Capture problems - TV screen good, video output bad

[rodgreen]

I am capturing a VHS tape and I have this problem.

When you play the tape in the VCR and view it on the TV, the picture is OK but when I capture that video (through the Video Out on both the TV and VCR), the signal quality is very poor and I'm dropping heaps of frames.

Then, when I view the captured AVI, it appears in 'slow motion' and subsequently out of sync with audio which sounds normal.

I tried putting the video out through a 'video enhancer box' (a mixer box I bought from Tandy with manual slides for volume, etc) but this did nothing.

I suspect the audio/video sync problems are related to the poor signal I am getting out of the VCR/TV.

Any ideas why the TV looks good but signal terrible? Also, how can I fix this?

Rod

[elfredo]

Are you using the same video-out for capture and monitoring at the SAME time? If so, I suggest to seperate this because the signal weakens when splitting into two lines. Try monitoring over the antenna-out of the vcr during capturing at the video-out.
Hope this helps

Friedrich

[Raido]

How do you play the captured avi ?
I had a similar problem in playing huge wmv files with Win Media player 7. I though the files were corrupted but when I increased the player buffer size (10-15 secs.) everything went OK.
Bye
Raido

[rodgreen]

Friedrich:
Yes, but I do this all the time and have no problems. I also tried your suggestion (just had the VCR connected to the Marvel box) with the same result.

Raido:
I captured in MJPEG using the Marvel PC-VCR as well as AVI_IO. Played back using PC-VCR and WMP. Same result. The capture is around 25 minutes long at PAL 352x288 so the file is only around 800MB.

I think the quality of the tape is the problem, but I can't work out why it looks perfect on my TV but doesn't capture correctly.

When capturing I can see it great on the TV but on PC-VCR or AVI_IO it looks like when you're watching a video where the tape is tight and distorts the picture.

I'm not sure if it can be fixed?

Rod