Video won't capture (only audio)

[Believer]

(Go easy on me please... I've been capturing for a very long time but have never been very sophisticated, nor have I had to. Whew.)

A couple months ago I ditched my Win98 machine for a new Dell WinXP Pro but kept my beloved G400TV. I managed to get the PCVCR by Adis loaded and my 704x480 capture from VCR was working great. Then...

I had to tear down the machine for a few days. (Didn't crack the case, just power down & disconnect everything.) When I brought it back up it nearly quit capturing video. I say "nearly" because it's hit-or-miss (mostly miss). The audio's there, but screen is black. I've tried every different (NTSC) setting I can find in PCVCR (not that there's many). I get the video in the on-screen preview window, too, just not there when I record.

Kind of aggravating when all I did, as far as the PC shoud be concerned, is power down and back up, eh?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Brian Ellis]

I don't wish to appear Bolshie, but isn't it time you retired the Marvel? It never worked properly even with W2k and how many years ago did that come out, let alone XP Pro? This is no matter what hacked software you use.

There are other much better, more modern, solutions available which DO work with XP with no hassle.

I got rid of my Marvel 2 years ago and the only regret I have is that I didn't do it earlier.

[Adis]

Double check the video cables... maybe something's not conected properly...

[Believer]

Brian: Not to appear Bolshie either , but I'm surprised a SuperMURCer couldn't do better than "buy something else." The reason I *finally* got a new XP Pro machine to replace my Win98 is because I'm under church budget constraints. <sigh> (I did manage to squeeze in an upgrade to Premiere tho!) However... if this G400 continues to give me fits and cause me too much frustration then I will take your recommendation under advisement. (While we're on the topic: got any suggested replacements & costs?)

Adis: Good advice. I should have thought of that, especially since that's the only thing that really changed. If I can see/hear the picture on the preview window, though, shouldn't I be able to capture it? I'll get back to y'all after I get home tonight & check the connections.

[Adis]

Sorry, I didn't see this:

"I get the video in the on-screen preview window, too, just not there when I record."

[Brian Ellis]

Well, this Bolshie is very happy with what he used to replace the Marvel. He put in a cheapo IEEE-1394 card (any make) @ about $39 and connected it to a Canopus ADVC-100 "black box" which will effectively replace the Marvel BOB in function, about $200, I think. The quality is superb and the ease of use, compared with the Marvel, is stupendous. As you use the moniker Believer, you will believe me, when you have tried it No more lost frames or asynch audio. And only 13 Gb/h of hard disc!

[Frank Marshall]

@Believer

The ADVC is a fine product and it gets rave reviews from the press and users alike but you sound like you're on a tight budget so I thought I'd comment.

I recently upgraded to what I'm quite sure is the cheapest possible analog VES solution for the win2k/xp platform; a basic ATi Radeon ViVo card (not the All-In-Wonder). I haven't done any video work with it yet so I cannot comment on that side of the equation but the twin-view works fine and the picture is just a smidge less sharp than the G200 Marvel I was using until recently.

The ATi ViVo solutions are conceptually very close to the discontinued Matrox Marvels but they are fully win2k/XP compliant and are much more powerful 3d gaming cards if you're interested in wasting your time like that... The 9200pro ViVo is dirt cheap too, I bagged mine for 130AUD (~80-90USD)

Like the Matrox Marvels, ATi ViVo cards are a combination graphics card with Video capture and output added onto the board. Unlike the G200/400 though, there is no hardware codec. Compression is done with software and the computer's cpu, as was the case with the G450/550TV models. If you want TV-in functionality as well, ATi offer the All-In-Wonder series.

God bless.
<><

[smitty]

I don't know if ATI has changed as of late but I have installed quite a few of them and they didn't even come close to the older Matrox RRS in video quality. Many problems with screen sizing and artifacting.I can't suggest this as a solution. Frank I understand the suggestion is to accomadate Believers wallet and seems you agree with the ADVC100's reputation however I agree with Brian the best solution is a firewire connection which you (Believer) may already have and an ADVC100
When building anything there are things you can scrimp and thing you should not. I suggest this is one thing that will make your life easier if there is any way to come up with the coin.It certainly isn't much more than a new card.
In the mean time, it sounds like capturing is the problem, can you output video ok? have you played the captured files with another player such as media player? Have you tried running the capture program under simulated win98 as this is possible with xp pro?
smitty

[Frank Marshall]

@smitty

Yes, the ADVC100 sounds like a great device going by the rave reviews it gets at videohelp.com but it's much dearer than the ATi here in Australia, about four times dearer in fact.

At this time I cannot comment about the ATi's video capturing ability due to problems I've had migrating to win2k from win98se. From what I've seen at videohelp.com though, getting the ATi ViVo's to work well seems to be a matter of merely using something other than the MPEG2 capture program that was formerly supplied with them.

