Monsoon SnappySoft for analog capture?

[AndyO6322]

I am looking for a long-obsolete software called Monsoon Multimedia SnappySoft to use with my Dell capture device. Is anyone aware of a source for this application, since the Monsoon website has been idle for more than 6 years? I have not been able to find a reliable download site for the full software files (rather than a free trial limited version). Any help is much appreciated.

[7jlong]

Their old website turns up in searches at the Internet Archive, so if you dig around there you might get lucky.

[lordsmurf]

The bigger question is .... why?

In all likelihood, that's a very non-suggested capture card. What is it? A lot of those old capture cards were beyond craptastic, turning video into blocky mush with out-of-bound values.

OP is not a newbie. Is this for testing?

[aramkolt]

My guess is this is a Dell Angel USB capture card which outputs an MPEG2 stream. It's overall a quite well built card on the inside, but the downside is that not very many capture programs support it. Supposedly there is a way to modify one of the files to get the full version since you can't actually buy it anyway these days as snappysoft as a company is long gone, but I haven't found any place that actually says what the "hack" is to make it useable for longer than the limited time that the trial version allows - but someone out there knows how.

Supposedly it also has line-TBC like effects by itself as well, but I haven't tested mine yet on tape sources because I'm in a similar situation as you and would rather wait to get a program working that can do longer captures to look for things like audio sync issues.

The other sort of current capture program that works with the Dell Angel is PowerDirector, but that's kind of a bloated software that costs quite a bit for just saving an MPEG2 stream and it doesn't run very well on slower computers I think. In some cases, if you have a DVD burner in your Dell laptop and windows 10 on it, it may let you download it for free on the App Store, though most windows laptops these days don't have optical drives.

Best bet for snappy soft would be to find the file modification to get rid of the trial limitations which I suppose might be considered ethical since you can't buy the software even if you wanted to and the company no longer exists anyway. Meets the abandonware definition in my book.

So if anyone knows what the trick is to remove the trial limits, I'd be interested in hearing about how to do it

[AndyO6322]

Aramkolt, thanks for your feedback. You have captured my situation exactly. I am using the Dell Angel USB with SVHS input, outputting a MPEG2 file. The setup has been working well for me over a wide range of homemade VHS tapes. The device uses an NEC chip, similar to what is in the Toshiba RD-XS DVD recorders, for hardware encoding of the analog signal and the results have been very good.

The drawback, as you pointed out, is the limited capture program options that support this device, which was designed primarily to work with Windows Media Center PCs. I am currently using AmCap (Noel Danjou) software which works but often crashes on my Win 7 PC. I am looking for a software solution this is more stable. The device manufacturer, Lumanate, indicates that Monsoon Multimedia SnappySoft will support this device, but the Monsoon website is long gone (I’ve checked Internet Archive with no success). So that is my motivation for finding a full (activated) version of this legacy software.

So, as you commented, if anyone knows a way to remove the trial download limits, please advise.
.

[HiFiVideotape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyO6322

if anyone knows a way to remove the trial download limits, please advise..

Back in the software pirating heyday you may have been lucky to find a crack, patch, keygen, replacement executable, or something similar to accomplish what you want. I'd be shocked if anyone could procure that now for such an obscure and outdated piece of software.

If this is for use as a proper capture workflow and the only reason you're trying to force the Dell card to work is due to tight budget and "not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars," you could consider a good preowned professional SD capture card online for $30-$40 and download its free full-featured pro Win7 capture software and/or VirtualDub (if desired). Capture uncompressed and/or lossless, choose to process with scripts or GUI, and use NLE if editing.

[latreche34]

Not sure if this helps.

[aramkolt]

Jwillis84 is the one that mentioned the "hack" in one of his posts over at Videohelp, he said it was extremely easy to do and said it was widely known back in the time when this program would have been in active use, but he may have ethical concerns about actually re-telling what it is. He seemed to say that it was extremely easy to do and just required changing one line of text in a preference file or something similar to remove the trial restrictions.

