I think the OP is interested more in the inputs rather than the outputs since he is getting it for capturing analog video.
its gonna be tough
picture 1 is the 2006 AGP card which has the large White block connector, and does indeed expose the necessary S-Video input
sadly picture 2 is the 2006 PCie card, which has the smaller black Sony Mini DVI connector, and if you look closely neither of those two mini DIN plugs are the correct pin orintation for an S-Video for input, so how exactly is the OP going to connect a source to those plugs/connectors ???
picture 1 is the 2006 AGP card which has the large White block connector, and does indeed expose the necessary S-Video input
sadly picture 2 is the 2006 PCie card, which has the smaller black Sony Mini DVI connector, and if you look closely neither of those two mini DIN plugs are the correct pin orintation for an S-Video for input, so how exactly is the OP going to connect a source to those plugs/connectors ???
I don't have an AGP card, both of my cards are pcie, and use the ATI I/O connector (silver stab) that look the same but have a different pin configuration.
I'm also not trying to plug an s-video cable directly into the I/O connector, if that's what you meant? I have a silver stab cable, just not the one for my working 2006 pcie card, it only works with my dead x600
I know exactly what you have - two ATI PCI express cards :-)
Merely explaining that the 2006 AGP card WILL allow you to input an S-Video signal / source
and the 2006 PCIe card you have will NOT - unless you have both the Mini DVI ( Silver Stab ) cable and the ATI Purple input box
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its gonna be tough to connect your 2006 PCIe card up to an S-Video source with just the silver stab !
Gotcha, I just got confused because I had already explained the hardware I have so I didn't get why you were talking about the AGP version of the card, or not having the stab and box, which I do have.
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Did you even look at the pictures I attached ?
well of course I did I don't have any of that, I have this: https://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/54/2005/05/1413-cables2-1.jpg
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have tried to be very clear and concise in my posts ( as I have been there before you )
sorry I did not make it make clearer, or I did make the effort to be more simpler for you so i will repeat
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anyway, I will get my coat and leave - bye !
I apologize, I did not mean to come off as abrasive or anything like that. I appreciate your input
can you see how the Purple Din ( on the stab ) connects to the Domino box - so that you can connect an S-Video cable into your VHS source
that is going to be the same way your 2006 PCIe card is going to work - you need both the Stab and the Domino Box ( or the ATI Purple box ) , which has the required S-Video input connector for your VHS source
you can't plug an S-Video cable ( din plug ) directly into your X600 PCIe Stab or your 2006 PCIe Stab as some people have advised you - to test this you can try and connect an S-Video cable yourself to the Stab and check
can you see how the Purple Din ( on the stab ) connects to the Domino box - so that you can connect an S-Video cable into your VHS source
that is going to be the same way your 2006 PCIe card is going to work - you need both the Stab and the Domino Box ( or the ATI Purple box ) , which has the required S-Video input connector for your VHS source
you can't plug an S-Video cable ( din plug ) directly into your X600 PCIe Stab or your 2006 PCIe Stab as some people have advised you - to test this you can try and connect an S-Video cable yourself to the Stab and check
again though, I understand that and I have the input domino and stab for x600 like I mentioned previously, except my x600 is dead. and I don't think anyone said to connect s-video directly to the stab. I know better than to force things together that don't fit.
I'll update this thread in a few days when I actually have the 2006 and aiw usb.
So over the last week I've gotten the AIW USB, and there's a local x600 I can now grab this coming week. Plans are changing around a lot lately.
Anyway, I tested the aiw usb, the light came on, but dimly, and not detected in windows. I grabbed a universal laptop charger just to see, and the light came on full strength and windows made the usb sound.
Since its a universal charger, it is supposed to adjust output to match what the device is drawing, but I saw the number 15.2 on its small lcd on the the charge brick, and instantly unplugged it for fear of frying the unit.
I just wanted to be sure its safe to plug back in before I continue. My charger is PWR-LAP-UD120. Can someone please confirm? If not, can someone link to a compatible power supply?
EDIT: I Tried again with the OEM power supply, led too some time to turn on this time, but it comes up in device manager with error 43, I believe the box is working, just a failing power supply most likely
-- merged --
Well I got a little impatient and tried out my universal power supply, and its working thankfully, so I'll make some samples and share my results.
Unfortunately my xp system was behaving strangely, so I'm in the middle of reinstalling windows clean.
And I've been using OBS for a long time so its easier for me.
But yea I heard that is VirtualDub is the best for it, I just downloaded it.
What can I do about the Capture Card? Should I get a different RCA TO USB Card? like the Elgato one?
Someone said I need to get a TBC, Do I really need to?
huh, I thought I did. My bad.
I have the ATI TV Wonder usb 2.0, attached image.
