CAPTURE
GUIDES -> Capturing MPEG with an ATI card
This guide will
make you a perfect quality DVD-compliant MPEG-2 and MPEG-1
video that is ready for DVD authoring. I made it mainly for
cartoon collectors (we have interlace issues to deal with),
but it should work just fine on movies, direct tv captures
and home movies.
Getting
Started
1. Hardware/software
required to use this guide. Any ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON
CARD. Mine are ATI AIW Radeon 7200 cards, one PCI and one
AGP. The 7000-, 8000- and 9000-series cards are the best
ones. I use the ATI MMC 8.7 and the ATI MMC 8.9 software
that comes with the card (the TV icon) and the 2003-2004 ATI
CATALYST and WDM and Control Panels drivers that I
downloaded from www.ATI.com.
Do not use MMC 7.6 or below (MMC 7.7 is the minimum allowed
for good quality). Updates are free at ATI.com, you do NOT
have to buy their CD (the CD is ONLY for the DVD player,
which is inferior to PowerDVD and others).
2. Know the basics. Be sure to read the section
called "Understanding your source" else you may
become lost when I started discussing things like interlace
and audio.
3. Error test your card with a DVD-RW/DVD+RW. There
is a certain combination of hardware, OS, ATI MMC, and ATI
drivers that causes MPEG2 interlaced captures to reverse the
interlace information. Your file will playback jerky on a tv
if the interlace information is reversed. While this is
correctable, it is best to know this prior to recording a
full movie. Use the capture guide, make yourself a 5-minute
clip that has fast motion, author to a DVD-RW and play in a
standalone DVD player. If the video plays back badly, follow
this guide to correct the error
and then re-burn to DVD-RW again.
3. Sound. Be sure you have a decent soundcard (not
onboard sound) and that everything is properly hooked up. Be
sure the VCR is setup properly unhook all unused
connections, as it can cause noise and electrical errors.
And again, ATI MMC 7.6 and below did not allow 48hz audio
capture, so be sure to have ATI MMC 7.7 or higher. Sound
settings. SoundBlaster cards are suggested.
5. Macrovision. Macrovision is an anti-copy system
made to prevent you from copying tapes, a video
error that is artificially inserted into analog tapes and
corrupts the video signal. This method of anti-copy is
flawed, and often harms unprotected tapes, and therefore
must be removed. To download the ATI Macrovision hacks, click
here. There are 4 Macrovision hacks inside the RAR
archive, and I suggest you try ATI-MV-Hack.zip first. Try
the 2005 Driver Replacement next. You
will need WinRAR
to open the downloaded file. Only use these if you need
them, they are not a requirement of using this guide. They
are also not guaranteed to work on all systems.
Quick
Note
The presets that
come with ATI MMC are complete garbage, and I would guess
that a tech made these rather than a videographer. They do
not account for interlace, the aspects are often wrong, the
frames-per-second setting is often wrong, and the resolution
is often wrong.
So this will teach you how to make your own presets.
I will be giving 3 examples. One will be for capturing tv
shows and cartoons in high quality, one will be for
live-action movies in high quality, and one will be for
high-compression MPEG that allows you to put several movies
on one disc at okay quality. I will be using ATI MMC 8.x for
the examples, but be aware that the MMC 7.x is slightly
different, whereas all 7.x presets are located in the CUSTOM
bracket of DIGITAL VCR, and there is not VideoSoap option in
MMC 7.x making MMC 8.x worth the upgrade.
Capturing
Above picture: ATI MMC control menu. The checkmark is the
settings button. The movie camera is the record button.
Above picture: After clicking the checkmark on the control
menu, you should have this screen. It shows your presets.
The one selected is the one currently being used, and the
info about it appears on the right side. As was stated in
the section "Understanding your source" the
optimal settings for tv, VHS, and satellite captures is
352x480 interlaced and DVD requires 48hz audio.
Clicking on "Map Preset" will allow you to change
any of the four presets to something else. You will not lose
any of them. There can only be 4 shown at one time, but
dozens of them can exist on your system.
The one currently shown is my CARTOONS and TV SHOW template.
At these settings, you can put 7 episodes of a
commercial-free 30-minute show (about 24 minutes each) onto
1 DVD-R. Samples captured using this setting appear on the
main page of this site.
Above picture: This is my MOVIES setting. Since the movies
are often only 1½ hours long, I raise the bitrate a bit if
it is needed. Remember that movies often have high action
whereas tv shows and cartoons do not. Samples captured using
this setting appear on my samples page.
Above picture: This is my lazy setting. This is for
capturing 2-3 movies off of HBO or similar movies channels,
and squeezing them onto one disc. The quality is just fine.
Even though it is "mere" MPEG1, the bit-rate far
exceeds that of VCD, so quality is better than your typical
VCD. The de-interlace does not seem to affect the movies
much, as they were originally progressive source anyhow.
Even on high-action fights scenes in Blade II, I saw little
or no de-interlace blur. However, this statement only holds
true for theatrical movies, not tv shows or movies that were
made for video or made for VHS. Samples captured using this
setting appear on my samples page.
NOTE! MMC 7.x appears to deinterlace odd/even with
MPEG1. MMC 8.x will deinterlace blended, which causes some
ghosting effects. With ATI MMC 8.x, use 352x240 MPEG2-DVD,
which will deinterlace odd/even and give the same effect.
