Setup and cabling advice for Panasonic S-VHS VCR?

[theglenlivet12]

My AG-1970 is finally here (thanks , sanlyn) and I believe I have everything I will need to get started except a few things. Here is what I will be working with:

Panasonic AG-1970 S-VHS deck
HP Pavilion m8000 restored to factory settings
Windows Vista
720p Insignia LCD as monitor

Now, I ordered the VCR from tGrant and it came with cables, but I'm not sure if I should use them or get some different ones. I am also not sure if I should be using S-Video or RCA into the computer. I tested both of them on the TV for playback and they yielded similar results.

Compared to the HDMI setup that I was using before, I noticed that the AG-1970 does a very nice job at cleaning up video that played awfully on the Toshiba deck I got from the big box store, but poses a new problem in which the colors look really blown out. The video through HDMI from the other deck had very good colors, but playback was dreadful. Not sure what to do about this yet or if there is even anything to do since I haven't brought it through the PC yet, but I will tinker with it tonight and start uploading samples if there is still a problem.

So, I am looking for advice on setting up the workflow. S-Video or no? Cables that came with the VCR or different ones?

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by theglenlivet12

Now, I ordered the VCR from tGrant and it came with cables, but I'm not sure if I should use them or get some different ones. I am also not sure if I should be using S-Video or RCA into the computer. I tested both of them on the TV for playback and they yielded similar results.

Similar, but not alike. Use s-video. Use the supplied cable. Anything you buy in most stores will be generic s-video anyway, unless you want to spend $35 and up for precision solid-core s-video.

If your video is too bright or saturated, adjust levels and saturation with VirtualDub capture using the "levels" filter set. Don't use other filters or you'll get a colorspace conversion you wouldn't want, and don't use denoisers or you'll get dropped frames and blurring. There are better denoisers available in post-processing. Make sure you aren't capturing to RGB. Use lossless YUY2 with huffyuv or Lagarith compression.

[theglenlivet12]

Thanks again, sanlyn. The cables seem fine that came with the unit.

So far I am much more impressed with the capture versus what I was using before. However, the audio appears fine while I am capturing, but when I play it back from the avi file, it is off a bit. Any ideas on why this is? It appears that it drops about 20 frames right when I hit capture and the audio is off after that.

Also, I nipped things in the bud and just took the capture card out of the old computer and put it into my much more glorious desktop. Took a bit of fiddling but it is working now.

Also, the capture screen was nice and viewable, but I changed a setting ( think it was preview instead of overlay) and it is now in a small unresizable box. How can I nuke the settings and go back to defaults?

[msgohan]

Maybe "Stretch to Window" is the option you want.

I'm not sure if there's a way to restore every single setting to default, besides deleting the entire registry key manually.

Disable audio capture and see if you still get dropped frames at the start of capture. That will at least narrow down the problem.

[theglenlivet12]

Tried Stretch to Window and it stays the same. It's like it's in a box in the left top quarter of the inner preview screen in VDub.

Here's a photo of what I mean:


Tried disabling audio capture and where it normally tells me that I have lost frames (it's always between 20-22 at the very start of any capture, even professionally produced movies), it now tells me I've dropped only one frame so it must be something with the audio capture at the start of it.

[sanlyn]

Other than the audio problem (I'm not using the same card, so I don't recall how audio hooks up to yours. My AIW Radeons require audio to connect from the card's back plate to Line In on my sound cards), the image in your display shouldn't be that small. Stretch to Window will use the entire panel for Preview, but should center the image full-height using Overlay.

Go to "Video" -> "Set custom format" and set up 720x480 or 640x480 (or PAL 720x576, 640x576 if this is PAL video, I don't remember what you're using, but your frame rate says 29fps). Set the colorspace on the right to YUY2. Then go to "Video" -> "compression" and set your compressor to huffyuv, Lagarith, or whatever lossless compression you're using. In the statistics panel in your image, compression is reading "1.0:1", which means you're capturing uncompressed video, not lossless compression. That can be a big slow down and makes for mighty big files. You've captured for only 12 seconds and already have 236MB, so you're capturing uncompressed and probably capturing RGB. You're also capturing somewhat off-speed: the frame rate reads 29.86569. Are you using a frame tbc? Go to "Capture" -> "Settings" and make sure the frame rate is entered as "29.97".