My card came with a light version of Ulead VideoStudio 7 and I have a copy of the PICvideo codec, so I'm expecting good things.


@believer

Do your attempts at capturing create avi files on your capture drive? If so, have you checked the file properties to see if the picture is there? Have you tried capturing with programs other than PCVCR?

[smitty]

Frank-- thanks for the info, the price difference is not so great in Canada . I don't know where Believer is located , I suggest he could check prices in his area and decide from there.
The ATI s I set up we were doing uncompressed captures and although the video was acceptable for average use ,it just didn't cut it when viewed with a critical eye.Often colours &brightness would shift slightly requiring time in post to correct.The ADVC100 just plain first time ,everytime with extra time required in post .
Just makes life simpler and as I am getting older I tend to go for the low maintenance route . Now if I could lay down astro turf and not have to cut grass??????
thanks
smitty

[Adis]

NO NO NO NO NO, don't use stupid ATI
cards if you want to work with video!

ATI never maked serious card
for video, only cards for gaming.
ATI makes graphic cards for kids.


ADVC100 is great!

[Believer]

Adis: LOL! Now there's a resounding endorsement!

Guys: I'm still here, just happened to be sidetracked. It's rare that I don't do vidcap from videotape every week, but I happened to get a couple weeks respit. I still plan to post an update to the situation soon... thanks for sticking with me!

I will say that last time I fiddled with this, with no changes to my system, here's what happened: PCVCR is reporting zero frames captured (I wasn't paying attention to that before) on MJPG. Out of desperation I switched to YUYV -- PCVCR did capture the video so I switched back to MJPG and then it, too was capturing! I plan to try this process again after a cold boot, etc. to see if I can find any pattern to the behavior.

[Sciascia]

I was a diehard G400 guy myself, but the piss poor Win2k driver situation sent me packing. This is my second ATI card and it works great. The drivers are solid, I can capture to MJPEG or MPEG2 at DVD resolutions and it looks a lot better than the G400 did and it doesn't drop any frames at all. HW compression is dead thanks to the speed of modern processors. My G400 served me well, but it is not in the same league with the new ATI cards as much as that pains me to say.

Now this is a very unfair comparison, I bought the G400 back in something like 1998 and the AIW 9700 Pro in 2003 so I would hope that there is a difference. MPEG2 at 8m/sec vbr, 720*480 and 48kHz audio makes DVD authoring quite nice. Edit with Womble MPEG2VCR so that there is no rendering to edit out commercials and it is so much faster, easier and better quality. It isn't as much fun as it used to be though, it is almost too easy. No more hacked drivers and using Virual Dub to frame serve to a good encoder, tweaking the filters to get the right balance of motion with no interlacing issues...it used to be fun, now it just does it all for me.

[Believer]

Hi y'all... looks like I've been negligent again (in staying on the thread). Been getting by lately with the YUYV capture as the MJPG is still unreliable. But YUYV creates massive files and PCVCR appears to be hanging after 1gb file limit is hit.

I read back thru the thread; to answer the suggestions and questions:

@smitty
"Can you output video okay?" In general, Yes. Oddly enough, though, when I get a good capture with PCVCR and try to immediately play it back it doesn't come up on the video out. Tried playing back with both PCVCR and Media Player. The produced video (Premiere Pro) comes up though. (I capture video clips, set in/out, transition, etc. and put back to tape.)

"Have you played the captured files with another player such as media player?" Yes, and I get black screen with audio. An AVI is created, but you can tell from the file size that it has no video.

"Have you tried running the capture program under simulated win98...?" Intriguing idea! Just tried that and got an error that the program won't even start, possibly because I already loaded the XP hack. If I get desperate, maybe I'll uninstall/reinstall default 98 stuff and try again.



@Frank
"Do your attempts at capturing create avi files on your capture drive? If so, have you checked the file properties to see if the picture is there?" (see answer under @smitty)

"Have you tried capturing with programs other than PCVCR?" Nope, don't really have anything else. (Premiere and Windows Movie Maker don't appear to recognize the card as a capture source.)



Okay, so as I'm trying all this stuff right now, doesn't it figure that I'm not having any problems! (I did say earlier that it's hit-or-miss.) Thanks for all the recommendations for ATI and ADVC100. I haven't heard anything bad (in here) about the ADVC100. Turns out someone I work with uses one for his vidcap needs. I like the idea of the vidcap device separate from the video card; makes it easier to upgrade video. And $200-300 may be do-able in the near future.

Thanks a ton from everyone who piped in... not sure where this leaves me with my original problem so I'm still open to other suggestions.

[Frank Marshall]

You could try capturing with VirtualDub - it's free, just google to find it. Though it's forte is video processing (and therefore it will be useful to you anyway) it readily captures video and gives you heaps of feedback about what is going on while it's doing it...