Ok, I'll start with the beginning. I recently got a AVerMedia UltraTV 300 USB device for capturing video. I was at first, not satisfied with the quality through the included software so decided to see the guide on Doom9's website, which is extremely comprehensive. My system is as follows: Dell Inspiron 5150 w/Pentium 4 @ 3.06Ghz 512 MB Ram 60GB 7200RPM HD NVIDIA GeForce GO 5200 I followed the guide that they provided and yeilded the following results. Capture Stats Frames Captured: 27251 Frames Dropped1: 0 Frames Dropped2: 1238 Time : 00:15:10 Time Left: 00:09:26 Free Space: 10,492,272,640 Video Bytes: 16,710,451,200 Audio Bytes: 160,612,200 Total Bytes: 16,871,063,400 Video Bytes Sec: 18,353,351 Audio Bytes Sec: 176,402 Total Bytes Sec: 18,529,754 Video Compression: 1.002 Video Rate: 31.254014 Audio Rate: 44101.074459 AV Diff: 0.250136 AV Adjust: 125.017614 AV Actual: 122.672634 Audio and video was out of sync, but I'm wondering if that's because my computer couldn't keep up. I played the file through windows media player. The recording source is a Satelite Box hooked up w/S-Video. NTSC standard. So I have to ask: -I have 30GB free. Is it normal that for 15m of video it takes close to 17 GB of diskspace? -As can be seen above, there are alot of dropped frames in the frames dropped2 field. Normal? -I tried recording in 720x480, and then reduced resolution to 640x480, which yeilded the results above. -Basically, I'm looking for a bit of insight. I don't plan on purchsasing a HD in the near future. Should I bother with the Huffyuv codec,or should I encode directly to DivX or WMV or something. Down the line I want to burn these music videos to DVD's. I really need an expert's assistance, and any help would be MOST appreciated. Regards, steve7777
Your Problem is that you are Captureing to Uncompressed AVI (That is why the Files are So Huge) and your Hard Drive isn"t fast enough to write all that data to your Hard Drive without dropping Frames and the Dropped Frames are what is Causeing the Sync problems.... If you want to continue to capture to AVI then I suggest you get a second Large fast Hard Drive for the Captured files cuz captureing AVI to the same Drive your OS and Programs are installed on will cause you to Drop frames...You should also Consider useing a Good Lossless Capture codec Like the "HuffYUV" codec which will make the Captured file half there size without any quality Loss.... The other Option is to Capture to Mpeg-2 which is the Format used on DVD"s...This will use your CPU to compress the Video signal to Mpeg-2 which will make the Files a LOT Smaller and you should not drop frames so the Sync should be Good but the quality of Captureing to Mpeg-2 "Might" not be as good as Uncompressed AVI..... Cheers
Yes, Huffyuv video can be huge. No, not normal. 720x480 would be fine, if you didn't have any dropped frames. Try to find the Picvideo mjpeg codec (it comes in the Showshifter package). A little better compression than huffyuv. If you still get dropped frames, try a smaller resolution that is a valid aspect, such as 352x240/320x240. DivX/xvid suck for capture. You could try capturing in Windows Movie Maker to .wmv, but then you need to find an encoder that will take .wmv to make dvd.
Ok, I'm not sure I understand. Minionstates that I am using uncompressed AVI and suggests that I use Huffyuv, which is what I am currently using? I don't understand the solution proposed Minion, I'm really a newbie so any clarifications would be most appreciated. Does reducing the resolution reduce the quality that much? I'm happy to capture at 352x240 as suggested by rebootjimso long as I don't have massive quality loss. Is it my capture card that's not up to standard? I thought that the specs of my pc were sufficient to keep up with the vid capture. Thank you for all your help. I would really like to know which programs/codecs you all use so I can make an informed decision as to what I should use in future. Regards, steve7777
With my old BT878 card, I regularily captured at 320x240 using Picvideo mjpeg, with the Q set to 20. This can still result in big files, but maybe not quite as large as huffyuv. The combination of CPU, free drive space, the hard drive rotation speed, the capture card, codec used, phase of the moon, position of your chair, and about a gazillion other things can make or break a full D1 capture. One thing that would probably help, is to purchase another hard drive, and use it strictly for your captures. This allows the computer to access the working drive, that Windows is on, without dropping frames in the capture. Another factor is the speed of USB 2.0 In theory it should be fine. In reality it's too slow for full D1 captures. Many people have found this out the hard way, but there's ways around it. If you're patient, and have a good encoder, you can make equal (or maybe slightly better) quality to VHS/SVCD on DVD by using 320x240. If you want higher quality, you're going to have to go to a larger resolution. 640x480 sounds good in theory, but needs to be resized too much for D1, half D1, or even 1/4D1. My 320x240 captures, I would then encode to 1/4D1 (352x240) to minimize the resizing needed in the encoder. These will play on 90% of newer players with no troubles, at full screen. If you can, try a capture at 320x480 (half D1), then encode it at half D1 as well. This would be a compromise between dropped frames at full D1, and a high quality 1/4D1. Quality would be of that, or greater than 1/4 D1, yet still capture with no dropped frames. You just have to try different aspects, and different codecs, to find that magical combination that works with your system.