I discovered my gaming capture box has a power cable with 6v 1.66a, working with the aiw usb, so using that instead now. laptop charger worried me
-- merged --
Well I've managed a successful test capture in virtualdub 1.9.11 via s-video. 0 dropped/inserted frames over 60 seconds, Image is stable, colours look good, audio working, etc.
Its late and I have work tomorrow, so I'll make proper samples afterward. I still need to redo the cabling behind the computer and test a longer run to check for dropped frames, but cpu usage is under 10% so I don't think it will be an issue, hopefully.
Alright, before starting your project, let's review ...
- AIW USB ... on Windows XP?
- TBC? Or TBC(ish) combo?
- VCR?
AIW USB on XP - check
TBC (ish) - check
VCR - check
software - working on it, almost ready
it seems lately everyone wants a piece of my time so I have yet to install huffyuv and get everything into a less temporary setup, I don't want to do this whole thing on the floor
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Nothing sucks more than thinking "I'm ready!" and then realizing you;re not. Been there, done that.
I can definitely agree, but have you ever been in the middle of a job and realize don't have something you need? IMO that's pretty bad too!
You're new workflow is farther than I am. I'm building a new AIW system, and XP won't boot.
oh no, that's no fun. Definitely been there too many times myself!
That is actually my area of expertise, troubleshooting pc and windows issues. I had one in last week that wouldn't post... because its a 2010 Dell, and it can't use a discreet gpu while secure boot is disabled in the bios, that one stumped me for a bit!
But anyway I hope you're able to solve it without too much time/stress. Wish you luck!
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I know all about sidetracks.
Also trying to release an EP this month with my brother, full time work, 3 family birthdays this month, tech support for 99% of my friends & family, etc
definitely hard to keep up sometimes.
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Recent storms knocked out more gear
now that's sad. Sorry to hear
-- merged --
so I've had some time now to clean up my workspace, finish off the XP build, and I also found a complete x600 pro locally for $60 so I grabbed it. Now have 2 working capture devices! Of course, now I have an extra set of cables, so I'll probably list those soon.
I have created some samples from each. Some things look good, some not so much.
On the vcr side, I guess some of my cassettes are really worn because 1 of them got, not quite chewed up but nibbled at I guess Super tiny amount of damage. Took a minute to get it out, but another tape plays perfectly.
When I send direct from jvc to capture without tbc, the video is very jittery, many dropped frames. tbc on, some dropped frames, but motion is smooth ish. Expected result. Unexpected (to me), I get flagging at the top on this tape during certain scenes for short periods, coming and going, but goes away completely with tbc turned off.
In passthrough, it plays back perfectly with tbc on or off, but flagging still happens at times with tbc on only. Occurs at the exact same sections each time I play the tape.
There's also some ghosting, but I believe its embedded in the source footage.
On the capture side, from the results I'm getting right now, the aiw usb completely blows away the x600. So much so that I think I must have something set wrong or the card isn't 100% working correctly.(or possibly the domino, I haven't swapped for my new spare yet!) It looks like the x600 is dithering the colour, and what's weird is it doesn't look like that in the preview in vdub, but it does look like that during capture and test capture.
Captured 720x480i, huffyuv, 0 dropped/inserted frames on each, saved to avi on one of my hdd in a hot swap bay, over to my windows 10 system that has a sata hdd toaster, 10 seconds later I compare my samples. I'm at least very happy with the convenience of that part.
here are a pair of shots from each device.
-- merged --
So now over the last week I've experimented with different driver versions and made more samples. I've fixed the colour issue on the x600, and in A/B comparisons now its pretty much the exact same image on both capture devices. I'm happy with the fidelity and overall quality of the captures.
On most of my tapes, now that I've spent some time watching their playback on the JVC, I'm getting a flagging type error intermittently. This mostly occurs near the beginning of the tapes, but only when line tbc is turned on. This happens whether going through passthrough or not, and occurs at the same sections on each tape, and thankfully isn't completely ruining the whole capture.
The passthrough is however preventing all frame drops so far.
besides samples, I've already captured one full tape. My setup seems to do very well with certain tapes, and though this one was only 30 mins of content, had no major errors, despite being what looked like a 3rd or 4th gen recording of broadcast tv.
I've attached a short unaltered sample showing the error. At this section, the error flickers on and off, though some other worse sections have the flagging for an entire scene. The errors mostly seem to stop around 10 mins or so into the tapes.
Is my passthrough just a bit too weak for this error? Would a true full frame tbc fix this? I'm tempted to just toggle the tbc during capture, thoughts on that idea?
