Hello, I'm hoping someone can identify the cause of the horizontal lines that appear in my captured video:

Attachment 11353

The lines appear on all captured tapes, varies from no lines to three lines of varying length. They move up and down to different positions but always on the right side of the image as in the attached screenshot. They do not appear when watching the tapes on a TV so presumably the fault is due to the capture process/hardware? It looks to my uneducated eye like digital noise of some sort?

I'm using a Panasonic NV FJ-730 (PAL UK) and a Videomate C500 PCI Analogue Video Capture Card, lossless capture with virtualdub. (Tapes are original TV recordings of shows my wife appeared in that I want to keep for the family.) I realise the equipment is not the best however my budget is limited and I would like to know where best to spend it. Other than this issue, I'm happy enough with the quality.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

No thoughts anybody?

It seems a fault in the capture card. Sort of a crappy tbc?

Would suggest hooking the VCR up to a TV if possible and see if the issue is there, to determine whether it's the capture card or VCR that's at fault.

EDIT: Sorry read through the original post a bit too fast.

Thanks for the reply, but as I said in my original post, I tried that and there were no lines. I do think it is likely to be an issue with the VCR, and the capture card is just more "sensitive" to the bad signal than the TV is, but it would be nice to hear from someone who has seen this particular issue before and can say with some degree of confidence what the cause is.

It would be better you load up a short sample with the error.

Ok, here's a sample, it's taken off a tape from the studio that filmed the commercial so presumably good quality.

It seems capture card do something wrong to correct errors.

Yeah that looks like an issue with the capture card or computer. Something is messing with the video data.

Why capture resolution 320x240 and framerate 24,808?

I think the error come from your capture card or wrong settings in your capture software.

The frame rate of the original capture is exactly 25fps (it's PAL) according to mediainfo - the uploaded clip was a quick cut from the original done on my laptop using VLC (to reduce the file size) which seems to have messed with it.
Not sure why its at 320x240 - I must have had the wrong settings as you say. I'll have another go tonight.
Thanks.

This is a capture card problem.
You're using a not-suggested card, and this is what happens with not-suggested cards.

VideoMate PCI Video Capture Card - C500

A very old PCI 5 volt only card

(1) Texas Instruments IEEE3 interface chip
(1) Philips SAA decoder chip
(1) PLX PCI bus interface chip

The (dropouts) your seeing in the video often appear in ADC when the voltage dips below the chips ability to operate properly, or during the final heat death of a chip that is in the process of burning out.

It can also happen due to shared Interrupts in the slot in the motherboard the C500 is plugged into.. moving it to a different slot may solve your problem.

We can only generalize without being there and knowing the specifics.

Given the age and observed video problems here are a few suggestions:

1. Make sure the card is not plugged into the First or Last slot in the PC motherboard

reason: the first slot often shares Interrupts with whatever video card is installed in the system and will periodically be "switched off" very quickly by the device drivers servicing those interrupts.. during that time the card is on its own and may effectively stop digitizing.. and produce the observed "streaks". Once the video card is serviced, the card is switched back on and digitizing continues. The Syncopation can cause these events to appear in the same place or slowly strobe to differing areas of the image. The number of chips on this particular card leave little doubt that it is highly CPU and device driver dependent, there is no ram, so when its not being serviced there is no hope that it will continue to digitize for brief periods on its own. -- this is very much a low end card and really not recommended even in a fast computer with a fast CPU.

the last slot is similarly used as a slot of last resort and often consigned to the IRQ dumping ground. That is as priorities go the last to get device driver servicing priority and shares its interrupts with all of the other siblings. Its the youngest child at the far end of the table and may starve.

2. Make sure the PC is not loaded with lots of unnecessary cards when capturing.. each additional PCI slot occupied will introduce more Interrupt sharing and spawn additional delays.. and in the case with this card.. additional drop out ('streaking') opportunities

BTW: AGP slots for graphics cards, are just a fancy name for a dedicated PCI slot, so remember don't use the first and last slots for the capture card.

3. Power supply in the PC should be appropriately sized, a PC supporting a heavy duty Graphics card for first person shooter games is a vastly undesirable PC to use for video capture.. it is the exact opposite of a good PC for video capture. Heavy duty GPUs on the graphics card will draw down the voltages produced by the power supply and deliver less than desirable voltages to this capture card. It is a 5 volt only card.. it is not a Universal 5 volt and 3.3 volt card like all modern PCI video capture cards. If the 5 volt rail is over loaded, you absolutely will get streaking.

PCI cards have nibble chunks or "key slots" in the card. The one furthest from the back panel is the 5 volt key, the one closest to the back panel is the 3.3 volt key. This card does not have a 3.3 volt key, so its a 5 volt only card.

incidentally, the PCI standards committee "Warned" for many years to not design any 5 volt only cards because 3.3 was the planned preferred standard for motherboards in the future.. but were mostly ignored until they went totally 3.3 volt only motherboards in the PCI slots enforced by newer PCI chipsets on the motherboards.. ending support for 5 volt cards.. and orphaning these from modern systems. Cards that have "both" key slots 5 volt and 3.3 volt are called "Universal" cards and were the recommended standard for many years

4. Heat can ruin a capture chip, but it depends on the design of the chip, and whether it is compressing the image at the same time. This card does not appear to have any hardware compression.. so its probably not over heating.. unless the PC is stuffed with cards and has poor ventilation. An over heated PC however can also cause the Power supply to strain and that will cause the 5 volt rail to sag.. its never a good thing to let a PC run too hot.

