dearest Lord Smurf,
any insight and replies from you are like the tall, dark obelisk from 2001: A Space Odyssey where every bit of insight leads to another breakthrough in my workflow and expands my novice understanding of the analog capture pipeline. your hot swap rack insight has been a game changer. thank you. no more 1:1 wait times for file transfers. you're an immensely valuable teacher.
there are still a few issues with my captures causing great frustration and sleep disruption. my captures from my ATI TV Wonder 600 and Virtual Dub are not 4:3, my exports from selur hybrid exports video with out of sync audio as well as occasional jitteryness which i've seen you address in an older post. i've read your comment in another forum stating i may need to export at 29.97 instead of 59.94. capture pin settings appears to be the only place i can change the resolution and aspect ratio from 720 x 480 to 640 x 480 but avoided doing so as i assumed the other grayed out menu settings for format and source is where the 4:3 option should have been but does not allow me to select.
i'm also noticing the captures from Virtual Dub don't appear to be interlaced so i'm hoping one of the settings in either Virtual Dub or in any of my hardware is doing any preemptive interlacing. i am not nearly as technical as most people in this forum, but i'm assuming setting my Panasonic ES-15 to "Progressive" is a mistake and might be causing issues? I will list all of my hardware and software settings below at the very end of this post in hope you can give me the digital web version of a smack upside the head lol.
because i am preparing a very long capture project involving over 200 tapes i wanted to ask about the capture card i am using. since i have been using the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB "dongle" as I have not been able to find the driver for ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 (the larger grey box version which I also purchased from ebay) anywhere online and within the forum just a dead google drive link from a post in 2018. since i've yet to begin this months long project, do you think the difference between opting in for the AIW internal graphics card is substantial or negligible? if dynamic range and overall image quality is substantial i will definately add that to my inbox (insert photos of available ports). i would have used the gray box version i am just not sure of which page/link has the driver for it and not sure if it is referred to anything other than the ATI TV wonder USB 2.0. i do have the budget for the AIW capture card, just not a frame based TBC or VCR with line TBC built in unfortunately so i'm currently using the "passthrough" method. here are my results so far attemtping to digitize a fitness video a friend produced in the 80's:
video link 1 = export from selur hybrid with out of sync audio, *occasionally* jittery video in moments with camera movement
https://youtu.be/-Zj4OYjDiKM?si=9drRbhZRFHgB4Xop
video link 2 = video capture from ati tv wonder 600 and virtual dub, converted from original avi to high bitrate h.264 mp4 via handbreak
https://youtu.be/FZ2qhci9KdU?si=wWreD0PifOfdcE8C
here are all hardware and software settings. sorry for the length, tried to be as detailed as possible:
jvc hr-s 3500 settings
- video stabilization off
- video calibration off
- s-vhs mode on
- av compu-link set to on
- rear aux input set to video
- new shielded s video cables throughout entire setup from cables2go
dmr es15 settings
- video>black level control: input lighter, output level for composite & s-video darker
- tv screen (not sure if this setting makes a difference, including just in case it does)
- tv type 4:3 (480p) - note changing this to 480 doesn't change the aspect ratio issue but wanted to know if this is where the pre-emptive and unwanted de-interlacing is occurring?