-- merged --
Okay so follow-up question (and sub-questions). First, why I'm asking, besides just desire to understand:
I was getting some audio clipping on one tape that I couldn't fix from the driver for some reason. It was both a musical performance, then a kids bday party (so equally loud! aha)
so I put an analog mixer in the chain (mixer? well, its an old ADCOM preamp https://www.hifiengine.com/images/mo...eamplifier.jpg)
Beforehand, I was going direct out from JVC, while video was going JVC -> passthrough > ATI AIW USB
Now, video of course is taking the same path, audio is going JVC -> preamp -> sound card
I noticed some audio sync issues in my captures (from before and after preamp in chain, audio about .5 seconds behind video), and so I went back to the virtualdub guide and reread the timing options portion of the post, and noticed my settings were completely different, so I set them to the recommended settings and trying again right now.
So my question is will using the preamp add any latency? Does the amount of latency vary, or would it likely be a fixed amount? Where is the audio timestamp output, is it embedded in the audio signal? (Though I would believe it would be in the overscan portion of the video signal, no?) If it were in the audio signal, the preamp should pass that along (and you would see it in a spectral editor, which I don't) finally, since video is going through passthrough, should audio as well? before or after preamp? not necessary?
thanks for any insight!
PS. decided to just recapture any tape that has flagging with tbc/dnr off since there's barely a discernable difference during most scenes, and tbc off seems to have no video issues present. Being that I will have both captures, I can always splice whole scenes together later (obviously not mid scene though, only during blank spaces!)
Is my passthrough just a bit too weak for this error? Would a true full frame tbc fix this? I'm tempted to just toggle the tbc during capture, thoughts on that idea?
The TBC in the VCR will re-create the horizontal sync pulses that are used to determine where a line starts, so the flagging will be baked into the video signal once it goes out of it, nothing can fix it after that.
The TBC in the VCR will re-create the horizontal sync pulses that are used to determine where a line starts, so the flagging will be baked into the video signal once it goes out of it, nothing can fix it after that.
Yea I know, so I decided on tapes where tbc on has flagging issues, I'll just recapture with tbc off, precisely because I know that isn't something I can fix after the fact.
Now Working on audio sync, and if I can fix that issue I believe I will be happy enough to really start this project. Been trying different sync settings, but so far no luck there. I still have the x600 aiw in the system so I'll try using that next, I suppose.
-- merged --
I just remembered I never set my cpu to a locked frequency, so it must be clocking down. is that a no-no? I'm going to change that in the bios after work too just in case
-- merged --
well nothing worked. I got the audio closer to in sync by sending the audio to the AIW USB instead of the sound card, but its still not fully synced, so I guess I'm just going to have to manually resync all my tapes.
On the bright side, I'm great in a DAW (I use Reaper and Adobe Audition), but with the amount of content I have it will still take a good while to get through it all.
A new issue has cropped up as well. When I finish recording a file, it somehow is becoming immediately corrupted and I can't open the avi. Rebooting causes chkdsk to scan and find errors on the drive, but it fixes them every time and the file is then perfectly fine. This wasn't happening last week, but is now happening on 2 different drives I've tried. Best I can tell, Vdub isn't closing off the file when I hit esc and has it still locked for write access.
The saga continues...
-- merged --
ok I guess I'm down to my final issue.
I was comparing my captured tape to my sample (yellow flower image from page 1) and my whole tape capture looks smeared horizontally when compared to the sample, and not subtly.
I had captured 5 tapes yesterday, and this was the last one I did. I played all tapes back to back, no resting in between.
My settings were all the same as in the sample, tbc/dnr off, r3 off, edit mode off, levels set the same...
I can only guess at 2 possibilities causing this:
1. I played that section too many times and degraded the part I was comparing
2. heat building altered either the way the vcr reads the tape or altered the way the capture card captures
It did get pretty warm in that room. Should I be letting my devices cool off between captures?
I also finally compared this capture to my initial transfer on the gaming setup. The gaming capture had just as much detail and no horizontal wiggles in the image, but clearly much more chroma noise, mild over sharpening, and contrast. There are color controls but they only work after encoding, and there's no way to use a histogram with that setup (that I know of). Though its an easier way to capture, and way outperforms easycrap type devices, I definitely prefer the ATI capture visually. Just wanted to share how they compare.
Also, its been about 2 weeks since anyone has replied, a little additional guidance would genuinely be much appreciated.
Do you only see smearing on the flower tape, and is it only in spots or throughout the entire capture? Have you watched the entirety of the other 4 captures to make sure there is no smearing on them?
You should post a short clip showing the issue. Do you still have the capture of the flower clip that you made before (when you attached the sample frames)? Would be interesting to see a snippet of both to compare them.
I looked back through the thread and don't see (though I could have missed) where you stated *what* DVD Recorder you're using as a passthrough. Is it a Panasonic ES10/ES15 or something else?
