VC500 still good quality?

[Nunkin]

I am looking to buy a Diamond VC500 One touch capture card. Before I do so though, does anyone know if the latest batches of the USB card have any quality differences to before?

I've read a lot of the posts comparing this to the ATI 600 USB and the ATI AIW USB, but I need windows 7+ to work (so that precludes the ATI AIW), and I like keeping my blacks even if that means I need to do some extra processing after the capture (I understand ATI 600 USB clips at y=16).

[lordsmurf]

VC500 cards have proven variable.

Not crushing blacks is not a given. (I dislike that term. It's not entirely accurate. Very negative sounding, but isn't necessarily. It's clipping below legal levels, removing blacker-than-black.)

Some have AGC issues.

There is the potential that ATI AIW USB could be hacked for x64 Win7/8/10, but I can't do it. jwilis looked at it, but I don't think he had time (maybe knowledge) to go further. If you're a Windows OS device coder, it could happen. For us mere mortal users, it's impossible. But never may not be never, to the right dev/coder. I just want to mention that in public, because you never know who's reading!

[jwillis84]

My skills aren't enough to recreate the ATI AIW USB driver in 64 bit yet.

I've been accumulating experience with it and many other USB capture devices, so someday maybe.. but not today.

All of the ATI Theater 200 chip cards/usb capture devices had such great drivers under 32 bit XP and 32 bit Vista its just not worth it to me at this time to rush a Windows 7 x64 driver.

Part of the issue is ATI was acquired in 2006, Windows 7 was released three years later in 2009.. so there really were never any native drivers for Windows 7.. only Vista at the end.. so its an odd "forced fit".

I completely understand why Windows 7 might be preferred, its only recently lost update support, it supported many new technologies and bus types (like USB 3.0) that XP did not or did not support well (GPT hard drive sizes for example).

But even when you get an ATI Theater 200 capture device to work on Windows 7 its a struggle to keep it from crashing, the device drivers are all unsigned and just frustrate you. And DirectX on Windows 7 does not support all the controls and features available for them back on Windows XP.

If you have to go with Windows 7, you might ought to look at a different brand of Video capture device.

Hauppauge and AverMedia specialized in importing from China and Taiwan video capture devices built specifically for Windows 7. They are still around and compete with each other for market share.

Hauppauge (china) still sells the USB Live 2 "brand new".. like the VC500 it has a lot of variability.. but it is current and you can buy it right away with S-Video inputs right on the dongle. The Collosus 2 capture card can also be bought brand new. It has an optional SD video cable you can buy separately for S-Video and RCA style audio input. -- and "rumor" -- I am still looking into this but "Says" it uses the [Magnum] chipset.. which after LSI sold off their Video capture chip division before they ceased being a company.. the employees that left formed a company called "Magnum" and their first chipsets were the successors of the DominoFX used in some famous DVD recorders.. if that pans out.. it would be one of the most sought after capture cards in modern days, with Windows 7 x64 and Windows 10 x64 support.

AverMedia (taiwan) still sells similar products, but they did not use the same chipsets as Hauppauge.. preferring Japanese made chipsets like those from NEC (Toshiba fame). They still make interesting products, but are always much more expensive than Hauppauge.

The VC500 is made by Empia, as a show piece for their automobile backup camera chipset, the Empia 2861.. its a low end video capture chipset which ironically still exists because the light sensitive array is scanned by its electronics and produces an analog video output signal.. not digital.. so they have the 2861 to turn it back into a digital format that can be stored in video files on a thumb drive or carried digitally over wifi. It changes every year or so.. and the device drivers are updated to suit the changes in hardware.. not the changes in the operating system they are written for.. its kind of backwards.. and very frustrating. I've gotten a lot of blue screens on Windows 7 "trying" to match a working device driver to a specific VC500 hardware revision number. Empia (was) an intellectual property company.. but some sort of shuffle is ending production of their stuff soon I think. It will rise like a Phoenix I guess in some other form.. but overall I invest far too much time in VC500 for too little gain.. I keep trying to understand them.. and failing. -- I am of the mindset that they just aren't in the video capture business and the VC500 is just to burn off parts as a throw away item to show off their chips to dash cam makers.