Hi, What I"m saying is that you can"t be useing HuffYUV because HuffYUV uses a Max of about 700mb per Minute of Video at 720+480 and 30fps ,But Uncompressed AVI uses about 1.2gb Per minute of Video at 720+480 and 30fps.... So if your 15 minute Captured Video file uses up 17gb then it must be that you aren"t useing the HuffYuv Codec to capture.. Maybe you are selecting HuffYUV in your Capture Software but it isn"t useing it for some Reason.... And as rebootjim mentioned if you can get the "PicVideo Mjpeg Codec" then it would be a Good option also as it uses VERY Little CPU Power to capture and Gives very Good Quality with file sizes of about 100mb to 400mb per minute depending on the Compression and Resolution you capture Too..It and Huffyuv are the 2 of my most used Analogue Capture Codecs ,I have Started to use the Alparysoft Lossless Codec but have been getting Mixed results.... I suspect that if you are able to get the Codec working for your Captures that you will Drop Less Frames.... Also in Virtual-VCR there is a Setting called the "Master Stream" setting which is for setting what stream the Capture program uses to Keep sync..This setting should be set to "Video" not audio if you want it to try to keep sync even when dropping some Frames... If this setting is set to "Audio" then the program will Adjust the Framerate by Intentionally dropping or duplicateing Frames so it can keep sync with the Audio.. (The audio and Video will usually drift appart and go out of Sync over long captures even if there are no dropped Frames) What this Does is it makes it so it usually plays back OK in some Players as an AVI file but as soon as you encode it to another format it will go out of sync.... If you select the "Video" option as the "Master Stream" what happens is the Audio gets Dynamicly resampled in real time every time there is a Frame Drop or a shift in the audio and Video sync..This method is the Best but it works best when there aren"t multiple Frames being dropped at the same Time.... The Differance in Quality between Captureing at 352+240 and 720+480 are Quite a Bit..The 720+480 resolution is 400% Higher than at 352+240, Sort of like the Differance in Quality From VHS and DVD as VHS used a Resolution of 320+240 and DVD uses 720+480, Or the Differance between VCD and DVD as VCD uses 352+240.. The one Positive thing about useing the 352+240 resolution is you can fit over 6 Hours of 352+240 mpeg-2 video on a single DVD-R and 325+240 is Fully DVD Compliant.... I actually think you should Just capture directly to Mpeg-2 (Or at least Try it) if you are Going to Put these Files on to DVD because you won"t have to do any encodeing so that will save a Lot of Time and it doesn"t use up nearly as Much Disk space and Mpeg-2 capture programs Like WinDVR 3.0 maintain Perfect sync and produce very Good Results.... Cheers
Agreed. If the system can handle it, capture directly to mpeg-2. It requires less speed from the devices used (hard drive) than even Huffyuv, and definitely less than raw avi. I found a bit of interesting info (which you've confirmed Minion).
So I tried out diffrent things and as Minion Stated, I was captureing with Uncompressed AVI. I loaded the HuffYUV codec and tried at diffrent resolutions, all the way down to 352x240. Result: Still dropped frames. However, I did notice my CPU usage was around 40-50%, which seems very resonnable. I'm guessing it's my HD that's the slow link in all of this. So as mentionned I guess the best way is to encode directly to MPEG2, as this will be easy to transfer to DVD thereafter. So now the question is; which MPEG2 codecs should I consider? Any good free ones? Furthrmore, what software should be used in conjunction with this codec? Will VirtualVCR still be adequate? AVerMedia included some software but I find that it produces soft and "non-vivid" images. Even at higher encoding rates (10000Kbps MPEG2) PS; In hopes that you do suggest a good MPEG2 codec, how do I install it? I thing I have VirtualVCR down pat, but would would really like everybody's input. Ideally FREE software is best. Thanks very much, you are all making the learning process much easier for me. Regards, steve7777
I used to use Intervideo WinPVR (I think that's what it was called). There's also WinVDR, which I think is free. You could try using Nerovision Express. It will cap nicely to dvd spec mpeg-2, and then author and burn, all in one application. Ulead DVD Movie Factory is another that may work. The paid version of Showshifter will do it (not the demo). Hopefully someone else will have more suggestions. I can't use much of that software now, because I have a hardware mpeg-2 encoder card. Try looking through this list: http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool...atures=&listuser=&Submit=Search+or+List+tools
The Mpeg-2 Format doesn"t use "Codecs" to Compress Video Files like with AVI formats it uses encoders which are generally either standalone programs or Plugins to standalone programs.... I do not know of Any Freeware Mpeg-2 Capture programs but there are a couple Freeware or Shareware Standalone Encoders..You could use something like "VSO DivXtoDVD" to encode your Captured AVI files to Mpeg-2DVD,It will even Burn the DVD For you... I just tried it for the First time Today and wasn"t impressed at all with the Functionality and Quality but it is Free and is super easy to use and it works well.... Cheers
Before I ask this "hopefully" final question, I want to thank you for you very good advice. Without it, I probably would have gave up on the whole thing and that would have been very unfortunate. I did as recoomended below and ripped 30 minutes of music videos using Ulead VideoStudio 7, and am satisfied with the results. I was able to encode 720x480, 9500Kbps, and got perfectly acceptable results. Now the problem is cutting the videos. I tried TPMG, the software recommened on this site but for some reason it converts the MPEG2 file down to an MPEG1 file, when you select the "automatic" setting in the merge & cut tool. What software would I need to properly cut this 30 minut video into smaller clips? Once again, I am truly greatful for the advice that was given, it really helps out. Regards, steve7777
The "Merge & Cut" tool doesn"t Have an encoder in it so it Can not Convert your File to Mpeg-1...Just Make sure you select "mpeg-2" from the Dropdown menu or you might end up putting a Mpeg-1 header on your Mpeg-2 file.... If you want to use a different editor Maybe try "Womble Mpeg2VCR".... Also encodeing ay 95000kbs is way to High and a Total waste of Bitrate and DVD space...You could use Half that Bitrate and Achieve about the same quality but be able to fit twice as Much Video on a DVD....
