MovieFactory 5 - Imported MPG Video is Cropped

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:31 pm

When I import a mpg video (16:9, 1280x720) that I captured using my Haupauge HVR-1600, the video is cropped.

It is not like it is being cropped evenly on both sides either, it looks to me like it is zoomed in and only displays the top left of the original video. If I play the mpg file through WinDVD it plays back fine.

In MovieFactory, both during preview and when I burn it to a DVD I only get half the video. I have tried changing the aspect ratio in MF5 to 16:9 before adding the video and that didn't help either. Any ideas?

etech6355 · Post by **etech6355** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 5:13 pm

If I play the mpg file through WinDVD it plays back fine.
I have tried changing the aspect ratio in MF5 to 16:9 before adding the video and that didn't help either. Any ideas?

If you right click on the video and select "Media Properties" what are the video & audio properites of the recorded mpeg2 file.

Does it do the same if you switch to HD-DVD Project, but that shouldn't matter. Sounds like a combination between the way the video was transmitted, captured along with the capturing format.

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:00 am

Here are the details for one of the files (every video I import that was recorded from the HVR-1600 does this....but those are also the only 16:9 videos I have. 4:3 aspect videos seem to work fine)

Video type: MPEG-2 Video
Total frames: 2,068
Attributes: 24 bits, 704 x 480, 16:9
Frame rate: 59.940
Data rate: 12000 kbps

Audio type: Dolby Digital Audio
Total samples: 1,656,056
Attributes: 48000 Hz
Layer: None
Bit rate: 448 kbps

Also, when I view this file in windows media player 11, it tells me it is 1280 x 720, not 704 x 480.

And yes, I get the same behavior with an HD-DVD project.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:13 am

I did a quick test with my HVR1300 and set it to 16.9.
The file was captured with WinTV2000.
I imported it into DVD MovieFactory 5+
and also DVD MovieFactory 4 Disc Creator.

It imported fine with both versions.

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:33 pm

sjj1805 wrote:It imported fine with both versions.

So what could cause this and how do I go about fixing it? Is it most likely a problem with the video itself or my installation of MovieFactory?

etech6355 · Post by **etech6355** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:42 pm

It doesn't sound like MF.
I would check the format you have choosen in your capturing sofware to capture to.
I don't have the HD version of that card but do have the PVR150. You can make a custom capture format. Looks to me like your source video was 1280x720progressive and you captured it at the Standard Defintion framesize.
I get the same exact results if I capture from my HD box using the s-video connection because the SD S-Video connection is standard defintion and the videos converted down to SD, but it's not a real conversion because the video is really being resized inside of the HD's true framesize.

Check your capturing template formats and/or create a custom one in the Hauppauge capturing software.
Don't use Windows media player to test your videos because it will try to play anything and fit anything to make it look good on the computer. That's what it's suppoeed to do. Use Windvd or Powerdvd and tell the player to KEEP or Maintain original aspect ratio.
.

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:42 am

I tested the video in both WMP and WinDVD 4. WinDVD plays it totally fine as well. It was 1280x720 progressive scan source, and I believe it was recorded as that as well. It seems odd to me that both WinDVD and WMP show the video as 1280x720 (see below) while MF shows it as 704 x 480. It does appear that I only seeing the top 480 lines and leftmost 704 pixels, thus missing almost half of both the top and right of the picture.

Here is the video information in WinDVD:

Version:
4.0 DXVA B11.389
Navigation:
Type: MPEG
Region: 1
Drive: L:
TV System: Unspecified.
Video:
Hardware:
Vendor: ATI
Stream:
Type: MPEG2
Bitrate: 15.000 Mbps
Framerate: 59.940 Hz
Resolution: 1280x720
Aspect ratio: 16x9
Audio:
Hardware:
Audio Device: directsound
SPDIF: On
Number of speakers: 2
Stream:
Type: Dolby Digital (AC3)
Bitrate: 448 Kbps
Number of channels: 5
Sampling Frequency: 48khz
Sampling Bits: 16
Volume Boost: On
Quiet Mode: Off
LFE: Off
Prologic: Off
Dual Mode: Off
CPU:
Name: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3000+
Family:6(Gen:7) Model:10 Stepping:0
Standard Feature: 0x0383fbff
Instruction support:
Intel MMX: Enabled
Intel SSE: Enabled
Intel SSE2: Not enabled
AMD 3DNow!: Enabled
AMD Enh 3DNow!: Enabled
AMD 3DNow! Pro: Enabled