As VirtualDub was designed to work with a great many capture cards, and as capture cards don't all handle audio in the same way, you often have to fiddle with audio settings. Capture to uncompressed PCM in your audio settings. In my own Radeon setup I have to turn on "Enable Audio Capture" and "enable Audio Preview" at the same time, which gives me an echo (and the echo gets captured). I then leave Audio capture on and audio preview off to hear the audio. That's only a couple of mouse clips, but I once used another card that didn't require that fiddling.

If you're using VirtualDub denoising filters or anything like that, it's another slow-down. Don't use anything under "noise reduction" or "filter chain". Your image also looks as if you're cropping the video. Don't do it. Set all crop parameters to zero. Crop later. Besides, if you capture to a nonstandard frame size you'll have display ratio problems later.

Under your "Device" menu, make sue you're capturing from the correctly named device or capture drivers. If you can, show us a pic of that Device settings panel.

Tip: you can make a screen capture of VirtualDub by pressing the "PrtScn" key on your keyboard, just to the right of the F12 key. That will cap your screen to the clipboard. Open mspaint (aka "Windows Paint") or another photo app and click "paste". You can crop that full screen image to show just the Device panel, and save it as png.

[theglenlivet12]

First off, thanks again for getting back to me.

I am using the Hauppage 1600 with RW jacks for audio that are going directly into the card. It sounds like what you're saying is that the capture card is not only doing the work of video capture, but audio as well. Perhaps it is being stressed too hard because even good quality VHS is still a bit jerky.

I took a look into my format settings and tried changing to YUY2, but the only format supported by the card seems to be UYVY as any time I change the format it tells me it is not supported. I am using huffy, but did not have it selected for the screenshot. I think I need to re-enable it each time I start a capture. I am not using a frame tbc, but I did order an 8710 today to see if it would help with some really bad VHS tapes that I have.

I have PCM audio and I don't hear anything if I don't have both preview and capture audio both selected, so that's what I'm going with I guess.

And as far as the weird box thing going on, it seems to be locked into the upper left corner of the screen. If I have VDub in a window and drag it around the desktop, its like the preview window stays locked the that corner of my entire desktop so if I move the window to the bottom right of the screen I can't see the preview window at all.

[sanlyn]

If necessary, set huffyuv first, then set YUY2. Someone familiar with that card will have to advise here. However, UYVY and YUY2 are both similar, except UYVY stores data byte order as UYVY and YUY2 stores it as YUYV (U and V are chroma channels). In other words, the two systems store chroma channels in reverse order. The UT lossless video codec can cap lossles UYVY and YUY2. But I've never used it for capture.

MAke sure you can set the frame size as 720x480 or 640x480. If you're using the wrong capture drivers, those sizes might not be allowed..

-- merged --

Wait a minute. That hauppauge card is a TV tuner set up for MPEG capture with WinTV drivers. I don't hink that card can capture lossless video. Could be wrong. The behavior of the image you described when you move the VDub window around is what set me off here. That shouldn't happen. The "device" menu ought to show the name of capture drivers, not the name of the card itself. In my ATI 9600XT setup, the capture drivers being don't read as "ATI All In Wonder Radeon 9600XT" and not even ATI Rage Theater 200, but as Windows WDM Capture (Direct Show).

Somnething wrong here.

[theglenlivet12]

Ugh. Yes that seems to be the case. Well, I'm in deep so far and might as well go all the way. Any suggestions for a PCI or PCI-e capture card?

[dpalomaki]

For PCIe consider the Black Magic Intensity Pro. (However, the newer 4K variant still has issues with component capture and calls for a 4x slot).

Apparent audio latency (especially if it is a fixed amount) can be a result of using different capture and/or playback/monitor devices for audio and video.

