Washed out TV image

[hap000]

When I play certain VCR tapes on the ATI TV, the picture is intermittantly washed out (whitish or jumpy). When I play the same tape on the same VCR directly into any of my TV sets, the picture is perfect.

I have had this happen with multiple tapes. I have used different VCRs as input. I have tried it with my All-In-Wonder 9700 series and All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Series, both with the composite input. Same results. One computer has MMV 8.5, the other 9.0.

I have scoured your DigitalFAQ.com guides, but can't seem to find what I need.

The mpeg2 caputures work great with your recommended settings, but the image being captured is already washed out. My good captures also have a horizontal noise line of some kind at the bottom, but we can touch on that after I get this problem solved.

PS I assume it's a short between the headsets.

Any ideas?

[admin]

What are the video tapes? Homemade video tapes? Or commercial releases from the store? This will make a big difference.

[hap000]

Homemade, basically. But they look great when being played on the same tape deck on differenct TV sets. The only time they look bad is when hooked up to the card thru the component input.

[admin]

I'm still looking into this. This is one of those tricky questions with no simple answer.

This sounds like Macrovision, or an error like Macrovision. Both can trip up the MV on the card to prevent recording. A timebase corrector (TBC) or the MV hacks on the ATI guides may be needed. The tape could be damaged (not physically to the naked eye, but the signal itself).

It could be the wiring.
I see this when bad wires are used. Or when s-video is used on a tape with errors so integrated that it only allows composite wires to look good.

The card model and MMC type have no bearing on the error.

Your computer monitor and tv have different colorspaces too. So the YUV image on a RGB monitor (instead of YUV tv set) may not look as perfect. Normally, it's darker or muddy (gray-er), and not washed out.

The horizontal line could easily be overscan noise (quite normal) and will only be seen on PC and not on the tv set. Easy way to kill this is to use the MPEG2-DVD settings with cropped video selected. This is explained in the MPEG ATI capture guides on the site.

For something like this, images will always help out. Post a few screen captures if you can (JPEGs).


Edited by: lordsmurf

[-d00d-]

I have the same issue with some home spun vhs tapes. I have resolved myself to the fact that some vhs material simply will not capture using the Ati board. I did the same thing as you, I switched vcr's, purchased high quality rca cables, tried different refresh rates on the monitor, tried to adjust the gamma, used manual tracking, tried the coax cabling, tried the macrovision hacks (That apparently DON'T work on 9600's, which is what I have also) and nothing seems to work. I don't have the money for a Data Video TBC 1000 yet, but I thought maybe that would help. I am also considering buying one of those Canopus ADVC-100(?) devices to see if that might work. Like you mention, the picture is bad in the TV viewer so I don't think it is macrovision in the first place. Funny side note is: Some vhs that should be macrovision protected, seems to capture without a hitch. Go figure