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ATI USB 600 VirtualDub vs. firewire WinDV capture quality?

Hello everybody.

I am in the process of transferring some Video8 tapes using a Sony DCR-TRV330. I have done a lot of reading on here and purchased an ATI usb 600 to capture with.

I have transferred in two different ways. I started with the ATI USB 600 using virtualdub download here and all the recommended settings and the Huffyuv v2.1.1 codec.

I didn't think it looked very good so I decided to try firewire with winDV. Those files looked better.

I am viewing them through the computer using media player classic. The files captured through virtualdub has horizontal "jaggedness" throughout the image. Not sure the best term here.

Is there something I am missing with the capture through the ATI with vDub. I want these to come out as good as possible. When I plug the camera through the composite plugs, the video looks pretty damn good. Much better that the capture. The end result is to convert to a file playable on the TV. I have not got to that point yet as I am unsure if I am doing this right based on the results.

Thank you for the input.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikehutchins (Post 93478)

I didn't think it looked very good

Explain, with details, preferably both sample images and clips.

Here is approximately the same 9 second second from the same tape using each capture method.

The ATI is properly interlaced, with correct resolution, value seem fine,

The DV is softer, desaturated colors, has color tint shifts, which is as expected when using that old 1990s technology. The values are also slightly overexposed, which is less typical.

Both have dot crawl.

These differences become more stark when viewed at a now-typical 50" instead of a tiny preview window on a computer.

Media Player Classic may be screwing with the video properties. View both in VirtualDub/

I even loaded into AvsPmod, to run QTGMC, so I could actually see footage clearly, and it appears a line TBC is in use, which is good. I do seem some oddities that suggest lack of

Note that my monitor is calibrated, I can see issues better than most (on the computer), but it becomes more obvious on your normal HDTV viewing device (as those tend to be better calibrated by default, brightness excluded). It will only "look good" if viewing tiny, preview windows and cell phones.

I'd wanted to show finer samples (Avisynth scripting needed), but too busy, and too tired, can't now, maybe later, next week.

Thank you for the response. As I have moved on to experimenting processing of the files to h.264, it is clear that the files captured using huffyuv is a much better file.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikehutchins (Post 93492)

Here is approximately the same 9 second second from the same tape using each capture method.

Thanks for including those. This is a great example for others who are wondering about Firewire capture versus analog capture. The difference in quality is quite plain to see, if carefully inspected.

Just as an amateur, I visually compared the quality of:
> the numbers on the players' backs
> the lines on the court
> the detail of the wood grain on the court
> the 2 main players' faces

etc etc. To my eyes, it appears everything about the sharpness and color is superior in the ATI capture, exactly as lordsmurf described above. E.g. at one point in the ATI capture you can actually see 2 dark pixels for the defending player's eyes, and other differently-colored pixels giving a vague approximation of his face. Comparing that frame to the Firewire capture it just shows his face as a fuzzy blob, with all that detail from the ATI capture missing entirely. Same thing for peoples' clothes, hair, and all the other details.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikehutchins (Post 93880)

Thank you for the response. As I have moved on to experimenting processing of the files to h.264, it is clear that the files captured using huffyuv is a much better file.

:congrats:

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikehutchins (Post 93478)

I want these to come out as good as possible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikehutchins (Post 93880)

I have moved on to experimenting processing of the files to h.264

Just be sure to deinterlace with QTGMC (also mentioned above by lordsmurf) prior to any encoding, h.264 or otherwise.

Got a sort of odd result with QTGMC in Hybrid for both. The ATI600/Huffyuv looks noisier and with more artifacts seemingly particularly so with motion -almost like there's a significant rainbow ghost trail behind moving subjects. I will say that the Firewire does appear softer so could be that's some of the noise difference. Neither seems to really handle the straight or curved lines on the court very well - maybe due to not doing double the framerate with bob deinterlacing?

Settings were: Bitrate: 10,000 x264, fast 2 pass, QTGMC deinterlace without any rescaling and no bob deinterlacing.

Here's the specifics pasted for the ATI file:

Code:

x264 --preset veryfast --pass 1 --bitrate 10000 --profile high --level 4.1 --direct auto --b-adapt 0 --sync-lookahead 6 --qcomp 0.50 --rc-lookahead 40 --qpmax 51 --aq-mode 0 --sar 1:1 --qpfile GENERATED_QP_FILE --non-deterministic --range tv --stats "C:\Users\aramk\AppData\Local\Temp\nobob1-2.stats" --demuxer raw --input-res 720x480 --input-csp i420 --input-range tv --input-depth 8 --fps 30000/1001 --output-depth 8 --output NUL -

Code:

x264 --preset fast --pass 2 --bitrate 10000 --profile high --level 4.1 --direct auto --b-adapt 0 --sync-lookahead 6 --qcomp 0.50 --rc-lookahead 40 --qpmax 51 --partitions i4x4,p8x8,b8x8 --no-fast-pskip --subme 5 --trellis 0 --aq-mode 0 --vbv-maxrate 62500 --vbv-bufsize 78125 --sar 1:1 --qpfile GENERATED_QP_FILE --non-deterministic --range tv --colormatrix bt470bg --stats "C:\Users\aramk\AppData\Local\Temp\nobob1-2.stats" --demuxer raw --input-res 720x480 --input-csp i420 --input-range tv --input-depth 8 --fps 30000/1001 --output-depth 8 --output "C:\Users\aramk\AppData\Local\Temp\nobob1-2.264" -

I deinterlaced this video (something I only figured out earlier today, so it's likely not the best version of this you can get). Then, since it increased the size by 3x, I had to encode this to x264 to fit the file size limit for the forum. :-) Either way, I think you'll see the result resolved your horizontal line issue, which was the interlace fields. As LS said, looking at this in a tiny window will make it harder to see the imperfections.

If this looks better to you, here are the settings I used with AviSynth/QTGMC:

Code:

SetFilterMTMode ("QTGMC", 2)

FFMPEGSource2("C:\CaptureStuff\1-ATI-Sample.avi", atrack=-1)

AssumeTFF()

QTGMC(preset="Slower", EdiThreads=6)

Spline64Resize(720,540)

Prefetch(18)

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