of dropping frames, and after much discussion on this board, the solution lie in my OS. I was using Windows ME and this was horrible for capturing video. Once I switched to Windows 2000, all my frame dropping problems went away.

If you are using Windows ME as well, I would get rid of it immediately.

[alucard2050]

i am using windows ME. i am having no problems with it. i capture great movies. encode, burn, everthing is great for me. from what i have heard, i guess i am the lucky one who doesn't have probs with win me.

[pointman]

Concerning Dropped frames, what is a exceptible percentage for you? I normally lose 7% of my frames in a capture. I am usin a Dell 500mhz Pentium III, with a Dazzle USb device. I am using Virtual Dub to capture with. I am using 25 fps, 320 X 240 or something in that area for capture size. I feel the main thing is the audio. I could not get the audio par of the Dazzle to work, so I capture the audio through the sound card mike jack. This takes a load off of the already taxed USB port. I capture the sound at 22,000 bits, 8 bit, stero. I then convert to MPG with TMPGE software. If I wanted to I could save the two to three hours of conversion by just capturing in 16 bit sound, which has higher quality. I do not bother burning it to VCD, sice I watch it on the computer anyway. If I could find a nice AVI player,and a AVI editor,I would not even convert it.
I just finished a capture, and these are the results:

Time 1:09:00, File size 528mb, useage 82%. Frames dropped 6893 of a total of 99,732 (6.91%).
Video compression was as follows:
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2
Keyframe every 8 seconds
Compression smoothness of 75
Data Rate of 4500 kb/sec

Even with the 8 bit sound, the sound quality is good. I my not even convert it. Good luck to you. Keep tweating it.

[dphirschler]

It sounds to me like your audio problems are caused by having your recording level set too high.

Plug your sound into 'line-IN', not 'mic'. If you cannot (for instance if your sound card has no 'line-in'), then you have to use mic. Adjust your levels until you get it sounding okay. Set the levels as high as you can without going too high or it will get 'clipped' which is what gives you that horrible crackling sound.

You should be able to adjust the levels by right-clicking on the volume control from the task bar.

Then select 'open volume controls'.

Next, select 'properties' and choose 'recording'. Make sure either 'line-in' and/or 'mic' are checked in the list below.

From there, you should be able to adjust your recording level for the input device you choose.


Darryl

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On 2001-09-13 22:08:29, Gazza wrote:
So could it just be that I didn't have Virtual Dub tweaked right and that is why I was dropping frames? And one more thing, does the audio in from the VCR plug into the MIC plug? If not, that is what I did and is probably why the sound was horrible.
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[spidey]

I've used both the Hauppage WinTV cards, ATI cards, and finally a Dazzle Hardware encoder. The Dazzle is your best bet hands down. The TV cards must capture to an avi first, which in trying to keep quality up, you mst cap uncompressed and it requires lots of disk space (ie 1 hour of vid can go up to 11 gig) The Dazzles cap staright to Mpeg via hardware, thus possibly eliminating re-encoding, as well as saving on disk space. For regualr on occassion capping you could save $ and go with the TV card, but if you want to commit to capping alot I'd recommend a Dazzle card.

[Gazza]

Is the Dazzle DVC 80 USB sufficient? It is only around $70. I saw that the Dazzle DVC USB was around $200 but I don't have $200 to spend right now (Reason I ask is because the Dazzle 80 USB only has input and not output, so I didn't know if it would work with Virtual Dub.)

[KingJohn]

Hi

I use the Hauppage WinTV card, I use to capture to DivX Avi with no frame loss and good quality. However on the German Hauppage web site you can download some cool software that lets you capture to VCD format. It even has settings for diffrent chip speeds.

Captured a 2 hour move to VCD mpeg on the first test and burned to disk without any changes. For a cheap card it works very well.