Unable to capture video from analog source (VCR)

bryonfoos · Post by **bryonfoos** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 6:42 am

Nature of the problem

I am unable to capture the video portion of a videotape from my VCR. At the same time I am able to capture the audio portion.

I have the following setup:

I have an HP Media Center PC. Windows XP
Hauppauge Win TV PVR PCI II video card.
RCA cables from audio out on VCR to microphone in on PC.
RCA cable from video out on VCR to video in on back of PC.

The VCR is turned on, push play on VCR.
Ulead 10 is on, under capture tab...the video that I want to capture is shown on the preview screen. I can hear the proper audio coming from my speakers. Under Source on the ulead screen it gives the Happauge info. Under format it says AVI.

If you click on options and video and audio capture property settings, you will see this, video inputs source = video composite, tv system =NTSC, audio device = Realtek AC97, Input source = Stereo Mix

When I click on capture...the duration begins to count up...leading me to believe that Ulead is capturing the video and audio properly. I click on stop capture...and then go back to replay what was captured. At this point only the audio portion gets replayed. The thumbnail for the file also shows only a half grey, half white symbol.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 7:23 am

Because of differing time zones, the people who normally react to messages concerning Hauppage cards are probably asleep right now. So I will jump in with some interim advice. I seem to recall that there is some incompatibility between Video Studio and the Hauppage card. No doubt someone with such a card will give more detailed advice when they come on line. But in the mean time, the usual advice given to people with your capture card is to use the software which came with the card to do the actual capture, then import that captured video into Video Studio for editing.

By the way, while not totally certain of this, I suspect that the format you have set for capture is uncompressed AVI, which produces huge files -- around 65GB per hour of capture. Others will give you better advice, no doubt, but given that you are capturing from an analogue source, you might be better capturing to DVD-compatible mpeg-2, with a bit rate of no more than 6000 kbps.