Capturing Video

[Hi Ho]

I am attempting to capture some video from an old tape so I can try out Preimere Elements for which I have the fully featured trial version. The problem is that I cannot capture video. It says the only capture device I have is a FireWire port. I don't even have a FireWire port. I am using the video input on my video card. Virtual VCR detects it and I can capture with it but the video quality is bad. It's choppy and there are lines going through it (hard to describe). How can I either make Premier Elements detect my capture device or make Virtual VCR capture good video? In Virtual VCR I have it set to 640x480 .AVI at 29 FPS. Is there any other free software that will capture video?

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

I use WinDv for capturing off my video camera through firewire, I no idea if it will capture from your card, but it can select from multiple inputs.

http://windv.mourek.cz/

[Hi Ho]

Nope. It only works with FireWire. Thanks though.

I was just trying Windows Movie Maker. It captured some much better looking video. However, there is a recurring problem that has cropped up yet again. See HERE. What on earth is that white bar??? It shows up at completely random times and ruins the capture video. It does not show up in the preview. It is a home video so I know it's not copy protection. I have always had this problem. The only software I have been able to succesfully capture with is the Ulead Video Studio 8 trial. The white bar showed up in that but not as often. I am really frustrated with it.

[reboot]

I use virtualdub to capture. Never had a problem.

[Hi Ho]

I don't know why it doesn't work well for me. The video is choppy and "interlaced" with lines. There is also the white bar problem which I have never been able to solve.

EDIT: Oh..... You said VirtualDub. I haven't tried that yet. I'll do that now and see how it works.

EDIT 2: OK I tried VirtualDub and while it isn't choppy it is still interlaced and the white bar is still there. Also, at 1 GB/minute I can only capture 10 minutes of video. There has to be a better way to do this.

EDIT 3: I found an old VCD I made and it happens to be exactly what I have been trying to capture. Appearently I did it before and it worked. It's only VCD quality but I'll have to live with it. Anyway, I can't get it to open in an editor. It's a .DAT file. How can I convert it? Isn't it an MPEG1 file? I though VCD used MPEG1.

[reboot]

In virtualdub, select Video, Compression, and select a codec. Preferrably DivX or XviD. Set it up for a respectable bitrate (higher is better).
Now try your capture. You should be able to cap at least 2 hours, depending on hard drive space.
If the source is interlaced, use the deinterlace filter.

To work with your VCD, get ISOBuster and extract the .dat to mpeg.
You can now re-encode, or whatever you want with it.
Tutorial on .dat to .mpg here: http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?link=95

[Hi Ho]

Thanks for the tips. I think I'm going to wait on the video editing until I build my monster rig. This thing is just too slow for that. When I try to capture in any compressed format the CPU usage goes to 100% and I get a maximum of 10 FPS.

[RJ]

That PC has more than enough power for video editing, you don't need to wait until you have a faster one.
For capturing, don't use a high-compression codec. What do you wanna do with the captured video ? Since you mentioned Premiere Elements I reckon you wanna add transitions, text and other effects. And for that, the worst you can do is to use a codec like MPEG 1, 2, DivX, everything that is based on MPEG. They are not meant for editing, and you won't get good results when using them.
Use a codec like DV, Huffyuv or MJPEG. They take up more space, but that is what you have to do if you want to do good editing.
You probably need another hard drive.

I started with video capturing and editing with my PIII 800 + 320 MB RAM + dedicated 60 GB hard drive for capturing, and it had enough power for realtime capture with Huffyuv. So, you see, your PC has enough power for that.

It says the only capture device I have is a FireWire port. I don't even have a FireWire port.

If you have the computer that is in your sig, then you do have firewire. Every audigy does.

The video is . . . "interlaced" with lines.

That is correct, that is the way the video is. Something would be wrong if they weren't there.

The choppyness. . . well, concluding from what you've said, it sounds to me that you captured uncompressed avi. That's just too much for your hard drive, especially since it's also the system drive, so many frames are dropped, which results in a choppy playback. You have to use a codec to compress the video a lil bit. The Huffyuv, for example, is free.

