Optimum Capture Quality from TV sources?
 

Using WinTVGO 190 card with 2.53 P4 (WindowsXP) with 60GB free space.

Have Winvcr, Virtual Dub, Windvr. Capturing from cable tv.

Need advice concerning BEST method of capturing and processing for BEST possible output. I have latest Huffy and Picvideo MJPEG codecs and have installed btwincap drivers. Need detail settings for best method in whichever program is recommended.

I'm quite new to all this!

nick,
what do you want to cap to - avi or mpg1/2 ?
Huff codec will probably give you a really good avi easily editable and good quality. May have to ivtc, de-interlace, etc...
If you'd like to cap with mpg2, try the highest settings you can, seems like your rig can handle it. If im capping mpg2 to skvcd or kdvd i cap at 48khz audio and 10.5mbs or so for video on my ati radeon.

ztr

You're talking a bit over my head (my deficiency, not yours). I am more interested in capturing AVI to use in TMPGEnc/KVCDx3.

Which capture program are you using?
Which codecs and settings?
I have latest Huffy. Do I use YUY2, and how do I configure?
Which frame size?

Which capture program are you using?
Which codecs and settings?
I have latest Huffy. Do I use YUY2, and how do I configure?
Which frame size?


For avi i use,
avi_io, virtualdub and (ati all-in-wonder radeon) their digital vcr software.
usually with the huffy codec at default settings, or the mjpeg codec at 19 for video, audio i do at 48khz and at 352x480 <--- easy res for half dvd, kvcd, svcd or xsvcd or even cvcd (different types of output files...).
make sure no appz are running, turn off antivirus defrag hdrive etc.... :)

ztr....

How are you deinterlacing? The best recording I've managed so far is with Windvr set at DVD quality. Even that is a bit fuzzier than tv.

I'm going to try avi_io. I've been trying to use virtualvcd, but not getting very good results due, I'm sure, to my inexperience.

I've read the article on deinterlacing, but can't figure it all out. Can someone explain which recording frame size to use and exactly how one uses Vdub or another program to effect deinterlacing. When I use virtualvcr and save at 640x480, my ouput from WinTVgo card shows obvious interlacing problems.

nick,,
to deinterlace you can try a few things,
if you are using avisynth to create the script (for editing) does it include any filters for de-interlacing i.e. decomb.dll ?

Depending on which templates you are using, the deinterlace method may vary. For example, if you are capturing at 640x480 and wish to encode as kvcd with a 352x240 template, you wouldnt have to de-interlace.

There are also built in filters (to keep it simple) in tmpgenc and in virtualdub. If I'm using vdub I use the simply de-interlace. IMO the tmpgenc de-interlacing filter/option isnt as good.

If you are transfering or capturing for dvd you can do 720x480. Otherwise I tend to capture at 352x480 - good res for kvcd, half dvd, cvd (china vcd),

ztr...

Having some success with Windvr by capturing a 'Best Quality" mpeg2 and using DVD2AVI to produce dv2 for TMPGEnc KVCDx3.

I am also trying out Virtualvcr. I am capturing at 640x480 picvideoMJPEG for KVCDx3. I am having audio synch problems, even though I've checked the dynamic setting. Any advice?

Also, in Virtualvcr, what should I use for audio compression?

Nick,
do you get audio probs if you capture at a lower res?
These are basic tweaks but,
I'd assume you are defragging your capture hard drive/and or partition before a capture?
How's your capture hard drive setup on the ide chain? master/slave, primary secondary?
Are your capture card drivers, video card drivers, OS drivers up to date?
What chipset and what brand of motherboard is in your rig?

ztr

Need Review of My Procedures.
 

Need a review of my procedures so far.

I run VirtualVCR at video 640x800, MJPEG 20, audio at res 16, 48kHz, mono.

Extract audio from AVI with VirtualDub to wave.

Headac3he wave to MP2 at 128 stereo

KVCDx3 528x480 MPEG1

Mux m2v and m2v with BBMPEG

Any suggestions or observations. I am still a little confused about WHICH of the many filters to use in avs.





Capture drive is 7200rpm slave with nothing else on it.
New WindowsXP with latest updates.
Latest video card drivers (WinTVGO board)
Latest video drivers (machine is 1 week old HP)
Don't know about motherboard or chipset)

Is there some way to capture the video and sound separately and mux later?

Also, I just ordered avi_io. Maybe its sound synch will help.

Re: Need Review of My Procedures.
 

There must be a typo in your vertical resolution x800? even at maximum it would be 576 if you live at PAL-area? And in my opinion there is no point in quality setting 20..you can can do it also with quality 19 and you leave much more space on your HD and you can't see the difference anyway after you put it through some filter chains to remove noise from picture.

Hi el_mero_zooter,
is the reason that you capture at double the resolution because of the flexibility to go to the formats you mentioned, or is it for reason such as post processing and throwing out junk? I want to make PAL K/VCD's, so I would capture at 352x576? If I were to record to SVCD, shouldn't I capture at least 480x576 (Pal)?

I have read elsewere that the best compression is by using huffyuv using defaults like you stated, but also to capture to yuv rather than RGB, is this what you use?

I have been trying to use decomb, but I keep getting an error that decomb.dll is not a valid avisynth 1.0 file (I am using avisynth 2.0.8 and the downloaded decomb from the avisynth website. - decomb405legacy. I've also tried 406 and 410 to no success)

Thanks for your time.

Always capture at the highest resolution you can, process and filter, resizing should be the LAST thing you do. Long story short, it has to do with proper A/D conversion, similar to "fitting a curve" in geometry.

There are some freely available compressors which give better size than HuffYUV. See the link in my sig for info.

Capture as YUV if possible and you don't plan to edit with an RGB-ap like VirtualDub. Conversion between color models will lose information.