Here's the post (I was basically asking the same question as you): https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...es#post2754722

He said there is a different program called Amcap that works on other OS's than XP, but it does cost something like $30 and the license restricts use to one machine. You would have to email the developer for the older version that will run on XP, but he says the new license keys do work with the old program, but then that's your one copy for the $30. Since I don't really know that I'd be using the Dell Angel for any real work and it's limited to one machine per license, I haven't sprung for it just yet. $30 is more than fair pricing if it's a device I'd actually end up using compared to the 20+ other devices I have to test, so I'll probably use the limited version of snappysoft for testing and then if it happens to be great, I'll have to decide which computer to put Amcap on.

There's also a reddit post that talks about older versions amcap still working on windows 11, v1 and v8:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomp...ng_program_on/

For V8: https://archive.org/details/amcap80
Screenshot 2025-01-11 at 10.49.53 AM.jpg


Though in internet archive, a review says there's a couple of trojans in the file which is interesting that they'd even host it with those present, but maybe they are required for the actual program since this is apparently browser extension based?

However, I'm also seeing posts that the older Amcap programs were developed by Microsoft and the one that Jwillis84 suggested is probably the newer one that is privately developed and probably just using the same name, so no idea if those older amcap programs can capture the MPEG2 streams myself since I haven't actually tried either of those myself. The new one that costs $30 should work for sure though, just lame that the license is limited to one computer (so you can't really try it with XP and Windows 10/11 for any real longer captures to see if there's issues or not).

[AndyO6322]

aramkolt, thanks for the jwillis84 info on SnappySoft activation. I do have a purchased version of the newer, privately-developed AmCap program installed on my Windows 7 - 64 bit machine and it works with the Dell Angel USB, however it often crashes or freezes up, hence I was looking for software alternatives that are more stable and easy to use.

The version of AmCap I am using and is recommended by jwillis84 was developed by Noel Danjou and is different from the original MS version. I've also tested PowerDirector 12 and Sonic MyDVD software and it works, but doesn't provide for setting specific capture bit rates and VBR/CBR when used with the this capture device. I plan on installing and running the trial version of SnappySoft to determine if it's worth pursuing further.

P.S. I was also wondering if there are any old PVR/tuner devices available on ebay that would have included a full, activated copy of SnappySoft on a disc. That would be a great find!

[aramkolt]

The other way around it is to use Windows Media Center edition PC/operating system apparently, that just plain old supports MPEG2 streams natively from what I've read.

That's good to know on the paid version of Amcap that it likes to crash, again not something that you might notice right away with a trail version and it'd be disappointing to pay for it only to find out it does that later.

My guess is that the Dell Angel truly only has one continuous bitrate that it outputs, and while you might be able to select other bitrates, I'd suspect that it might just resample the stream or compress it from the computer-side which really isn't what you'd want.

Do you have any testing that shows going to a higher bitrate on the few apps that do allow you to change it actually looks better than whatever the default bitrate is on the programs that won't let you change it?

[AndyO6322]

I don't have comparative test samples with varying bitrates using the Dell Angel. Going by the recommendations in these forums, I am targeting a bitrate in the 8-9 Mbps range with CBR. The higher bitrate supposedly helps the MPEG2 encoder deal with artifacts in the source signal. From what I've researched, going much beyond 9 Mbps doesn't provide additional benefit.

-- merged --

Aramkolt, it's been a while, have you found any reliable software programs to capture analog VHS with your Dell Angel USB device? I am still looking for a well-behaved solution. The Angel capture box is great, finding the right software to simplify the capture process is the difficult part. Any insight you could provide is greatly appreciated.

[aramkolt]

No updates here. Jwillis last I heard from him said that Amcap which can still be purchased is the way to go, but going to the site, the servers now seem to be down. Then there's powerdirector, though it is unclear if at a certain version of powerdirector that direct MPEG2 capture was dropped (or the modern versions it might still support it for all I know haha).

There's also this post where JWillis describes how to get it working with graphedit:
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...ysoft-pvr.html

Problem is that graphedit is not particularly user friendly and I don't really see any tutorials online for how to actually use it. Even with graph edit set up appropriately (which I think you have to do from scratch or something) to make it look like his screenshot, I'm still not sure what program you'd then use to capture the result. Also not sure if the bitrate can be changed with the graphedit method.

If you find anything out, let me know.

