Cannot start the capture graph

[sdculp]

I have not had any difficulty capturing composite or TV signals in the past. The TV and composite signals play OK. However, when I try to capture, I get the message "Cannot Start the Capture Graph".

What has happened and what can I do about it?

Thank you.

Stu Culp

[pdibarto]

Stu,

A number of us have apparently seen this error. I, specifically, get the error when I try to capture to MPEG. Capture to AVI, on the other hand, works without a hitch.

Video Studio 'moderators' (read 'experts'),

How many people have to get this error before you think Corel will address it? While I'm here, one more question about my issue that maybe you can answerwhen you address Stu's problem: Could XP Service Pack 3 pose any problem? Given that I have used VS11.5+ MPEG capture successfully before as well as the fact that VS9, Pinnacle 10, and Pinnacle PC HDTV USB Ultimate Stick all burn to MPEG without incident, and my computer is working fine and experiencing no other OS issues, I'm wondering if Service Pack 3 could be an issue. (Clutching at straws here, guys )

[Black Lab]

When will Corel address it? Does Corel even know about it? Have you submitted a Tech Support Form for this problem? The reason I ask these questions is because we are all users like yourself. None of us work for Corel, nor do employees of Corel visit this forum with any frequency.

As for SP3, I think this problem has been around since before SP3, so I doubt it has anything to do with it. It is more likely the new capture plug-in VS had to use because of Vista.

[sdculp]

Thanks for your experience with AVI. I tried AVI and it seems to work OK, but none of the others, including MPEG, work.

Strange, though, it did work ok with MPEG in the past--I can't remember exactly when--but I'll bet it was before SP3, which was installed automatically. I suppose I could remove SP3, but wouldn't dare touch it. Enough problems, already.

I can capture MPG/MPEG ok with ShowBiz DVD II, and the NVIDIA tuner card with no problems. I really think it is a Corel issue.

I have posed the problem to Corel, but they ask questions I've already answered plus they want to know what type of hard drive I'm using as well as what kind of cables come from the camera as well as other stuff. That doesn't sound promising, but I'll play along with it.

Stu Culp

[pdibarto]

I have also posed the question to Corel as well as advising them that the messages on the forum concerning this issue are becoming more and more frequent. So...we shall see how they respond.

Paul DiBartolo

[pdibarto]

Corel has responded regarding "Cannot start the capture graph." As our moderators have informed us here, VS 11.5 Plus is using a new capture plug-in. Support claims that the issue has been reported to the development team and as a work around suggests I use VS 9 to do my capturing.

I'm not sure why this was done (possibly to accomodate Vista ) but you don't break something that is working and then leave customers hanging with such an ineffectual reply. Maybe I should use another product to do the caputure and then while I'm at it just use that product for the edit as well.

I'm sorry but it doesn't require the ability to perform brain surgery to understand the concept that you don't leave the customer hanging without an adequate fix.

[sjj1805]

pdibarto & sdculp

Please click here --> so that we can then view your system specifications.

You also need to read
Please Read This Before Posting

What TV Cards do you have installed?
Have you tried capturing with the software supplied with the TV card?
You should find that the supplied software (used to actually view the TV broadcasts) will provide better recording than VideoStudio (or any other similar software). Consider "other software" (such as VideoStudio) as a general purpose recording software for a wide variety of TV cards and other devices, where the supplied software is specialised for that particular piece of hardware. Once recorded it can then be imported into VideoStudio / MovieFactory etc for editing and creation of a DVD.

[pdibarto]

Okay, it's been a while now but I believe I got started with Video Studio (version 5 or 6) because it was bundled with an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder graphics card. Since then I have paid to upgrade to each new version with the exception that I skipped over version 10.

ATI has since moved away from Graphics/TV cards so I am currently using a Pinnacle PCHD USB Ultimate Stick for computer-TV viewing. It came with Pinnacle 10 and, in fact, I could upgrade that to the latest full version but I don't see that as being much different than VS with the exception that the problem with MPEG capture might not be an issue. If, in fact, I do feel the need to capture a TV program I use the Pinnacle Stick's native capture program. That is not my issue. My issue is when I want to capture DV footage from my Canon Elura80 video camera over firewire. The camera is bundled with ArcSoft software, in particular PhotoImpression 4 and VideoImpression 1.7. I have never been impressed with ArcSoft; are you suggesting that I use VideoImpression 1.7 instead of VS 11.5+ as my capture software?

[Ron P.]

Not necessarily since it is a miniDV and has Firewire to transfer the video to your PC.

If you're having problems with VS capturing, Try using the free capture utility called WinDV. It works with Firewire only, and captures DV. Several of us use it over VS or MSP capture.

Once you have the video on your PC, then you can use VS to edit..

[sdculp]

It's been a while since my original post. Been busy. Sorry about that.

I did say that AVI seemed OK. Wrong. I captured a bell choir event in AVI and the video/audio was 'way out of sync. Unusable.

The comment about using VS 9 instead of VS 11 for capture sounds like a copout. Those of us who bought 11 don't have 9.

I still have to work things out with tech support. Hopefully they will have solved the problem by the time I get to it.

Stu Culp

[Black Lab]

The comment about using VS 9 instead of VS 11 for capture sounds like a copout. Those of us who bought 11 don't have 9.

That was in reference to pdibarto's problem, since he does have v9.