There are many (many) alternatives to this card.. for very low cost.

You can try a few of the suggestions mentioned above.. but even then you may continue to get streaks in the capture image.

An internal card on a PC that does not have USB 2.0 is possible.. however there are quite a few USB 2.0 capture dongles and capture boxes which can do a better job.

Since you are capturing PAL, there are also firewire options which connect to IEEE1394 (OHCI) ports that can also do an adequate job.

And there are high end video capture devices and cards. Its a vast topic of constant discussion on these forums.

Budgets for new gear should be tempered with your experience level.

If you seek another capture device do not expect to pay less than $25 usd for something used, that you've read up on and know what to expect.

On the other end don't expect to pay more than $200 usd for something your well aware of its capablites, and feel fairly confident about its resale value on the open market when your done.

I don't know your local currency and assuming Euros sometimes upsets people.. so I've quoted in my own local currency.

VirtualDub is a better than average tool to use and works with many capture cards, dongles and outboard devices. But do remember it is not generally used for compressed video capture from a device that only offers compressed digital output.. so again.. know your capture device before purchasing, and know which capture tool you plan to use with it.

Also by the way, don't forget a DVD recorder with an internal hard drive can also be used as a standalone solution, even if the DVD burner no longer works. Many DVD recorder brands and models are now supported by Isobuster. Obtaining a DVD recorder these days is more expensive and harder to do if you do not already have one. But its vastly simpler to do it that way than using a PC. - mainly experts would only go this way if they knew they did not want to perform detailed scene cuts and editing, or image repair with sophisticated software.. but would eventually reduce the final cut to the same format as a DVD recorder produces anyway for sharing and distribution. I only mention it since that part of the world tended to buy a lot more DVD recorders than this part of the world.. and it might be an option open to you.

Wow. Thank you so much for your detailed reply! Much appreciated.
The PC is 10 years old, dual boot XP and W7, Athlon II X4 635 CPU, GTX 960 Graphics card and WiFi card, both in PCIe slots. Case cooling is very good, 2 x 120mm Noctua intakes, 1 x 120mm exhaust. The capture card gets unobstructed air from the bottom intake fan but is indeed in the bottom slot.
I'll try moving the card to a different slot and disabling the graphics and WiFi cards.

I know the card was cheap -$2 on ebay; the postage cost more! I didn't expect much but it was available and a starting point.
The AIW PCI cards seem to be extremely rare in the UK, AGP is not an option, Canopus cards seem to be disliked as they capture to DV/mpeg. There's various Osprey and Hauppage cards around but I can't find much info on them.

The perfect is the enemy of the good enough.

AIW is preferred, but with shipping over there it could run a bit high.. and there can be additional things like missing breakout cables. I'm not saying they are a bad choice.. in most cases they are good.. but if they can't be obtained, they aren't good enough (for you).

Your in PAL land, so Canopus will capture in 4:2:2 in DV, so your in a rare exception area for DV capture. Over here DV captures in NTSC in 4:1:1 that is why its not spoken of highly here, or talked about much. If you can find a DV capture device its worth it for you to look into it. These forums just don't talk about there because of the context for NTSC video capture. Its also not that its disliked.. its just not appropriate for NTSC video capture. In fact you would have many more capture software options than NTSC, DV is native to Windows and Mac so any of their instant movie maker applications will capture it direct. You could use WinDV to capture, but you could also use Windows Movie Maker, or Mac iMovie. (BUT) some people over there capture both PAL and NTSC, if you do.. the same rule applies.. it won't be great for NTSC. Your more likely to have a lot more PAL to transfer though than NTSC.. and if you have to.. NTSC video capture with DV won't be completely impossible or unacceptable. --- and do not, do not, get an NTSC to PAL converter.. that comes up a lot.. its an awful idea.. don't do it.

Osprey is a generic bt848 chip, its easy to get, lack luster.. but probably better than the card you have. There are many custom device driver options to tweak it, even VirtualDub has a custom menu to take advantage of its various extra options.. so not recommended, but more so than what you have. The breakout cables for them are the part that is usually expensive. Its just not "exciting".

Hauppauge can be good bad and all over the place, but they have their devotees. They are cheaper than Avermedia but generally rebrand and source the same capture cards and dongles. generally the LiveUSB2 or a PVR 1212 are okay. Internal cards like the 1414 are okay if you want hardware compression. They aren't talked about much because the AIW 600USB until recently has been easier to find and more reliably consistent. The reason being basically the AIW were limited production runs and only had one hardware version for each model. Hauppauge would sell the same model name but have multiple year runs in which there were different hardware versions put into the same case design with no other label to distinguish them.. so you could buy two identical capture devices and one would be great the other terrible.. its more like gambling.