RJ

[Hi Ho]

My sound card doesn't have FireWire as far as I can tell. It's an Audigy ES which has a game port but no FireWire inside or out. Do you have any idea why Priemere doesn't detect my video card input?

What I mean by lines is it's like every other line shows up. Would I get better results If i bought a seperate TV tuner/capture card?

[RJ]

Premiere probably doesn't support your video card's video-in. On the Adobe page there is a list of the capture devices that are supported by Premiere.

And no, you don't need a TV card, the video-in of your video card is fine. You could get a capture card with a hardware encoder (DV, MJPEG) to take the stress off the cpu, but first I'd try to use a software codec.

Looks like I was wrong about the Audigy, though. Didn't know there are audigy models without firewire.
Your board probably has firewire. If it has, you will find the firewire controller chip left of the PCI 1, and the header pins above it (left of the AGP).

RJ

[Hi Ho]

I tried the Huffyuv coded with VirtualDub and it works. However the "lines" are still there. It's really not easy to describe. I'll post a screenshot in a second.

My motherboard doesn't have FireWire. There are solder points where the headers would go.

[RJ]

You mean, this big white bar that you showed in an earlier screenshot ? Honestly I don't know what causes that, I've never seen them on my pc.

RJ

[Hi Ho]

No, not the big white bar. HERE is a screenshot.

[RJ]

You mean this comb-effect at horizontal movements ? That are just the interlaced lines. Home video is interlaced, these lines are supposed to be there. It's no error, it's the way the video is.

RJ

[Hi Ho]

It doesn't look that way on my TV. If I capture it like that, edit it, and put it back on a DVD or tape will it look normal on the TV? The video isn't quite smooth either. It's capturing at 29.97 FPS and it's still a little bit slow motion.

[RJ]

It doesn't look that way on my TV.

Yeah. I'll tell you a bit about the interlacing so that you understand this (as I only know german sites that explain it). When I'm done I'll edit this post.

If I capture it like that, edit it, and put it back on a DVD or tape will it look normal on the TV? The video isn't quite smooth either.

Yes, It'll look normal and smooth, just as you're used to.

EDIT:

Our TV, and video cameras, don't use entire frames to record and display. They only use half the frame, so called fields, consisting of either the even or the odd lines. It's alternating, so if one field consists of the even lines, then the next field consists of the odd lines, then even, odd, etc.

Now these fields aren't shot at the same time, but one after another. The TV displays these fields succesively, so what you see are not 29.97 frames per second, but twice as many fields. Therefore it looks really smooth on the TV, it's like about 60fps actually, just that they are not complete frames.

The PC does not display interlaced, it always displays entire images. Hence, both fields - which are meant to be shown succesively - are displayed simultaneously. Therefore you see the discrepancy of both fields as the interlaced lines. The even and odd lines are in fact 2 pictures in 1.
So, since both fields are shown at once on the pc, you do see only 29.97 fps, therefore the video doesn't look as smooth on the pc as it does on the TV.

When you burn that to dvd or copy back to tape, your TV will display the fields succesively, then you won't see the lines and the video will be smooth.

This looks like a good site about it. It has images so you can see how it works.

http://www.lurkertech.com/lg/fields/fields.html

RJ

[Hi Ho]

Thank you very much. I did not know that. I am now just a bit smarter. Thanks again for taking the time to write that.

[RJ]

Also, something I'd like to add regarding MPEG encoding of interlaced video (for vcd, svcd and dvd):

MPEG 1 does not support interlacing. That is why VCD has only half the vertical resolution, you just throw one of the fields away. Smoothness is gone, too, of course.

MPEG 2 does support interlacing. However, you always encode frames. In order to encode correctly you need to tell the encoder that it is interlaced (every encoder has an option for that), and, very important, which field comes first. Coz when you choose the wrong field order, the TV will display the latter one first, which results in a back-and-forth-like jittering. You can see that only on the TV (as the PC shows you both at the same time), therefore encode a small clip with bottom field first, and one with top field first, and watch it on the TV to see which field order the correct one is.