[sdculp]

I received a couple of replies from Corel on this subject which you may find interesting. I¡¦ll just include the entire thread. The Corel replies are discouraging, and I would have expected more from a company with their reputation. It appears to me that they know what the problem is and don¡¦t plan to do anything about it. The issue of hardware vs software decoding devices is particularly bad. I can just imagine communicating with ATI to try to solve this one, and, besides, how is one to know in advance which capture device uses which technique? They sidestep the issue neatly by recommending other capture devices and then use ¡§Video Studio to edit the captured video¡¨.

Stu Culp

Subject
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Cannot Start the Capture Graph

Discussion Thread
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Response (N. Duay) - 07/30/2008 03:48 AM
Dear Stuart,
Thank you again for your email.
We have reviewed your e-mail and determined that you have a particular capture device that supports hardware compression capturing. VideoStudio supports analog capture devices with WDM drivers which enables the device to capture in software compression mode. As long as you have it installed properly, then VideoStudio should be able to detect and use it. You may contact your capture card's manufacturer for this driver for your particular capture card. For unsupported capture devices which uses hardware encoding on capturing, we suggest to use its bundled capture software for transferring or videos into computer. Which technically recommended because it also supports most of the device's unique capturing features thus, gives you the best results on its captured video.
Then, use VideoStudio to edit your captured video.
Should you have further inquiries, do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,
N. Duay
Corel Customer Support Services
Customer (Stuart Culp) - 07/29/2008 02:38 PM
Thank you for your response and the discussion of AVI and MPG recording. Nowhere, however, do you address my problem directly or suggest a solution. You do seem to imply that I need 40 gig or more for a video project or that I may lack system resources or speed. I do not feel that these apply in my case, because:
The VHS files in question are only about 3 minutes in length. I use C: for the program and G: for the data. Both of these have more than enough space for 3 minutes of encoding. The resultant MPEG file is only about 500 meg in length, for instance.
I have no problem capturing in MPG with my video card software.
The processor is an AMD Athlon 64 , 2.2 ghs, which should be adequate for what I am doing.
The error signal says ¡§Cannot start the capture graph¡¨ which seems to me to be improper for an ¡§insufficient memory¡¨ problem.
Your discussion does not address the out-of-sync audio/video problem with AVI. I do not understand how this relates to your discussion.
Please advise.
Stuart Culp
Response (N. Duay) - 07/29/2008 03:58 AM
Dear Stuart,
Thank you getting back to me again.
Capturing of video from analogue device in Mpeg format requires much of system resources than saving of video in AVI (uncompressed format) because MPEG files are compressed. That means MPEG2 video have frames that with incomplete in formation. To save space, sections or parts of the clip that did not change from the previous frame are not saved.
These may be called B or P frames. Frames with complete information are called "i Frames".
If a non-i-frame is used for editing, the video quality will probably decrease; as well as having a possible problem with the audio/video sync. It will also require heavy CPU usage because of decompression/compression process thus increasing the possibility that the encoding will fail. The drawback for using RAW AVI is the hard disk space requirement.
You may need about 40 GB or more as workspace for a single DVD project. Although the quality will be at its best the success rate will be good. So invest on a high-capacity hard drive (internal) if you are serious about video editing.
NOTE: Most MPEGs are "inter-frame" encoded, that means compressed in the way I have explained above (with I, B and P frames). However, there are some MPEG files that are "intra-frame" encoded - which means the video clip only has i-frames (complete information).
Should you have further inquiries, do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,
N. Duay
Corel Customer Support Services

[Black Lab]

For unsupported capture devices which uses hardware encoding on capturing, we suggest to use its bundled capture software for transferring or videos into computer. Which technically recommended because it also supports most of the device's unique capturing features thus, gives you the best results on its captured video.
Then, use VideoStudio to edit your captured video.

That is exactly the advice you will find countless times on this forum. Use the software that came with the device to capture, then import into VS for editing...

[sjj1805]

In fact this is what I had posted BEFORE his long post!

pdibarto & sdculp

Please click here --> so that we can then view your system specifications.

You also need to read
Please Read This Before Posting

What TV Cards do you have installed?
Have you tried capturing with the software supplied with the TV card?
You should find that the supplied software (used to actually view the TV broadcasts) will provide better recording than VideoStudio (or any other similar software). Consider "other software" (such as VideoStudio) as a general purpose recording software for a wide variety of TV cards and other devices, where the supplied software is specialised for that particular piece of hardware. Once recorded it can then be imported into VideoStudio / MovieFactory etc for editing and creation of a DVD.

[mikerg]

This may help solve the problem...

I have been using Ulead Video studio since V6.
I recently Upgraded from VS10 to V11-Plus and everything worked perfectly. Both Firewire and composite captures gave no problems.

I then upgraded my PC and had to re-install VS11-Plus..
The upgrade consisted of Motherboard, Processor and Memory (Kept the same Graphics Card)

Following the re-installation, I couldn't capture with firewire, each time I tried I got the "Cannot Start the Capture Graph" error

I googled the problem and looked at many forums where people were having the same proplem for about 3 days. I then sent a support request to Ulead/Corel, which I haven't had a reply from yet..

After trying to work out was different, I remembered that I hadn't re-installed VS10 since the rebuild whereas it was installed on the old system, because I hadn't bothered to uninstall it.

I re-installed VS10 and I can now capture using firewire in VS11 without errors.

Does this help the technical people out there... What does VS10 install that VS11 doesn't.

My problem is solved because I don't mind leaving VS10 on the hard drive if thats what it takes to make VS11 work.

I hope this has helped someone

Happy Christmas to ALL
~Mike~