They make (or made) a variant of the VC500 for the Mac OS operating system until Catalina came along and ended all Quicktime 32 bit technology.. now thats gone.. That was why I was really interested in the VC500.. as a video capture device for modern Apple Macs.

Now the choices for Mac have dumbed down to USB UVC webcam like video capture devices.. or video capture devices that pretend to be high resolution webcams.. or.. some external device that captures video to files on a thumb drive, which you then upload to the Mac for video editing. The end is in sight for any kind of real video capture on a Mac period. To them every Third party device driver is a Plague from a Toxic Hell stew and they want nothing to do with Third Party hardware anymore.

Startech also imports Empia 2861 video capture dongles. Startech is a good brand to buy if you want to know whats inside the box, they regularly provide datasheets for their products on their website which names "chipsets" they "know" their customers want to know what's inside.. and for that consistency buying Startech is "better" than from other companies. But the Empia 2861 is a troublesome chipset to support under the best of circumstances under Windows 7 x32 or x64. Its what is called a "combo" device.. meaning it is a USB Compound device on the other side of a bus chip.. in this case the Empia 2861 is both a bus chip and a feature chip.. it provides some of the functions like video capture direct on the chip itself. It can also capture audio, or it can pass-thru audio captured by a separate AC'97 chip. This flexibility makes it difficult to support between different brands because a driver for one brand won't work on a different brands implementation of the Empia 2861.. its also why the VC500 gyrates from one hardware version to the next.. all the possible circuits behind the bus chip. And.. you can't know what s on the other side of the Empia 2861 bus chip without cracking the case. frustrating.

Typically.. with Startech 2861.. it has to have its device driver installed "twice", once for the video capture feature, a second time for the audio capture feature. Windows device driver installer typically only expects one feature per attached USB device.. so it doesn't "hunt" for a second feature on the 2861 and you end up with a device that won't start (code 10).. frustrating. You can make it work.. but you have to know what to do.

There are other USB video capture devices that are not as hard to work with.

[Nunkin]

Thank you for the speedy reply! You've made me doubt my decision again - I've tried to do some research on how relevant the <16 black range is / importance of crushed blacks, but these search terms are particularly unhelpful at the moment in google.

How should I think about the value of having a card that doesn't clip below 16? I know a lot of this is subjective, and maybe it just depends on how many people in my family videos have black hair, and how important that black hair detail is to me . Funny but that's seriously the only area where I might care - will wedding videos with black hair in them lose detail because of this?

-- merged --

Re: jwillis84

Sorry to double post, but I noticed you didn't mention the ATI 600 USB at all - is this because the cards you did mention don't clip blacks?

Looking at the Happauge Colossus 2 - I guess no-one knows how good the captures are from this yet though? And looking at the s-video adapter (I think you are referring to this?https://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/web...din_style.html) if it converts to composite video in, doesn't that defeat the point of using s-video in the first place? Probably showing my ignorance here!

I also found a youtube video purporting to be using the Happauge Colossus 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEOVFzRwYw0), and see that the scene is getting brighter and darker at 0:16 onwards - is that an AGC issue? It could just be the game that person is playing, so not a great test.

[jwillis84]

The clipping issues mostly about the defaults of the capture device and its software drivers.

The video signal arrives in one form or another, either 0-255 or 16 to 255 voltage levels.. or that's how the capture device thinks of it.. its a range of analog voltages across its input pin.

The capture device (usually) has a 10 bit resolution and proceeds to turn the voltage range into a 10 bit binary number and crunch that down to an 8 bit resolution number on its output to its device driver and thence into the capture software for storage. That's the cliff notes.

On the input pin is an amplifier.. its typically called the proc-amp (processing amplifier) and shows up in the device driver as a collection of sliders.. for adjusting how it treats that 10 bit number. It can do lots of things. It can bring Up/Down brightness, bring Up/Down contrast, skew Hue Right/Left, increase or decrease "sharpness". Its applying a set of digital amplifier filters to the 10 bit number. Although the sliders appear like audio mixer board sliders, they are not analog, they work their magic in a number matrix doing lots of maths on the sequential 10 bit numbers coming in.