- display>video
- progressive: on
- transfer: video
- line-in nr: off
virtual dub settings
- device: ati tv wonder 600 usb 2.0 (directshow)
- video source: video svideo
- i cannot select format, source, display, preview pin or crossbar 2 as these options are all grayed out - i assume additional options for correct 4:3 output may have been in these first few settings
- capture pin: video standard ntsc, frame rate 29.970, colorspace/compression yuy2, output size 720x480 (this is automatically set by default - should i change this to 640 x 480?), compression quality 1.0
- crossbar: input 2: video svideo in, output 0: video decoder out, link related streams is unchecked
- levels: brightness 137, contrast 32, hue 64, saturation 32, sharpness 2
- cropping: all offsets set to 0
- swap fields: unchecked
- noise reduction: enabled unchecked
- vertical reduction: none
- compression:
huffyuv v2.1.1 - CCESP patch v0.2.2. format restrictions valid depths:24
- set custom format: 720 x 480, data format yuy2 - yuv 4:2:2 interleaved
- bt8x8 tweaked unchecked
- audio: set to 0 capture device, enable audio capture, raw capture format 48000hz, stereo 16-bit, no compression
- capture settings: frame rate 29.97
- capture timing summary: drop frames when captured frame are too close checked, insert null frames checked, null frame burst limit 10, sync audio to video by resampling selected, audio latency determination set to automatic, number of audio blocks to use at start set to 30, all other settings unchecked
selur hybrid settings - my goal is to get a clean higher-res file to bring into an editor so i can make basic edits, as well as crop/trim to remove overscan from the bottom before posting on vimeo/youtube for convenience
- base tab: default container mov, generate checked, processing: video - prores, audio - auto add (all)
- prores tab: encoder kostya, profile: proress 422, kostya customizing deselected, all other settings (vui, interlacing, add time code, etc) deselected, configuration: prores hybrid default
- crop/resize tab:
- base tab: picture crop setting checked (up value zero, left value 8, right value 8, bottom value 14), resize setting checked, picture resize settings - resize method 10 - bicubic spine, auto adjust setting checked, width to mod 2, target resolution 704 x 466, letterbox unchecked, pixel aspect ratio (par) settings - input PAR: 1 x 1, force input par type unchecked, convert output to par unchecked
- misc tab: all settings unchecked except: adjust keep resize for source and only i-frames in thr advanced auto crop options. minimum width/height mult: .7/.5, threshold/mod/count: 24/2/100, sections to scan: 9. classic scan and use ffmpeg unchecked
- ui tab: crop style: avisynth, color crop width/height red, if they are not modulo: 2. all steppings: 1
- filtering tab
- deinterlace/telecine tab: vapoursynth selected, interlace - top field first unchecked (unable to check?), auto deinterlace handling: qtgmc, input scan type: bottom field first 5.0 %, overwrite input scan type to: progressice unchecked, preset: medium, bob checked all other settings unchecked and/or grayed out
- vaporsynth tab: all settings unchecked, filter(s) set to all, input shows: Matrix: 601, Primes: ?, Transfer?, Luma: tv, FPS (C/S): 29.970 fps/29.970 fps, Frame count 81040, Res: 704x466. Output shows: matrx: 601, Luma:tv, FPS 59.94 fps, frame count: 162080, res: 704x466.
- no tabs and contextual settings changed or altered except denoise and sharpen
- denoise tab: all settings unchecked except qtgmc. qtgmc: input type 1, final temporal smoothing 1, sharpness 1.0 unchecked, ez denoise checked: 5.00, Neo checked, noise preset fast, ez keepgrain unchecked, denoiser: auto, match preset: default
- sharpen tab: everything unchecked except cas. cas: sharpness 0.2, planes luma only
- audio tab: a/v delay: 0, audio encoding options checked, bitrate: 320, complexity: low complexity, all other options unchecked,
i am happy for any small morsel or insight you share with me. i've already written a novel, but I did have one final question i'd like to squeeze into this post...
this may seem like the king of dumb questions, but i am asking since it's 2025 if any other software that also de-interlaces, de-noises, frame duplicates as good selur hybrid that happens to be available for mac or is selur hybrid still the standard? i am only asking because my p16 is a company machine that's closely monitored and having family videos. so if i could minimize my pipeline to my Windows XP machine for capture and M1 Pro Max Macbook pro that would be incredible as i hate having to rely on my company machine for hybrid. i assumed using parallels on my Mac not be an option but let me know if you believe otherwise. i am about to jump into a rabbithole of comparison videos between hybrid, davinci resolve and topaz but wanted your own personal take if any acceptable solutions have appeared on the horizon that happens to be cross-platform in 2025. i've read your response on videohelp on nov 2023 replying about topaz compared with hybrid but im just curious if you've had a change in heart since then and/or if there is something i can install on my macbook so i dont capture footage on a company machine. i am strapped financially otherwise id purchase a completely seperate PC.
thank you, thank you, thank you x 1,000,000. you are a compass for us lost and overwhelmed in this exciting but intimidating journey….