VS 10 SE irritants

Knoob · Post by **Knoob** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:22 am

Hi, I just got VS 10 with an EasyCap capture device. I am using it to capture VHS movies for backup to DVD. It works pretty well with a couple of newb issues. First, the Preview Audio box won't stay checked after I make a capture, so I have to check it every time before another capture. The Audio rate also wants to default to 64 some times, and I have to reset it as well. When I set the project properties, they don't all necessarily "hold" for the captures. Do I need to reinstall or am I missing something? One other thing is that when I start the capture, I get an error message that no signal or a weak signal is present, but the capture proceeds normally.
Thanks

alanball · Post by **alanball** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:34 am

Hi Knoob,
welcome to the web board. Normally you would use a capture program that comes with the capture device and then use VS to edit the video. USB capture devices are not very good particulaly cheap ones. If you do a search on the userboard you will find a lot of comments to that effect.

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 1:01 pm

Alan's perfectly correct here. I bought Easy Cap for abot 6 pound stirling on Ebay. It works faily well on most things but it is a bit unreliable. It works well one day and the next even if I give t a good kicking it just sits and looks at me! It looks like you have a special edition VS10 anyway. Might have a few "bits" missing!
You gets what you pay for

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:26 pm

Hi
I also tried EasyCap, wished I¡¦d saved my money.
Capturing video via USB is not the best option.

Another option may be a Camcorder that supports a process called ¡¥Passthrough¡¦
You connect the VHS to the cameras ¡¥AV In¡¦ terminal (composite cables) . connecting to the pc via DV-Out using firewire(I-Link)

Knoob · Post by **Knoob** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:59 pm

VS 10 SE was the capturing program that came with it. I got it from the mfg Forward Video in China. It is the latest version using the Empia 2861 chip. Actually I'm pretty happy with the results for the price. I did have the Hauppauge PVR-250 PCI device I used for this, but sold it. It also came with VS, but I couldn't get it to work well with it. The quality is just about as good with the USB, but it does use a lot of CPU power - nearly 50% while capturing to mpeg (2.6GHz P4 with 2GB ram, AGP 8 vid card with 512MB ram and system optimized for A/V - no internet, no antivirus, no cd polling, etc.). I may try reinstalling VS, or try some other software.

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:15 pm

Knoob wrote:, or try some other software.

I think your problem might be more to do with the capture device than the software!

Post by **Ron P.** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 8:39 pm

Have a read of a post on this other forum. It shows that they are very problematic. They simply are not very suitable for video capturing..

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic331168.html

Knoob · Post by **Knoob** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 9:27 pm

I haven't had these problems with the unit I have. Apparently not all "EasyCap" are created equal. I did some research before I bought one. Forward Video, the original mfg, claims that there are counterfeits of lower quality on the market that have hurt their reputation and so they have changed the name to EZcap. Also there are earlier models with different chips that wouldn't work with Vista, 64 bit OSes, xbox, etc. Before I got one I did read the forum at videohelp and this is why I got the latest version and from the original mfg - not one at ebay, but from a site that sells and ships direct from Forward Video. I am not trying to sell anyone on these, but to be fair, the only problems (annoyances) I've had seem to be with the software. I am going to reload it and see what happens. The quality results I got are fine and I can't tell the difference from the original VHS movies (the only captures I have tried). I can live with the annoyances if I have to. I am also going to google VS 10 SE and see what I can find out about it.
Thanks

Post by **Ron P.** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:23 pm

am also going to google VS 10 SE and see what I can find out about it.

This was the former Ulead web board, and I think most of us old timers here are very familiar with VS10+. I happened to be one of the Beta testers for that version.

The problem you're having is in the SE, which is a Special or Simple Edition run. They run these and sell them to hardware vendors. They will not be fully Featured, will not allow audio encoding of Dolby, and most likely have been tweaked by the hardware vendor to better work with their products.

One issue when capturing with a USB device is that they are known to have a problem maintaining a constant flow of data, ie; too slow. You're also doing conversion from analog to digital. This can pose problems if for some reason some other utility or program thinks it needs more resources during capture or especially while trying to render your project. Try to minimize process being run while capturing and editing video, since this is one of the most demanding on computer resources.

You might check to see if the drivers for your sound card are up to date, since the audio output from the EZcap is most likely going into your sound card. If not I'd explore that option.

Finally if you have not updated your DirectX recently, go HERE and do so. The most current is dated Sept 11, 2009. DirectX is not part of the automated Windows Update procedure. You must download it and run it from that link. For some reason. other updates seem to cause various problems, ie; break parts of VS..