The loss of 16 bit that causes stretched or crushed blacks usually refers to (what happens) if you do not mess with the proc-amp sliders in the device driver controls.. it refers to their "defaults".

You can always go in an change the "defaults" before you capture and recover those 16 levels by changing the sliders.. but it will be completely forgotten by the device the next time you capture.. so its a practical inconvenience. Enough so people will change their purchasing decision if its not correct "by default" so they don't have to do anything.

Its a subtle difference noticed by people in Europe more than its noticed in North America.. although there are experts and precise capture artists who notice it immediately. Most people who capture and have the problem simply adjust their TV or LCD monitor.. or VLC playback effects. It does loose some information to capture with the wrong setting.. so you can put effort into making sure you have a device that has good "defaults".. ATI Theater 200 have near perfect defaults, ATI USB 600 have very good defaults.. Live USB 2 have.. "eh".. okay defaults.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunkin

Re: jwillis84

Sorry to double post, but I noticed you didn't mention the ATI 600 USB at all - is this because the cards you did mention don't clip blacks?

"Clipping" is not an inherent property of any capture device, you can "null it out".. what's at issue is if you (have to) null it out to get perfect Blacks capture. If you don't have to do anything "by default" its a better more convenient product you are less likely to forget to "tune" before capture.

For example you can "adjust" any capture device to "Clip" on purpose by ramming the sliders in the device property control panel to the right or left.

(you can get an extra external "Proc-Amp" and put it in between the source and the capture device and change the signal there to also "null" it out.. but its an extra piece of equipment people would rather not spend money on, you need extra cables and a power supply and experience in using it.. this works in the analog space.. and professionals prefer to "polish" the source signal before presenting it for digital conversion)

I really wasn't promoting any device over another.. the most perfect device to me would be something for XP.. but if you start by saying .. none that don't work on Windows 7.. you narrow the possibilities severely.. and I was only mentioning one of the better devices still available on the market that can be bought "new".

The "best" device I know for uncompressed video capture for Windows 7 is rarely mentioned and I haven't seen a used one on eBay in years.. so its not worth talking about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunkin

Looking at the Hauppauge Colossus 2 - I guess no-one knows how good the captures are from this yet though? And looking at the s-video adapter (I think you are referring to this?https://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/web...din_style.html) if it converts to composite video in, doesn't that defeat the point of using s-video in the first place? Probably showing my ignorance here!

That's a cable, (Not a converter), the chip on the capture card has multiple inputs, CVBS, S-Video, RGB, HDMI.. a switching chip selects which type is the Input and they provide special cables to bring it in properly to the capture chip.

Hauppauge Collosus 2 is the "Second generation" of a top of the line HDMI capable capture card. The first was based on the capture chip use in the TiVo HD called ViXS. Collosus 2 is based on a faster chip and I think its based on the old LSI intellectual property.. but I haven't run the history down. Probably anyone that would know at Hauppauge retired years ago and the current staff is under 40 years old. That it can still be used for SD capture using an S-Video cable they provide is a very rare little known trivial fact.. I think most people would not care.. or even be aware you could buy such a cable from them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunkin

I also found a youtube video purporting to be using the Happauge Colossus 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEOVFzRwYw0), and see that the scene is getting brighter and darker at 0:16 onwards - is that an AGC issue? It could just be the game that person is playing, so not a great test.

I don't usually watch capture videos on YouTube because the video of a video effect can introduce errors that aren't even in the original video.. the simple process of uploading the video does not leave it alone.. YouTube continues to compress and skew the video degrading the original until there is nothing you can trust. AGC can be performed in analog or digital space.. and can definitely occur as an artifact of compression.

Worrying about AGC however is usually a matter of signal source. And whether you can turn AGC off.

For the most part.. no.. you can't turn AGC off.. so its not a choice you have control over for the majority of capture devices.

So that turns it into a question of whether the AGC for a capture device is sufficiently immune to "triggering" by your source into doing all sort of back flips that drive you crazy.

