Decent WDM capture program?

[Flying dutchman]

Just curious what other users use to capture high-quality clips on WDM-based video cards. WinDVR? IUVCR? SHowshifter?

Please highlight the good, the bad and the ugly features...

[bogie]

I found MainConcept MPEG encoder to be the best solution.
It has its own capture tool and it works great!

the good:
1) rock solid
2) it captures from any attached device - capture card(PixelView BT878 in my case), DV device, USB camera
3) it offers the widest codec selection - capture device native format, uncompressed, MJPEG, DV codecs, MPEG1/2, Windows media, and any other installed codec
4) no file size limitations
5) real time compression* - not a single dropped frame

the bad:
I couldn't get the preview during capture working...

Bogie

*MPEG2 DVD quality settings, full NTSC resolution

Home rig: Abit IS7, P4 2.4C OC at 3.168GHz(264MHz FSB), 2XSamsung 512MB DDR 166, Maxtor 80GB 7.2KRPM, Samsung SD612 DVD drive, Matrox G400DH, PixelView BT878 capture card, SB Live! value, A4Tech 2Wheel mouse, IBM RapidAccess KB, Cambridge SoundWorks FPS1600, Philips ToUCam Pro Webcam, Antec SX1020 case

[Flying dutchman]

Thanks for this input.

I have a Terratec Cinergy and, though the hardware is excellent, the capture software sucks. I recently downloaded the latest version and it's even more unreliable than the previous version (drops a frame every 10 seconds, stops completely after a few minutes).


I'm now experimenting with a program called "Fly2000" and so far it's impressive. Very few frame drops, excellent user interface, good audio control, too!

[mits]

Hi FD,
I use either avi_io (most of the time) or virtualvcr. I have also tried iuvcr but i didn't like the audio sync and the frame rate was not exactly at 25fps.
Virtualvcr has an audio sync feature and you can capture in almost every frame size you want.
I usually use avi_io with Picvideo codec at Q20 and i have no problems. The only reason that i also have virtualvcr in my system is that i can not select the video system (PAL in my case) from avi_io. So what i do is : open virtualvcr, select video system, close virualvcr , open avi_io and capture.
(I capture through my new Asus 9600 XT an ati based card with VIVO using Ati's theatre chip).

[Flying dutchman]

Thank you Mits,

I also own Avi_io, Markus' masterpiece, but it doesn't work with WDM cards.

I've tried VirtualVCR last year but it dropped AUDIO frames which was unacceptable. Do you know where I can download a recent trial version?

I'm going to test Fly2000 more extensively this week, it looks very promising.

[Indiana]

Here, iuVCR worked MUCH better than VirtualVCR.

[mits]

FD,
here is the url for virtualvcr

http://virtualvcr.sourceforge.net/

and as far as avi_io is concerned i think that it works with wdm drivers since it works ok for me. (my setup is win2k with sp2, asus (or may be ati?) wdm drivers for capturing with 9600 xt and picvideo codec).

[Flying dutchman]

Hi Mits,

I couldn't help noticing the "sp2", you do know that sp4 is out, don't you?

[a_h]

Very interesting - nobody seems to care about comfort. Do you really capture like that? Sure if you start the recording by hand these ways are ok, but what if you don't want to stay up? The scheduling features I've seen are hardly worth to talk about.

In the german speaking part of europe tv-genial is quite famous (small prog that tells you what's on tv this week), so why it's not possible to program your recording session by just clicking on the film in tv-genial (sure some cooperation would be needed)?

Why isn't it possible to use showview?

I've searched for quite some time, but only found solutions to capture without nearly any frame-loss - that's great - but easy of use doesn't seem to be of great interest.

My 2 cents.

PS: the original pctv software from Pinnacle is quite ok, but they don't support capturing to HuffYUV (great lossless YUV codec)...quite sad, because I don't like Mpeg1/2 recording very much, the best feature is 2-pass (mulitpass) and thats of course not available during the capture, so I would have to capture with higher bitrates than I want to.

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by Flying dutchman
Hi Mits,

I couldn't help noticing the "sp2", you do know that sp4 is out, don't you?

I, too, use SP2. It works fine for all things video and if it ain't broke, well, I guess there's no point in buggering things up with extra Internet security on a computer that isn't connected to the Internet and never will be. Not to mention EULA issues.

[Jkun]

BTW, this Fly2000 thingie, I can only google up a Russian site that keeps telling me I'm not allowed to access the page.

Any alt adresses where to dl this?

J-kun

[Flying dutchman]

is http://www.auzol.narod.ru/index_e.html
not working for you?

[mits]

Hi FD,
i do know that SP4 is out there, and i have already downloaded it (and SP3 as well), but as Brian said since i do not surf on the net with that machine and have no problems with SP2, why should i upgrade to sp4 ? On the other hand i had heard some "horror" stories when SP3 first came out. Also i have to admit that ati suggest to install SP4 for their new catalyst drivers but since they work fine i can't find any reason (for the time being) to upgrade.

[Jkun]

Originally posted by Flying dutchman
is http://www.auzol.narod.ru/index_e.html
not working for you?

It wasn't at first, but it is now. Thanks!

J-kun

[gdf]

@flying dutchman

>recently downloaded the latest version and it's even more unreliable than the previous version

What latest version 3.22 or 3.23

George