Scuares on capture & Failed to build an MPEG

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:03 am

ANTECEDENT:

I have a PAL video Panasonic CAM. I use it with Video Studio 10 for one year with my old computer AMD 1,2Ghz processor/ ATI Radeon capture card, capturing composite video in PAL 720x576 format or NTSC 720x480 without any problem.

Recently I change my computer to a IBM LENOVO Pentium D, with a TVGo A11MCE capture Card, and the problems starts.

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:

Capturing in PAL format:

The capture works perfect, the result video file is perfect in quality and audio, but random squares (like squares pixels moving around ) are in the video.

Capturing in NTSC:

The following error display trying to capture:
¡§Failed to build an MPEG capture graph or unable to connect to the MPEG capture pin¡¨

Please Help

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:54 am

In general, you should be using the capture software that came with your capture card. (Some capture-software and capture-hardware just don't work well together.)

The capture card may not be able to capture both PAL and NTSC. If it can, it may not be able to convert on-the-fly... It will probably capture PAL broadcasts to a PAL file, and NTSC broadcasts to an NTSC file. The same is true for your camera. You will have to capture the camera as PAL, and then convert it to NTSC with Video Studio. (I've never tried that, and I don't know how much quality is lost by the framerate & resolution conversion.)

Don't run any other tasks during analog capture, and you may need to stop some background operations. The defects in the image are probably caused by the CPU being interrupted during capture.

If your Panasonic camera is digital, you should capure digtially. (Don't use the analog capture card with a digital video camera.) If it's a MiniDV camera, it should be connected by firewire, and you can use Video Studio for capture. A hard-drive-MPEG camera can connect via USB.

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:15 am

Do you read my post?...

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:16 am

aBy the way ... my card came with Video Studio Capture software. So ? What do you mean ?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:23 am

First, you have not told us some important information. Is your Panasonic camera a digital camera or an analogue one? If digital, does it use mini DV tapes, or is it a hard disk camera or one which uses mini DVD discs?

Doug was trying to tell you that if it is a digital camera, you should not be using the ATI capture card which sounds as though it is meant to capture from an analogue camera or VCR. If you have a mini DV digital camera, you should be capturing PAL DV using a firewire connection. You should also use the Type 1 DV Encoder for that, not Type 2 which quite often causes capture artifacts on some computers.

If it is a hard disk camera, you connect normally via a USB cable and download the video that way. If it is a mini DVD model, you finalise the disc then put it in the computer's DVD drive and import the video that way.

If your Panasonic is only an older analogue model, then yes, you would use your ATI card. But you don't tell us either what format you are trying to capture to. We need that information.

Finally, did any other software come with the ATI card? Quite a few manufacturers of capture cards provide their own software to capture with, and include an SE version of Video Studio to do the editing once the video is captured. Or did your card only come with Video Studio? If so, which version is it exactly?

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:04 pm

I think that in my first description I don¡¦t explain my self clearly. Let me try this way (Problems are occurring in my new computer):

1. WITH MY OLD COMPUTER, I don¡¦t have any problems capturing in PAL or NTCS using ATI card with my Panasonic NV-GS33.

System Description:
-------------------------
COMPUTER: Soyo SY-K7VTA Pro motherboard, AMD Athlon 1,2Ghz, 1Gb Ram, HD 40Gb
CAPTURE CARD: ATI Range Fury 128
CAMCORDER: Panasonic NV-GS33 digital/analog miniDV camcorder with composite and DV connectors
SOFTWARE: Windows XP, VideoStudio10
CONNECTOR: Analog Composite

2. WITH MY NEW COMPUTER, I have problems using TVGo card with my Panasonic NV-GS33.

System Description:
-------------------------
COMPUTER: IBM Lenovo J110, Intel Pentium D 3,2Ghz, 1Gb ram, HD 160Gb
CAPTURE CARD: TVGo A11MCE
CAMCORDER: The same Panasonic NV-GS33
SOFTWARE: Windows XP, VideoStudio10
CONNECTOR: The same Analog Composite

Problems Description:
---------------------------

a) VideoStudio captures perfect in PAL, but the result video have random squares pixels around

b) ¡§Failed to build an MPEG capture graph or unable to connect to the MPEG capture pin¡¨ error prompt when trying to capture in NTCS mode.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:07 pm

I'm surprised you ever captured as ntsc with a pal camcorder.
The two formats are incompatible.
For a PAL camcorder use on PAL capture settings.