Also would be nice to know if there's a way to activate the long dead snapysoft monsoon which Jwillis at some point hinted was easy to do and well known a long time ago if I'm remembering correctly....

[AndyO6322]

So far I've tried AMCap, PowerDirector 12, Sonic MyDVD, and Nero Vision 10 software with the Dell Angel USB. The AMCap app offers the most options for changing settings such as bitrate and CBR/VBR but has been somewhat unstable on both my W7 and W10 PCs, often crashing or locking up. PowerDirector 12 works but doesn't allow changes to bitrate and the GUI seems overly complex/bloated and not user friendly. Sonic MyDVD works but limits bitrate with the Angel to 6.5 Mbps.

So far the best software for the Angel, in my opinion, is the Nero Vision 10 capture app. Nice GUI and the ability to configure the settings for the capture. I was able to buy it (ebay) as part of Nero Video Premium HD with an activation license. This is now my go to capture software, but I was still interested in trying SnappySoft to see how it compares, based on jwillis84's positive comments.

[aramkolt]

What version of AMcap were you using? Assume it is an old free version? Does the Nero vision 10 serial allow you to install it on multiple computers so that different operating systems/machines can be tried? Looks like from the documentation that it runs on XP and Windows 7, but I'm not sure if it also supports later operating systems that weren't around at the time of release?

Also, what has been the sweet spot in terms of bitrate from the Angel? Definitely one I want to do some testing with since I already have it, software side has just been frustrating.

[AndyO6322]

I purchased AMCap, Version 9.23 (Build 300) directly from Noel Danjou's website (noeld.com) in February, 2022. The invoice was handled through MyCommerce, but the original website does not appear to be functional. I have it running on both a Windows 7 and Windows 10 PC. I have Nero Vision 10 installed on both PCs also. No problem running it on the later version of Windows.

Optimal bitrate from my experience is 9 Mbps for quality capture of VHS analog to MPEG2. MyDVD and PowerDirector, however, do not allow you to adjust the bitrate this high. MyDVD is locked in at 6.5 Mbps and PowerDircter at 8.0 Mbps.

-- merged --

aramkolt,
have you had a chance to compare the capture quality using the Dell Angel USB to the results using the ClonerAlliance Viewlite with S-Video input? I have always wondered how capturing with the Dell Angel and then software translating MPEG2 to h264 (MPEG4) compares with direct capture to MPEG4 with a ClonerAlliance type device. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to do this. Your thoughts?

[aramkolt]

Out of all the random stuff I've acquired to test, I haven't pulled the trigger on a cloner alliance box. My qualm is that it doesn't capture interlaced, lacks S-Video input (unless getting one of the lite line with has a max bitrate of 8Mb/s), and I'm still pretty sure that it gets the aspect ratio wrong in reviews I've read. Having to change the aspect ratio isn't exactly "ready to post online" right out of the box. Interlaced MPEG2 should theoretically be superior in terms of detail preservation, though perhaps the higher bitrate of the MP4 helps some.

I'm guessing there does exist some decent hardware deinterlacers for those that want to capture deinterlaced, though the original isn't preserved in the native form, so that

This is a rabbit hole, but I've even got one of these to test.... eventually:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oltaH2Ez82g

That also requires SDI as a source, but the idea would be you could use something like that in the chain and then capture as progressive.

Many more modern TBCs can also do their own upscaling to progressive and I have no idea how well any of those work, but if they did work well, that could be a viable path for non-archive level content preservation that is more or less ready to edit right from capture.

The one "direct to MP4" device I've got is a Blackmagic Hyperdeck studio mini, though that requires SDI as an input source
(which plenty of TBCs can output) and I can't remember if the MP4's are interlaced or not, but if I recall correctly, I don't think that they are. I don't remember being particularly impressed by the overall quality of the recordings for interlaced content for MP4 anyway. Those have a bitrate of 10Mb/s at the highest quality for MP4. Unfortunately the mini will not do uncompressed capture like the non-mini variants of hyperdeck studios can.

Guessing you're looking at MPEG2 because the file sizes aren't particularly huge, so if that's the case, then ProRes and probably aren't for you, though they do preserve the interlacing and are said to be visually lossless.