RJ

[reboot]

Try capturing at 23.976fps for NTSC, or 25fps for PAL.
You can then use pulldown (pullup) during encoding (for NTSC only) so the video plays normally at 29.97fps.
The lower fps capture may help speed things up a bit.
Most set-top players support both PAL and NTSC, if you want to try 25fps PAL even.
Check yours in the list at www.videohelp.com (left menu, look under Players).

[RJ]

Why PAL ? No, never mix up these two standards, avoid that whenever possible. If your cassette is NTSC, then capture as NTSC. Don't use PAL unless you wanna send your finished disc to someone who requires PAL.
Capture NTSC, 29.97fps. After all, you said it works now, right ?

RJ

[reboot]

I meant, if he has PAL tapes, capture in PAL.
If he has NTSC, then capture in NTSC at 23.976 and use pulldown

[Hi Ho]

All of my tapes are NTSC so there isn't any problem there. Since I have probably 50+ hours of tape that is disintegrating I will probably end up using a set top DVD recorder to tansfer them to DVD before they get any worse. How would I go about ripping those DVD's so I could edit them.

[RJ]

Even with NTSC, I'd capture with 29.97fps, as that is what the video is. 23.97 is for progressive footage.
That PC is powerful enough for that.

How would I go about ripping those DVD's so I could edit them

What do you mean by editing ? If you think about transitions, text, effects and stuff (maybe also applying filters), then don't do it that way. DVD is MPEG-2, and MPEG is not a good editing format. You shouldn't do any other editing with MPEG than simple cutting.

But if you wanna do it anyway: You can just copy the files off the DVD. It your DVD recorder copy protects the recordings, use DVD Decrypter to rip.

RJ

[Hi Ho]

What is the downside to editing MPEG? Will the output be lower quality? I would be adding transitions, audio, etc. just to make it more interesting.

[RJ]

Will the output be lower quality?

Exactly that. You'll have to re-encode the MPEG, and that means quality-loss, the blocky artefacts will become more visible.

And for that, you don't even need a DVD recorder, you could do the same with your PC. It's powerful enough for realtime MPEG-2 encoding at full resolution.

Try it. Capture a few minutes with huffyuv, do your editing, output as huffyuv, encode to MPEG-2.
Get a program like InterVideo WinDVD Recorder (trial), capture the same footage, do the editing, and see for yourself.

RJ

[reboot]

Rip with DVDecrypter.
Reauthor (not edit) in DVDLab to add your transitions, fades, etc.
It's far easier than editing mpeg, unless you already have premiere pro or something similar.
The only problem most mpeg editors have, is that they will re-encode the entire video after editing, causing no end of possible problems, especially with video resizing. Most advanced editors I've used will re-encode to FULL D1, no matter how compliant the original mpeg is.
Authoring doesn't do that.
If you just want to cut out credits or something similar, then Cuttermaran will do that easily.

I have some VHS tapes of stuff that has now been released on DVD.
As a challenge, I rent the DVD, see how the original menus and chapters have been done, rip the VHS, and recreate the stuff in DVDLab.
Yes, I could have easily ripped the dvd, shrink, and reburn, but that would be stealing!

[Hi Ho]

I need a DVD burner before I can do any of this stuff. For simply capturing raw footage to DVD how much longer would it take on my PC than a set top recorder? That is my main concern at the moment. A DVD burner is certainly the cheaper route but I don't want to spend hours on end transferring them.

[RJ]

I need a DVD burner before I can do any of this stuff.

No, you don't, you can play the MPEG Stream on the PC. The difference in quality will even be easier to distinguish on the monitor than on the TV.

For simply capturing raw footage to DVD how much longer would it take on my PC than a set top recorder?

If you do realtime MPEG capturing, it takes the same amount of time.
If you do the non-MPEG capture, well, the capture time is identical. The encoding time varies, depending on the encoder and the settings you use. You can assume about 1.5 to 4 hours for 1 hour of footage. You could let it encode overnight, too.

RJ

[Barbrich]

About the big white bar, if you haven't already found the answer, I had the same thing on my captured video. I downloaded the WDM 1.08 drivers and that fixed the problem. Hope this helps.