The square blocks are probably pixelisation caused by dirty camera heads. Buy a tape head cleaner and use iot following it's instructions and try capturing in PAL again.

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:22 pm

1- Of course that i use PAL settings to capture, but the result file i recorded is in NTSC.

2- The pixelations are resulting in the captured file ONLY. In the preview window and the cam display THERE ARE NO PIXELATIONS. The Head is oK.

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:24 pm

By the way and again.... with my old computer there was NO PROBLEMS. The problem is on my NEW COMPUTER, so figured out.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:12 pm

"By the way -- and again...", we have already said that you should be using firewire and NOT the ATI card to capture from your camera, since we now know it is a mini DV camera. Firewire is the ONLY way you should capture from such a camera, and is the ONLY way you will get a high quality capture. If your computer does not have a Firewire connection -- and from what I can find, it does not come with one -- you have to have one added. I don't know where in the world you live, but in most places, Firewire cards are fairly cheap these days, and very easy to install in a tower case like the one you have. All you need is to put it into a spare AGP slot. Make sure you get a cable with it -- with a small 4 pin plug at one end to go into the camera and a bigger 6 pin plug for the computer.

You might think you had good captures from the ATI card, but you will see that those from Firewire will look far better.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:41 pm

NICOLASNY wrote:1- Of course that i use PAL settings to capture, but the result file i recorded is in NTSC..

Please explain how you did this, I'd be interested, to know how a PAL camcorder records in NTSC.

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:38 pm

Thanks all for you patience

I will respond to all your questions and suggestions, but first I will like to say that be FOCUS on the real problem:

** Why VideoStudio is telling me " Failed to build an MPEG capture graph or unable to connect to the MPEG capture pin " **

To Skier-Hughes:
=================

Go to Video and Audio Capture Property Settings:

On the "Source" tab:
Video input source = Video Composite
TV system = PAL

On the Capture tab:
Select DVD-NTSC

The program will capture a DVD-PAL source, and the recording result files are converted to NTSC. If that was a ATI feature, I don¡¦t know, but it works for me for one year, burning a lot DVD´s without any problems.

To Ken Berry:
==============

For one year I was capturing using composite video using my OLD COMPUTER. I don¡¦t know why you always are referring to the ATI card. The ATI card was in my OLD COMPUTER and it work perfect. In my NEW COMPUTER I have a TVGo card (its Genius not ATI). I know that if I had a firewire (Digital DV) connection, there will be a better quality capture, but thast is not the problem.

Forget about connections and cards (It works perfect to me for one year)

FOCUS ON ** Why VideoStudio is telling me " Failed to build an MPEG capture graph or unable to connect to the MPEG capture pin " **

bvideo · Post by **bvideo** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 8:01 pm

to NICOLASNY: the message about "Failed to build an MPEG capture graph or unable to connect to the MPEG capture pin" most likely comes from the failure of DirectX to find suitable software components to piece together to perform the capture and conversion from your new capture card to the video standard and format chosen. Your two different capture cards and two PCs come with different drivers that DirectX can select from. Perhaps your old card and PC came with more flexible software components, but this is only a guess. I imagine it would be difficult to explain it further.

"Graph" and "Pin" are DirectX jargon. For future reference, "graph" refers to a collection of software or hardware components (perhaps from several vendors) put together into a complex set of connections to perform a particular video and audio (and related data) streaming task, including conversions and synchronization. "Pin" refers to a generic concept of connection points in these software components. Now no one here can say they know less than I do about DirectX

.
Bill B.

NICOLASNY · Post by **NICOLASNY** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:23 pm

Thanks bvideo for my first real solution.

I will try to figure out all aspects about my DirectX settings, on the new computer. Do you have any clue to start ?

Best regard Nicolas.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:07 pm

NICOLASNY wrote:I know that if I had a firewire (Digital DV) connection, there will be a better quality capture, but thast is not the problem.

Forget about connections and cards (It works perfect to me for one year)

FOCUS ON ** Why VideoStudio is telling me " Failed to build an MPEG capture graph or unable to connect to the MPEG capture pin " **

Getting the best capture possible would be the most important thing for me, so using firewire would be top of my list.

If you didn't forget about the cards and actually used a firewire card you would get rid of your problem as you could capture as dv.avi, higher quality and infintely better - result no mpeg problem.

NICOLASNY wrote:Thanks bvideo for my first real solution.

I'll remember not to answer any more of your queries.