The ATI USB 650 is infamous for being triggered.. as is the 550.. all you can do is avoid them. No one else has done an exhaustive inventory of the most well behaved AGC capture cards or devices.. so you pretty much have to take a chance.

And.. triggering.. may not even be consistent across your sources.. some tapes may cause it.. other tapes.. none at all.

Copy Protected tapes with Macrovision seem to be "hailing all demons from digital hell" and regularly trigger problems with AGC.. but thats a long story for another time.

[lordsmurf]

Video games make for horrible capture tests. And it does appear to be AGC on that Hauppauge card. It's not suggested.

The ATI AIW is probably the most well-behaved device, in terms of AGC.

It's not mentioned much, but the ES10/15 AGC is a bit more active than I'd like to see, but it's tolerable. Just another reason why ES10/15 is just a minimalist budget TBC(ish), ideally paired with DataVideo DVK. ES10/15 best saved for anti-tearing only. Capture card AGC may nullify ES10/15 AGC. The JVC LSI based recorders are probably the most behaved for AGC, for DVD recorders.

Some of this is nitpicking (ES10/15, ATI, JVC).

[hodgey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84

The VC500 is made by Empia, as a show piece for their automobile backup camera chipset, the Empia 2861..

The VC500 uses a Conexant (now owned by synaptics) chipset, it's not made by empia (unless they somehow changed very recently, but the drivers still refer to the conexant chipset at least.) I think the Hauppage usb dongles also use a similar chip, and same with some other currently sold dongles. It's completely different to the empia-based dongles. The MAC version does however use (or at least used) empia chips, and they are also used in USB dongles from other companies.

There are both cards that use an all-in-one empia chip (many modern ones), and cards that combine it with a separate video chip like the TI TVP5150 (e.g ATI 600) or Philips/NXP SAA7113 and knockoffs (some older ones), which can be a bit confusing. The TVP5150 is known to have excellent video quality, the SAA7113 is not too bad, the SAA7113 knockoff chips are crap, and the all-in-one empia chip is rather mediocre as mentioned.

This is just an educated guess, but I think the black-crushing is related to the fact that the empia USB bridge chip has it's own brightness, contrast etc adjustments (probably to facilitate easy driver dev not having to worry about what video chip it's using.). It also seems to clip at y=16. This means that if the driver adjusts the video gain on the empia chip (and not the actual video decoder chip) it won't be able to recover blacks that are clipped due to the gain on the video chip being too low/high.

As noted the VC500 and other cards using the conexant chip have good image quality, thogh as mentioned there have been some talk here about the automatic gain control sometimes adjusting levels. They are really bad at handling unstable video though, and the Y/C filter is awful, so they should only be used with a stable video source likethe output from a DVD-recorder or TBC.

Another annoyance I've noted with the VC500 is that the audio input level is not adjustable on windows (must be a driver thing as the audio level is adjustable on linux.) It's a bit high by default, so I've noticed that taking direct audio from a VCR may result in clipping, so the audio level needs to be reduced a little. I don't know if it applies to all of the conexant-based dongles, maybe some from other companies include audio adjustment.

Empia-based cards (incl the ATI 600 USB) have the same issue, but with these you can usually reduce the audio level with a registry setting.

[lordsmurf]

Even with TBC, the VC500 often has AGC issues. Many have it, some don't. Variable production cards are frustrating.

It actually gets worse with the ES10/15, which has it's own minor AGC "eagerness" (not really a problem, just a bit too excited sometimes) that get amplified in a bad way.

LinuxTV is a great resource (saw it mentioned in a post above), but it's not a complete archive. There are still many holes in the information, especially for brands like Pinnacle. It's user-submitted data, maybe dev submitted/moderated, but it relies on folks like myself and hodgey who crack open cards (often risk ruining them) to see what guts exist. I know I've hosed a few cards for research, as recently as last year. The underlying push for that site is a Linux PVR app, not analog capturing, so remember than, some comments there need that context. I do the same to TBCs, and it can be scary, sometimes costly mistakes are made.

