easycap

[sbacc]

Hi there

I recently purchased and Easycap and I am trying to upload some files from my video camera. the file sizes are crazy large and i cant seem to find any setting that will reduce it. I have tried different programs and still no luck. Has any one be able to upload with smaller file sizes?

Thanks

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the Forums!

Unfortunately, "crazy large" for one person, might just be ordinary or even small for others... So essentially we have no information on which to base a sensible reply. And we also need to know if your EasyCap came with some version of Video Studio. If so, exactly which version?

And what kind of video camera do you have? If it is a digital video camera -- as opposed to an old analogue model -- you probably don't need the EasyCap device in any case! So can you tell us the brand and model of the camera, please?

I suspect you may have the device set to capture in raw .AVI format... If so, that could explain the "crazy large" as such files will take up 65 GB per hour of video... So depending on what you are trying to produce (e.g. a video DVD), then you would need to change the capture format to mpeg-2.

[sjj1805]

Just to give you an idea of file sizes for standard definition video.

uncompressed "avi" 65 GB per hour
DV (Digital-Video) 13 GB per hour
MPEG2 (The stuff that "DVD's" are made from) between 2 - 4.3 GB per hour
MPEG4 / DivX / Xvid (The stuff people share over the internet) = 700 MB per hour

High Definition will of course have larger file sizes - perhaps 4 x the size of the above.

[Accolades]

Just to give you an idea of file sizes for standard definition video.

uncompressed "avi" 65 GB per hour
DV (Digital-Video) 13 GB per hour
MPEG2 (The stuff that "DVD's" are made from) between 2 - 4.3 GB per hour
MPEG4 / DivX / Xvid (The stuff people share over the internet) = 700 MB per hour

High Definition will of course have larger file sizes - perhaps 4 x the size of the above.

So which one of these is 'CRAZY LARGE" ?

[patflan]

I use EasyCap with VideoStudio 11 when I am capturing from an analogue source and I select mpeg2 as the capture format.
The default setting, when capturing with EasyCap to VideoStudio, is AVI which would probably result in a very large file.

When the EasyCap is connected to your computers USB ,VideoStudio should detect it and the SOURCE should show up as a USB DEVICE in the Capture tab.
Underneath this you will need to change the FORMAT from the default AVI to MPEG in the drop down menu.
Then select OPTIONS >Video Properties>Input source COMPOSITE.

Under TEMPLATE pick from the drop down menu a DVD format depending on what screen size and quality you want -the larger the resulting Kbps figure shown ,the better the quality but with a corresponding larger file size.

To get a reasonable compromise between file size and quality I prefer to make a custom template by selecting the ADVANCE button.My selections here are, Video constant bit rate of 7000,720x576 frame size and Dolby digital audio 224 Kbps.
This may be slightly high for capturing from an analogue source but the above settings give me excellent video capture quality with a resulting file size of about 2.3G for a 45 minute video which, to me, is not too excessive a file size.

[sbacc]

Thanks for all your replies. I didnt know they were here, i wasnt getting notified.
Crazy large is probably the avi setting. I was not able to find anywhere to change that setting but will look again.
i was using Ver 11 and now have Ver 12.
It is an anolog video camera or i wouldnt need easycap.

[sbacc]

It all seems pretty simple but I am unable to change the format. The box is blank and the dropdown does not work.
Any ideas would be great.

[mitchell65]

Why do you want to change the format of the files you are capturing? If you capture to the format that the video clips were recorded at then that is the best quality. You can always render them to smaller files in the editing stage but by making the files smaller you will definitely loose quality, something most of us spend a lot of time and effort trying to avoid. You still refer to crazy large files and we don't know what that means. Post here the video length in minutes and the file size in MB of any one of the clips you have just captured and I reckon the general opinion here on the Forum will be that your files are no bigger than is to be expected. Try it and see!
BTW Easycap can be very troublesome you are much better off capturing via a Firewire card if you can!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

I have easycap 60, for the life of me I just cannot get it working, so your one step in front of me there, my system just freezes.