[sanlyn]

That's a lot to pay for a product line with so many warnings here against using it for VHS capture. There's the ATI 600 USB, the old Diamond Media VC500 (or was it another VC model number? Didn't they make a 110 that people still use?), the Diamond HD 600 TV Wonder USB (it ain't HD, but nobody captures VHS to HD). 500 and 600 are the magic numbers, I believe. 650 and up had serious problems.

Three that were recommended here for lossless AVI were

• Hauppauge 610 USB2 capture stick ~$50
• ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB2 capture stick ~$50-100
• ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI capture card aka Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI capture card ~$50-100

[dpalomaki]

The primary benefits of the Intensity pro include PCIe, current OS Support, HDMI I/O, and HD support. It integrates with several current NLEs as well. If one needs HD component (or HDMI) capture (e.g., from a STB), or HDMI fed from a supported NLE to a monitor it works. Those may or may not be of value to individual users.

[theglenlivet12]

So just to get this straight, I am having problems because my capture card doesn't support avi, is that the gist of it? I guess I don't understand why it would have MPEG 2 encoding capability that wouldn't do avi. If you could explain that to me better, I'd know what I'm looking for.

The reason I ask is because the Hauppage stick you suggested also says it is in MPEG 2 format. So, if they are both the same thing, why am I having trouble and will this really solve my problem?

Come to think of it, one of the captures I did had the audio in sync just fine. This was before I did something to make the box stick in the corner. It has to be something with VDub.

[sanlyn]

The primary benefits of the Black Magic line don't seem to include lossless analog capture, and even their lossy encoding from analog source gets less than rave reviews, if not complaints. If recommendations against it in this forum don't ring any bells, try recent posts in another forum: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...=1#post2380442. Then weigh your odds and take your chances.

[dpalomaki]

The review link is for the Intensity Pro 4K, which is still problematic. The Version 10.4.2 drivers patched the firmware as well as the drivers. In my tests of two separate 4Ks the S-video, composite, and HDMI capture worked. Component sort of worked, but chroma and blacks, and brightness were substantially off (chroma too high), blacks crushed and brightness too low to the point of being unusable.

However, the original Intensity Pro, (not the 4K) with the 10.4.2 drivers, was better - all modes worked to produce the image levels expected.

There is a quirk, when changing input modes (e.g, from NTSC to HD or component to Y/C) a cold boot may be required at times for the change to be fully recognized through out the system.

Also, the "TBC" in the 4K is not a real TBC, it was described to me by a BMD tech as more like a wider tolerance for signals with time base errors - less likely to drop a frame or abort capture. (A full fledged TBC for under $200 would be a bit of a stretch.)

The just released 10.4.3 drivers did not fix the issues, but may have helped some. BMD has acknowledged the component capture issues. But when a fix comes out remains to be seen.

My impression is that the BMD Media Express native captures modes are uncompressed AVI and MJPEG. One can select different formats if used via a NLE.

When I have a chance I will run a few more tests, maybe this weekend.

[Goldwingfahrer]

Quote:

My impression is that the BMD Media Express native captures modes are uncompressed AVI and MJPEG. One can select different formats if used via a NLE.

Yes, for example in Edius or as here with the BM Studio 2 card or with the BM Intensity Shuttle USB3 box.
Am currently working on an editing suite with the shuttle USB3 on, test, but my YUV [not S-Video] and with VirtualDub.

In the beginning there was 2 dropped frames.

[lordsmurf]

TGrant is an excellent source for quality video hardware, and the cables he provides should be fine. They don't appear to be too tight, and seem to be well-shielded thicker s-video cables. Use those.

You always want to use s-video when possible. Composite and coax have too much noise.

Blown-out colors could be for several reasons:
- cheap/uncalibrated monitor
- cheap capture card
- the video tape
- or even bad caps in a VCR

(But given that this came from Tom at TGrant, I doubt the VCR has any issues. He tests everything, and we approve of his stringent methods.)

My money is on the monitor, as Insignia is blah. IPS is what you really need for accuracy, and ViewSonic is best.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...4MAWP3OXPF3L7K

Never color "correct" on a wrong monitor.