Above picture: After click "Map Preset" on the
previous page, your should get this screen. You can select
another preset, edit your current preset, or make a new one.
Click "Create New" and we'll make a good one.
Above picture: Name the preset and enter a description. This
is how it will appear on the settings menu. Click NEXT.
Above picture: Select the format, standard and resolution.
North Americans choose NTSC and a resolution of 352x480.
Europeans choose PAL and 352x576 (PAL version of the card is
required). The 352x480 resolution is best for VHS, tv or
satellite sources.
The MPEG-2 DVD format (rather than plain MPEG-2
format) will allow proper cropping of the video, thus
removing noise often found on VHS tapes in the overscan
viewing area. If capturing VHS or other non-live sources, it
is suggested to use the MPEG-2 DVD settings and to enable
the RECORD CROPPED VIDEO SETTING. . This feature is only
found on ATI MMC 8.x and 9.x.
When capturing MPEG-2, encode interlaced! DO NOT
DE-INTERLACE! You must leave the video interlaced. Your
source is interlaced. Removing the interlace lines kills
quality and causes stair-steps to appear in your video, most
noticeably on straight lines. When capturing MPEG-1,
MMC will use deinterlace filters as mentioned earlier.
Do not use Inverse 3:2 pulldown! I honestly don't
even know why this was included, as it serves no function
when capturing VHS, tv or satellite sources, which is what
most users will be doing.
Do not record cropped video unless using MPEG-2 DVD
format. Otherwise the resolution will be truncated and
will no longer be compliant DVD video.
Select 48hz STEREO audio. MMC 7.6 and earlier only
allows 44.1hz audio. Versions 7.7 and above allow 48hz
capture. Try to change it to 48hz. Otherwise you'll have to
let an audio program change it to 48hz. Another reason
to upgrade.
If using MMC 7.x, do not use VISUAL MASK. It blurs. Badly.
This was an earlier version of VideoSoap and was not very
effective.
Above picture: The GOP is how your file is encoded. This is
the setting I have found to produce optimal quality with ATI
MMC for cartoons. 3-2 and 4-2 are also acceptable.
Please note that some versions of TMPGENC DVD Author insist
on 4-2 captures, so use 4-2 if that is your authoring
software.
Closed GOPs are required by many DVD authoring applications
(especially ones from Sonic Solutions), and the "open
vs. closed" quality argument is just a myth. Open GOPs
are only better in theory, and not in practice, and many
professional DVDs come with closed GOPs. Since I like to use
DVDit! PE, and it requires closed GOPs, I close my GOPs.
Some systems cannot handle the 1I 2P 2B settings, resulting
in dropped frame. My secondary system is one of them. On
that system, I use 1I 1P 1B and the quality is still fine,
and the dropped frames went away. It is a Celeron-based CPU.
Above picture: If your system can handle it, VBR is better
than CBR. The CBR is constant, whereas the VBR gives it some
leeway to grab higher or lower bitrate as needed during
encoding. This is for MPEG2. MPEG1 requires CBR.
1. The MOVIES template uses VBR MPEG2 352x480 at 3.90
bitrate with max of 4.0 bitrate, at motion setting of 99 and
256k 48hz audio.
2. The CARTOONS/TV SHOWS template uses VBR MPEG2 352x480 at
3.42 bitrate with max of 3.50 at motion setting of 99 and
256k 48hz audio.
3. The MPEG1 MOVIES template uses CBR MPEG1 352x240 at 1.85
bitrate with 224k 48hz audio.
I have found 224k audio to be good most of the time, but on
certain occasions, the 256k was required to maintain quality
sound. It provides a richer quality. And since the file size
difference are nominal, I suggest the higher setting.
Again, the video bitrate are ONLY if your system can handle
it. My secondary Celeron-based Windows 2000 system cannot.
On it, I use CBR bitrates. I use the VBR targets as the CBR
bitrate. (NOTE! After upgrading the system to Windows XP
Pro, VBR began to work with no dropped frames!)
Above picture: Here you can select your VideoSoap. I tend to
use none or heavy, depending on the source. The mid-range
preset settings do little to nothing, from what I can see.
Just be aware these filters strain your CPU, so a fast
system is required, else it may drop frames.
Another good one for removing VHS grain is the despeckle
filter at 17% (select salt-n-pepper and alter it in the
second window of VideoSoap).
If capturing MPEG-1, consider using VideoSoap with a 60%
Combo filter and a 15% Sharp filter. It may improve the
MPEG-1 quality.
Above picture: If you have a FAT32 file system, like Windows
95/98/ME, set to 4GB limit.
If you have an NTFS file system like Windows NT/2000/XP, set
to Windows limit. However please note that these operating
systems can also use FAT32. In that instance, you are forced
to use 4GB max. If you use "Windows Limit" on a
FAT32 system, it will end the capture at 3.79GB and not
continue onto a new file like the 4GB setting.
Above picture: Be sure to change the frames recorded/dropped
count from a percentage and time to actual frames captures
and actual frames dropped. Otherwise it would probably just
show 1% dropped all the time (you almost always drop a few
frames during the first second of a capture). Right click to
make the change. And then watch it every 30 minutes or so if
you can.
Above picture: An nice feature to capture a 6-hour tape and
walk away. Can set auto-naming of capture files too.
This guide is the one that started it all. The
birthplace of digitalFAQ.com
Page Last Updated: May
26th 2005
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