Are you sure that Easycap is supported/works with Windows 7 64 bit

Most people on this forum will not have used Easycap and as such will find it difficult to help.

If you are able to capture to Avi its probably uncompressed at 64 Gb per hour.
As a workround you could simply re-code this file to a more workable format.

I doubt if it’s a Video Studio problem but related to Easycap.
Have you tried Windows Movie Maker to capture your video, if this works without problems then we may look at VS further.

What version of easycap are you using.?

In an attempt to get my version working I found this site

http://www.szforwardvideo.com/support/Supp_2_2.html

[mitchell65]

Hi Trevor
I think the OP has got Easycap working Ok, The problem seems to be the large files it generates. I think this is quite normal. Having recently got into capturing via Firewire I am getting very large files but the quality is excellent. My point is it is easy enough to render to make the files smaller but the quality will go down.

[sbacc]

Im getting that 64gb for an hour is normal. I guess what Im looking for is how to change it and make the files smaller.
The format option is there but there are no choices.
it did work with video 11 but now that I have put Video 12 it doesnt seem to be working anymore. Im getting an error saying it is in use.
I dont have a version for easycap. I thought that was the hardware.

[mitchell65]

There is an excellent Tutorial by Steve that explains this subject perfectly. Go to this:
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=29031
and look for section 2. Capture
I thinkthis will help you!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi
You may have to use VS 11 to get these options, Corel have removed many of the user defined settings in later versions of Video Studio.
I don’t have the means to connect an analogue source to my pc, so cannot review these options, but were available on my old pc.

From the capture window if you select Avi as the capture format it will capture without compression at 64 gb per hour.

Press the ‘options ‘ cogwheel and select Video and Audio Capture Property Settings.
Are you able to select the Options Cogwheel????
A new window should open….
Select the Capture Tab

Tick the box to ‘Use Software Compression’
Select ‘Advanced’
From the following window change the No Compression to use ‘Microsoft Video 1’
There is another to use called Video Type 1 or something like that?????????????

These setting should capture at 13 Gb per hour which is standard DV size.

Back to VS capture page
If from the Format option you are allowed to select DVD, this will capture to Mpeg 2.
Again pressing Options to set the properties

[patflan]

Maybe unrelated to problems people have reported here about using EasyCap but might be worth mentioning.
As I said in my post earlier I am using EasyCap when capturing analogue only sources with VideoStudio and it is giving me excellent results and works everytime.I am using it with Vista.

However in the course of reviewing EasyCap before purchasing I came across a lot of reports about problems with it.
It seems there were a lot of cheap fake copies made of it which seemed to be some sort of cut down version and had all sorts of problems with capture under certain circumstances.
The result of all this was that the original manufacturer had to scrap it and bring out a completely new version with a new name called Ezcap.(and a new shape)
I purchased this new EzCap from this site http://www.ezcap.tv/index.html -no I am not trying to promote this supplier - I was even skeptical that USB2 capture and conversion on the fly would work -but it worked well and as I have said the capture quality is excellent with the settings I posted earlier.I am capturing to a fairly standard 3 year old laptop. (sorry I do not have laptop specs to hand at the moment).
I purchased it to avoid having to use a pass thru camera or capture card to capture from analog sources such as VHS tapes and recorded TV programs on a DVR box.(This latter meant a double conversion as it is converted from digital to analog when coming out of the DVR and even then I cannot see any difference in quality between my final converted to mpeg file and the original - by the way I found it too difficult to get digital directly from the DVR because of the strange video format the DVR uses).

The EzCap unit is very small and I am guessing that is why the default output is raw AV as it is physically too small to carry out heavy compression -it lets VideoStudio do the work.

I know this does not solve SBACC's problem as maybe that seems to be related to the use of VideoStudio 12 over earlier versions but if that is the case then the workaround would be to capture with VS11 and import mpeg2 video to VS12 if you still need the extra functionality of VS12.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi patflan

Thanks for the info very interesting.

Can you confirm that when using X2 you can only capture using raw Avi. There is no other options to setting the capture format.