WinTV 2000 only gives me one option for recording format. Under MPEG settings, Quality Level, I have DVD 2048 bytes selected (the only option)

etech6355 · Post by **etech6355** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:21 am

WinTV 2000 only gives me one option for recording format. Under MPEG settings, Quality Level, I have DVD 2048 bytes selected (the only option)

That doesn't sound like a correct capture template for HighDefintion in that program.
In WinTV2000 if you click on "Pref" and then Movies, then "Quality Level" -> Advanced, look for any pre-defined HDTV Templates. They may be only listed under MPEG2 12Mbit/sec or MPEG2 15MBit/sec. Go into that section and click on one of the Mpeg2 templates then hit the "Video" tab, see if there's any HighDef Framesizes such as 1280x720 /1440x1080 / 1920/1080.

In WinTV2000 it's somewhat awkward to create and save a template. You must stay in the "Properties" Sheet. After you make custom changes to the video & audio section then click on the "Configurations" tab. Then "Save New Config" isn't highlighted until you type a new template name in the box and then hit the "Save New Config". If you exit the "Property Sheet" before saving the configuration gets lost.

I'm fairly sure you need to pick one of the Mpeg2 templates and not a dvd template.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:19 am

The Hauppauge Hybrid Video Recorders will allow you to alter the recording quality settings on Analogue channels only. when Recording from Freeview (Digital) the format is fixed at DVD 2048 bytes and cannot be altered.

Are you recording via WinTV2000 or from your Ulead software?

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:35 pm

sjj1805 wrote:The Hauppauge Hybrid Video Recorders will allow you to alter the recording quality settings on Analogue channels only. when Recording from Freeview (Digital) the format is fixed at DVD 2048 bytes and cannot be altered.

Are you recording via WinTV2000 or from your Ulead software?

That is correct. I can change the settings if I am viewing an NTSC analogue signal, but it is fixed for ATSC/digital. I am recording my video via WinTV2000. I am unable to import through the Ulead software. When I open up MF launcher and choose Import, I get a popup saying "Failed to initialize capture." followed by one that says "No capture driver is available in the system.". I never really paid much attention to that since I have always been able to capture video through winTV and my card isn't listed in the capture device compatibility list anyway. By the way I don't think I made this clear earlier, I have MF 5 SE, not MF 5 Plus. Would that make any difference?

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:53 pm

Anyone have any ideas? I'd like to submit this to Ulead's tech support but it won't let me register my product (I get an error page saying: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Could not allocate space for object 'register' in database 'ulreg' because the 'PRIMARY' filegroup is full.)

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:38 pm

By the way I don't think I made this clear earlier, I have MF 5 SE, not MF 5 Plus. Would that make any difference?

That could be it. Your version probably doesn't support HD. The "free" SE versions are limited, but I don't know what the limitations are. Each hardware manufacturer may have their own SE version. If that turns-out to be the case and if MF5 came with your capture device, I'd blame Hauppauge for that one...

Try downloading the trial version. It has limitations too, but I think it can import HD. (It may not be able to burn a HD Bly-Ray disc.)

I'd like to submit this to Ulead's tech support but it won't let me register my product (I get an error page saying: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Could not allocate space for object 'register' in database 'ulreg' because the 'PRIMARY' filegroup is full.)

'Sounds like a problem with the web site, but you might not get tech support with the SE version anyway... As a response, you'd probably receive a generic upgrade offer.

(Your SE version does allow you to get the upgrade price if you decide to upgrade.)

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:32 pm

I tried installing the trial version, and I have the same problem with that one as well.

Dobs · Post by **Dobs** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:08 pm

In case anyone was curious, I was able to figure out what was going on. The problem was with the header in my mpeg files. My HVR-1600 tuner was putting an 704x480 header on the file, even though the contents were 1280x720 (I stilll do not know how/why that happened). I was able to use any mpeg header editor such as Avestensione or DVDPatcher to fix the header and then it opened up in MovieFactory correctly without being cropped. Apparently some software, such as WinDVD do not care about the header contents and instead play the video based on the frame contents, while other software such as MF assume the entire video file conforms to the contents in the header.

tomw · Post by **tomw** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:38 am

I was more than curious about your resolution, because my Hauppage HVR-1600 is doing the exact same thing. Because of your outstanding troubleshooting and reporting, I can now easily fix mine using DVDPatcher.

I am currently discussing with Hauppage why their HD cards do not report out the correct resolution. Thanks for your help.