AVI files can playback differently in players. Windows Media Player is junk, VLC hates lossless AVI. Makes sure to use Media Player Classic for Huffyuv.

Always disable audio preview in VirtualDub. You cannot capture audio will previewing it. It will drop frames. Understand that this is not a flaw, but is by design. This software does not have passthrough. Some higher-end audio cards (now mostly discontinued) have audio passthrough natively, so you can hear it even with VirtualDub audio disabled (and this is what I often do).

Always filter post-capture, not during. That's the main reason to capture lossless.

I do not suggest anything made by Blackmagic for SD video. None of it is working well. The biggest problem is that it will drop frames, yet not report it. You can see problems on analysis of the video, frame by frame.

Hardware MPEG encoder cards only do hardware MPEG encoding. Most capture cards do only AVI capturing. Some ATI and Matrox cards are unique, because they can do both MPEG and AVI in hardware, using hybrid methods. Hence the decade+ long suggestion by myself and others (especially on this site).

[theglenlivet12]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

TGrant is an excellent source for quality video hardware, and the cables he provides should be fine. They don't appear to be too tight, and seem to be well-shielded thicker s-video cables. Use those.

You always want to use s-video when possible. Composite and coax have too much noise.

Yep, they seem okay for my purposes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Blown-out colors could be for several reasons:
- cheap/uncalibrated monitor
- cheap capture card
- the video tape
- or even bad caps in a VCR

(But given that this came from Tom at TGrant, I doubt the VCR has any issues. He tests everything, and we approve of his stringent methods.)

My money is on the monitor, as Insignia is blah. IPS is what you really need for accuracy, and ViewSonic is best.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...4MAWP3OXPF3L7K

Never color "correct" on a wrong monitor.

Was definitely the monitor. I have since pulled that capture card out of its old computer and put it in mine and have been using a Sony Bravia as a monitor. Everything looks okay now and it was probably the Insignia.

Note that this is for capture only as I would not attempt to color correct anything that isn't calibrated for it nor would I really need to go that far into this project at this time. I'm more interested in just getting things captured and may or may not get around to color correction. If I do, I have a wonderful Acer XB270HU upstairs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

AVI files can playback differently in players. Windows Media Player is junk, VLC hates lossless AVI. Makes sure to use Media Player Classic for Huffyuv.

Always disable audio preview in VirtualDub. You cannot capture audio will previewing it. It will drop frames. Understand that this is not a flaw, but is by design. This software does not have passthrough. Some higher-end audio cards (now mostly discontinued) have audio passthrough natively, so you can hear it even with VirtualDub audio disabled (and this is what I often do).

Perhaps this is why I am getting between 20-24 dropped frames at the beginning of every recording. I tested this at great length last night trying to enable and disable things and being careful to put the setting back if it didn't work. I got mixed results with the audio sometimes losing sync from the beginning and being synced at the beginning and losing it shortly after. The result was still the same.

Would a recommendation be to simply use the headphone jack on the VCR to pass the audio into my computer separately?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Always filter post-capture, not during. That's the main reason to capture lossless.

I do not suggest anything made by Blackmagic for SD video. None of it is working well. The biggest problem is that it will drop frames, yet not report it. You can see problems on analysis of the video, frame by frame.

Hardware MPEG encoder cards only do hardware MPEG encoding. Most capture cards do only AVI capturing. Some ATI and Matrox cards are unique, because they can do both MPEG and AVI in hardware, using hybrid methods. Hence the decade+ long suggestion by myself and others (especially on this site).

I am not interested in spending that much money on that capture card. I appreciate the suggestion and all are welcome, but I am more committed to this project than planned with regards to funding and have ordered a tbc for some problem tapes and am just going to have to make what I have work. I don't think that the Hauppauge 1600 is a bad card, just needs a little more finessing.

[theglenlivet12]

Tested sound sync with preview off and it is more consistent, but it is still slightly off from the video. Any more suggestions? Maybe something in the settings?

[sanlyn]

Don't use Preview. Use Overlay.