If you want the most "untouched" signal from the JVC you should turn Edit mode *ON*. That turns off all the image processing. Just turning off the line TBC/DNR isn't enough.
I'm sure you will get some good advice from folks here, but as they say "a picture (movie in this case) is worth a thousand words".
You should post a short clip showing the issue. Do you still have the capture of the flower clip that you made before (when you attached the sample frames)? Would be interesting to see a snippet of both to compare them.
I do still have the clips. I'll trim a 10 second clip of each after work. The smearing lasted at least the length of the sample which was around 3 mins. Its just a little hard for me to tell because vhs quality is so poor to begin with, even when pristine, and many of my tapes are not svhs, and were recorded poorly to begin with. That said, in an A/B comparison for the footage I have so far, it becomes obvious.
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I looked back through the thread and don't see (though I could have missed) where you stated *what* DVD Recorder you're using as a passthrough. Is it a Panasonic ES10/ES15 or something else?
Right. So its a magnavox combo, exact model name escapes me atm but its not one known to be good like the es10/15. It does help, though as I've never compared it to anything but my gaming capture setup, I don't know exactly how much its helping. It drops my frame counter from like 4-5 inserted frames per second to somewhere between 0-10 frames for the whole tape, depending on which tape. Changing settings on that unit doesn't affect anything at all, must only touch the dvd part.
It is also the unit I was using initially with my gaming capture setup, as it outputs the svideo in through all its outputs. I believe the component out was kept analog the whole time as it looked way better than hdmi out, but the dedicated capture setup looks better without all the chroma/compression noise.
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If you want the most "untouched" signal from the JVC you should turn Edit mode *ON*. That turns off all the image processing. Just turning off the line TBC/DNR isn't enough.
I tried that, it only made a small difference. turning on r3 affected the quality more, but I've left it off for the capture.
Are you using the ATI AIW USB or the AIW X600 for these captures?
The ATI AIW USB runs notoriously hot but is still recommended because it works so well otherwise compared to other USB options. I do not know what problems surface when it gets hot, but maybe that's what's happening to your captures. Putting both the tuner and ATI Theater chip inside a non-ventilated plastic box was not a great design choice.
Interesting thread here discussing this issue and a possible solution.
As lordsmurf also notes there, even the Theater chips on AIW graphics cards get quite warm. I can confirm this and add that they get hot even when not in use for anything, the temperature barely edges higher under load when capturing. Interestingly, the chips only get hot when the WDM driver is installed, as I found with a dual boot PCIe AIW capture PC I built. The Theater 200 chip stays cold in Win 7 (no WDM driver) and gets warm immediately in WinXP where the WDM driver is installed.
On another subject: What sound "card" are you using when you use the X600 for capture (or use it with the AIW USB)? It's my understanding that using onboard sound can be a cause of dropped frames and audio synch problems. The most recommended sound card is the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (PCI interface). The ASUS Xonars are probably your best bet for a PCIe sound card. Creative Sound Blasters are less recommended. My "old stock" Sound Blasters I've tried are just scratchy and noisy overall compared to the Santa Cruz and Xonar DX.
Are you using the ATI AIW USB or the AIW X600 for these captures?
I went with the AIW USB. The quality( my samples at least) looked to lean ever so slightly in favor of the aiw usb
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can confirm this and add that they get hot even when not in use for anything, the temperature barely edges higher under load when capturing.
that makes sense to me, the chip probably is unpowered until some controller chip begins communicating to the theatre chip.
I was going to use my xonar dx but I never ended up putting it in the system and am using the aiw usb for audio capture as I heard the usb does the audio capture on its own and streams it through usb, rather than letting the onboard sound capture it. Unless I'm wrong. The sound through the aiw usb though is no more scratchy/noisy than it is directly off the tape from what I can see/hear. The only thing that stood out was a constant 15khz tone that is most likely caused by the vcr internal electronics or mechanics.
I can definitely try the xonar dx, since the card is 3 feet away, but I thought it shouldn't make a difference? let me know there if you know. I'll still try regardless. Would you route the audio through the passthrough, or direct from jvc?
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On another subject: What sound "card" are you using when you use the X600 for capture (or use it with the AIW USB)?
unless the pcie version of x600 aiw can process audio on its own, I was using onboard. RCA to domino to x600, thats it. Picture looked nearly identical but audio sounded absolutely awful, distorted (but not visibly clipped in waveform) even as low as -12dbfs (which probably means x600 uses onboard while aiw usb doesn't, so I'd think)
I don't have any of that, I have this: https://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/54/2005/05/1413-cables2-1.jpg
Super tiny amount of damage. Took a minute to get it out, but another tape plays perfectly. 
