ATI AIW USB - what is wrong with my capture setup?

[22west]

Hi,

Looking for help on this. See attached video.

Workflow is :

PC : Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz, 2.5 GB RAM, Windows XP, SP2.
VCR : HR-S7600U with Digital TBC ON
Video Capture Card : ATI AIW USB (good quality, gently used by LS) S-Video Input
Audio Capture Card : Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Capture Software : VirtualDub 1.9.11 Build 32842

The driver I used for the ATI AIW USB is :

ATI-AIW-SetUp-File.part1.rar
ATI-AIW-SetUp-File.part2.rar
ATI-AIW-SetUp-File.part3.rar

I found that driver here :

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post62406

I have played with the default VirtualDub parameters in several ways and cannot get rid of this.

Note: The horizontal green lines are are not on the original source, they are caused by the capture. There is only minor flag-waving on top of the source video. This same effect happens with all my sources (different tapes).

Thanks,
22west

[22west]

OK - so I removed the ATI drivers and re-installed them again. This time the video is much much better - it is not jumping any more - it is very smooth. The only issue I have now is I am still seeing the horizontal lines, some are green and some are not. See attached pics. Note also that the original tape does no have these lines at all - I attach an image of the same frame right off my CRT. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
22west

[bookemdano]

CRTs are very forgiving of the many flaws of VHS. Capture cards are the opposite.

What happens to the lines if you turn off the TBC on your VCR?

Do you have a frame TBC in the capture chain? If not, why not?

You may want to pick up a Panasonic ES15 or ES10 to use as an alternative if the JVC VCR's TBC is causing the green lines on your capture.

[22west]

Hi,

Actually the lines are flickering in the capture screen even before I run the tape - strange. It still continues with the TBC off. See attached video right off the VirtualDub capture window on my PC.

I have a TBC-1000 and an ES16 (Canadian Version of the Deck) and I can try them but it seems like its just some kind of card noise in general . . .

I switched to another USB port for the card but no change.

[bookemdano]

Do you get the lines even with the VCR off? With it disconnected? Via composite and S-Video? If so, then yep the problem must be the capture card.

I may be wrong here, but I'm not aware of an "All in Wonder" USB. I thought that the AIW were named that because they incorporated a GPU as well as the tuner, meaning they were all PCI/AGP/PCIe internal cards. The external USB boxes were all just tuners so fell under the "TV Wonder" umbrella. There are several different models over the years--which one exactly do you have?

Anyway, what about electrical interference? Maybe a bad power supply on the capture card, or grounding issues at your location. Are the computer and capture card plugged into the same outlet? Maybe try swapping out outlets and power strips/UPSes.

Might be worth pulling the Santa Cruz and any other extra stuff from the machine just to remove variables and see if it makes any difference.

Also, have you tried MMC to see if the lines appear there too? That would eliminate any issues with virtualdub.

[22west]

Hi bookemdano,

See answers below:

• Do you get the lines even with the VCR off? Yes.
• With it disconnected? Yes
• Via composite and S-Video? Yes, I tried both. I didn't bother to confirm the coax input
• If so, then yep the problem must be the capture card. The "green lines" problem does not appear to be the card. See below.
• Have you tried MMC to see if the lines appear there too? That would eliminate any issues with virtualdub. Good suggestion, I did this and the MMC had the same issue.
• I may be wrong here, but I'm not aware of an "All in Wonder" USB. This is the TV Wonder 2.0 model but it is coined AIW because it contains the Theatre 200 Chipset. There are several discussions in this forum in this. See here : http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...tv-wonder.html
  

Still having faith in this hardware - I dusted off a 2008 laptop with Vista and wiped it clean with a fresh install of XP SP2 - this is exactly what I did on the desktop PC that I discovered this issue with. I installed VirtuaDub and the MMC card drivers on the laptop and did a capture test - the capture is not 100% great, its a bit out of phase but the main thing is the horizontal green lines are gone. I think I am now into trying the full frame TBC.

So, this is clearly some noise issue in the original desktop PC hardware, this I need to fix. I will start combing through the desktop now with some of your suggestions. Swapping power outlets, pulling the Santa Cruz sound card etc. The video card in that desktop PC is an old Radeon 9600 XT with a capture port - there could be an issue there. I don't recall installing the drivers for that card - maybe there is a generic one in place. . .

Thanks for your help.

22west

[22west]

Another quick note - I just added another couple of RAM to the laptop and the capture is much much better now - just using the VCRs line TBC.

[bookemdano]

Good troubleshooting. Looks like you're getting it narrowed down. Please keep reporting your progress!