Some DVD/HDD recorders will also let you set a bitrate for the MPEG2 and may still have the sort of line-TBC like effects that an ES10 does. The idea would be to record to the hard drive and then later get the files off of the hard drive without ever burning a DVD. This logistically gets complex though because that usually involves disonnecting the hard drive from the DVD recorder and that could cause the fragile ribbon cables to get damaged before long. Perhaps there's a way to adapt a hot swappable drive bay or something (though you wouldn't do it with the equipment powered on of course).

[AndyO6322]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Some DVD/HDD recorders will also let you set a bitrate for the MPEG2 and may still have the sort of line-TBC like effects that an ES10 does. The idea would be to record to the hard drive and then later get the files off of the hard drive without ever burning a DVD. This logistically gets complex though because that usually involves disonnecting the hard drive from the DVD recorder and that could cause the fragile ribbon cables to get damaged before long. Perhaps there's a way to adapt a hot swappable drive bay or something (though you wouldn't do it with the equipment powered on of course).

I have recorded to the HDD on both a Panasonic DMR-EH50 and a Toshiba RD-XS35, using IsoBuster to rip the MPEG2 files to a PC. The process is time consuming but worked well, providing nice digital captures of VHS analog SD. I am using the Dell Angel USB box to try to get a similar level of quality directly to PC (the Dell has similar NEC encoding chips as the XS-35) without the hassle of HDD removal and ripping with IsoBuster. The Dell solution is simple and compact with minimal hardware and software required.

[aramkolt]

True - though is the level of quality you are getting from the Dell Angel just as good as say the RD-XS35? Jwillis seems to like the XS series the most out of all of his capture devices he's tried and we know he has the Dell Angel as well, so to me that says he likes the HDD method better even though it is more work. Could be that it doesn't require a computer which is one reason to like it I suppose if you want a standalone capture device. Some models of those machines had "net dubbing" which basically allowed file transfers on the HDD via the network port on the machine. It was apparently kind of slow and I'm not sure if it could only send to other DVD recorders or if there was a way to actually directly get the files to a computer or not.... I thought about that it shouldn't be too hard to modify a player to make the HDD be outside of the rest of the deck with an extension cable and that would make it somewhat easier to swap between the two. What we really need is like an "IDE switch" that connects the hard drive to one of two devices (either the USB reader or the DVD recorder) and you'd never have to remove a hard drive at all.

Posted this to another thread, but if it is possible to clone drives, you might just be able to use something like this and write to a compact flash card that would be much easier to get in and out. There's no actual electronics on the IDE to flash adapter would seem that compact flash is basically IDE in a different form factor:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135112067967

I have limited experience in cloning drives, but seems like it would be a pretty ideal solution if it worked.

[AndyO6322]

jwillis84 has done a lot of experimenting/documentation of HDD removal from DVD recorders to copy the MPEG2 files to PC, including using IDE/CF card adapters (which he deemed "hit or miss") and IDE/SATA adapters with m.2 SSD brackets mounted outside the DVD recorder. Link here: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/tos.../post-60268767

I have not seen jwillis84 comment on video quality of the DVD recorder/HDD capture approach compared to using the Dell Angel USB. I believe his preference for the RD-XS35 approach is based on not having to use a PC in the workflow. But, as I see it, you are either capturing the MPEG2 files on the DVD recorder HDD or a PC HDD (or in my case an SSD) through the Dell Angel USB, so there doesn't seem to be much difference in the two workflow methods. I would be interested in jwillis84's feedback on this topic and if he is still using the DVD recorder/IsoBuster approach.

[aramkolt]

Hadn't seen that post! Sounds promising that "cheap SD to IDE" adapters work with the Toshibas, My first thought was I'm guessing that compatibility ended at a certain size in terms of supporting or not supporting SDHC (maxes out at 32gb) and SDXC (larger cards)? Either way, 32GB wouldn't be too bad, but it's not big enough to clone a standard 40GB, 160GB, or 250GB drive, so that seems to imply that SDHC *must* work. If it did work, I'm not sure why he'd continue to bother with large IDE drives at all though. I'd just mount the card reader inside the case with a cut slot out the side or front of the machine...

But since you have tried both the Angel and the Toshiba plus ISObuster yourself, can you see any quality differences? Or does it really look virtually the same?