I'm annoyed with myself. I wrote a guide for adjusting eMPIA audio, but cannot find it or the images now. Grr... It was far more detailed than other guides, as it addressed variables not seen in the others (hence why other guides don't work for everybody).

[traal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

As noted the VC500 and other cards using the conexant chip have good image quality, thogh as mentioned there have been some talk here about the automatic gain control sometimes adjusting levels. They are really bad at handling unstable video though, and the Y/C filter is awful, so they should only be used with a stable video source likethe output from a DVD-recorder or TBC.

After I added a TBC, I no longer notice AGC issues with my VC500.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

Another annoyance I've noted with the VC500 is that the audio input level is not adjustable on windows (must be a driver thing as the audio level is adjustable on linux.) It's a bit high by default, so I've noticed that taking direct audio from a VCR may result in clipping, so the audio level needs to be reduced a little.

This varies on a tape-by-tape basis. I added a volume control to reduce the volume slightly. I find I need only 3 dB of attenuation max so maybe these would be just as good, at half the price for the pair.

[Nunkin]

Thank you all for your thoughts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84

The clipping issues mostly about the defaults of the capture device and its software drivers.

Thanks for your in depth replies! I have learnt a lot. I understood from another post that on the ATI 600 USB device the blacks were clipped at y=16 prior to the processing amplifier?

I now have the VC500, and will report back on my AGC experience (or hopefully, lack thereof). But I need to get it working first... Please have a look at this other thread I've made if you have experience with the device! VC500 Capture Problems

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

After I added a TBC, I no longer notice AGC issues with my VC500.

With regards to having a TBC, I found a post about a software TBC (Software TBC started, progress update) - has anyone replicated that solution successfully? It seems pretty complicated, but the recommended TBCs are all priced at £1,000+ in Europe so it seems like a worthwhile complication to endure if necessary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

Another annoyance I've noted with the VC500 is that the audio input level is not adjustable on windows (must be a driver thing as the audio level is adjustable on linux.) It's a bit high by default, so I've noticed that taking direct audio from a VCR may result in clipping, so the audio level needs to be reduced a little. I don't know if it applies to all of the conexant-based dongles, maybe some from other companies include audio adjustment.

Empia-based cards (incl the ATI 600 USB) have the same issue, but with these you can usually reduce the audio level with a registry setting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

I added a volume control to reduce the volume slightly. I find I need only 3 dB of attenuation max so maybe these would be just as good, at half the price for the pair.

Could I simply connect the Red/White audio to my 3.5mm mic jack directly and take the audio from that for better results?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunkin

Could I simply connect the Red/White audio to my 3.5mm mic jack directly and take the audio from that for better results?

Likely not. There is a delay in audio between card and system on USB solutions. It works for preview, as a workaround for preview-less cards, but that's it. Recording would have to have ms readjusted post-capture, if it even works at all (as VirtualDub will sometimes crash from it).

[hodgey]

I've done some captures on a machine with VC500 + santa cruz turtle beach for audio (on win XP, while trying to figure out my issue with the drivers for the ATI VIVO card in it) and it seemed to work okay.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

I've done some captures on a machine with VC500 + santa cruz turtle beach for audio (on win XP, while trying to figure out my issue with the drivers for the ATI VIVO card in it) and it seemed to work okay.

A combo I've not tried. I have both items, so added to my testing list.

[traal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunkin

With regards to having a TBC, I found a post about a software TBC (Software TBC started, progress update) - has anyone replicated that solution successfully? It seems pretty complicated, but the recommended TBCs are all priced at £1,000+ in Europe so it seems like a worthwhile complication to endure if necessary.

Capturing the RF signal directly from the video heads and then processing it in software shows great promise. There's also the Domesday Duplicator that can now decode VHS, but it really needs 2 channels to capture the video and audio simultaneously so you don't have to capture twice and synchronize later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nunkin

Could I simply connect the Red/White audio to my 3.5mm mic jack directly and take the audio from that for better results?

I've thought about recording into a good digital recorder (Sony PCM-M10, now discontinued). But as lordsmurf said, it's extra work to re-synchronize the audio with the video.