Capture and DVD Quality

[ronack]

Okay I'm new at this and this is a basic question, I think.

Is the quality (resolution) of my video captured dependent on the capture device or the software?

I am capturing home movies from VHS Tape using a USB Capture device. I think it captures at 320 x 240 and that seems a little low.

They look great when captured on Video Studio 7 basic (the ver that came packaged with my capture device), but look horrible from the DVD on the TV. Now I should qualify this by saying I have a 72" big screen.

It doesn't look all that bad on the 7" portable DVD player but hey that's only 7 inches.

Also should I be creating using MPG or AVI?

Thanks,
Ron

[kebrinton]

Nothing will look good at 320 x 240. This may be a limitation of your USB capture method.

Firewire capture allows 720 x 480 which is TV quality essentially.

I would advise capturing in DV-.AVI and, after all editing is accomplished, rendering to a new .MPEG2 file, and then authoring a DVD using UVS9.

[Ken Berry]

IMHO, it's a combination of both factors you cite plus, of course, the quality of the original video. And there are a number of variables with analogue video. First, assuming that the original video taken with your analogue camera or the VHS on your VCR, is of good quality, there are a variety of ways of getting good quality digital video from it. Some people use their digitial video cameras, connected to the computer via Firewire, as a pass-through device. This is the most direct method and allows capture of DV/AVI format which is possibly the best format for any capture (though some would argue with that). However, not all digital video cameras will allow pass-through. And some would say that it is a silly way of using a very expensive device -- at least, expensive compared to the next option, which is a dedicated analogue capture device.

Some people have cards added to their computers for this (I have a Winfast DV2000 which also includes TV. I find its quality to be excellent, but others will have their own favourities). I also have a stand-alone box which takes the place of the digitial camera described above, but it only captures in MPEG format and I now tend to use the internal card instead.

Now another matter. Regardless of the device used, there are different ways of connecting your analogue camera or VCR to the capture device. Some analogue cameras and (most?) VCRs have S-video sockets, and if so, you should use this as it provides the best quality -- though make sure the audio is connected separately as S-video carries a video signal only. But you also need an S-video plug on your capture device -- otherwise, many people (me included) have found that if you use an S-video to RCA connection (yellow red and, if stereo, white plugs), you risk getting video only in black and white.

The other normal way of connecting your analogue camera is using RCA plugs at both ends (or RCA at one end and a standard 12 mm 'stereo'-looking plug at the other end which carries video and audio signals). The quality from an RCA connection is less than from an S-video.

Some stand-alone boxes also have their own methods of getting the audio signal to the computer. Mine, for instance (the stand-alone box, not the card), connects to the computer via USB ports but the audio goes through a separate cable from the box to the computer's LINE-IN port.

As to capture quality, as I said at the outset, capturing in DV/AVI format will give you the best quality, though the capture files are huge (around 13 GB per hour) by comparison to capture direct to MPEG-2 (which is the DVD standard). And many would say that if you don't intend to do much editing, capturing direct to MPEG-2 is more than good enough for analogue video.

Another factor to influence your decision is that even the best quality analogue source will have a digital quality equivalent to probably not much more than 5000 bps, so there is probably not much point in capturing at a higher rate than 6000 bps. Converting analogue to digital cannot improve the original quality of the video, only get as close to it as possible. For most people, indeed, 4000 bps is probably acceptable quality for the final DVD using originally analogue video.

The frame size you cite does sound rather small, but I can't say much more than that as you don't indicate either what device you are using or which country you live in (which influences the exact frame size of smaller formats). I am not surprised, in any case, that your final DVD would not look to good on a large format screen.

Does your capture device have any in-built software, apart from VS 7 SE Basic? My Winfast card, for instance, came with VS 8 SE, but since I already had the full version of this, and now VS 9, I ignored it. But in installing the card drivers, a Winfast capture program was also installed which is really excellent and allows me to alter nearly aspect of capture format and quality. When using that card, I nowadays always use this inbuilt program to capture and then do my editing in VS 9.

Another factor which might affect how your device sets the quality of capture, including frame size, is whether your computer has USB 1 or 2. If it is only USB 1, then it simply can't carry the volume of signal of a larger, higher quality format, and thus defaults to a much lower quality. In that case, I would seriously consider adding a USB 2 card to your computer.

Good luck!

[ronack]

The device just says High Speed USB Video Grabber, OEM to Compusa.

I am in the U.S.

Yes I have USB 2.

I understand I wont improve the quality of the orginal.

What I am seeing is pixilation. (the small digital blocks).

I'm looking at the little manual and it does say Max Resolution is 720 x 480 pixels at 30 frames per seconed USB 2.0 320 x 240 at 30 frames per second for USB 1.0. So it would appear that I have it plugged in to the wrong USB port, I have both. so I'll try it in another port.

Thanks for your help, I'll try and come back with an update.

[THoff]

If the device isn't plugged directly into a USB 2.0 port on the motherboard but plugged into a USB hub (even if it is a USB 2.0 hub), be aware that the port on the motherboard will be forced to drop down to the slowest speed used by any device plugged into the hub. Thus, a USB mouse or keyboard could force the video capture device to run at USB 1.1 speeds if they are all plugged into the same hub.

There are a few USB 2.0 hubs that avoid this problem by providing a separate Transaction Processor for each port on the hub. The best-known of these is the Belkin Tetrahub.

[ronack]

Turns out I didn't have the drivers loaded for the Adaptec USB 2.0. Now that I have them installed and the device is recognized as a USB 2.0 device it is better.

However I can now only get 640 x 480 but I am using s-video. At least it's better than 320 x 240.

Also I start the capture and within a few minutes I get an error that there was a problem with the file and it stops the capture.

[ronack]

Here is the error that I am getting.

[THoff]

Do you hear a Windows Plug-and-Play sound just prior to getting that message? You might be running into USB bus contention or a USB power consumption problem. Either can cause a device to drop off the bus.

[ronack]

Well I had the sound turned down but you may be right. What's the solution?

[ronack]

What happens is it runs for about a minute then flashes a black screen for a fraction of a second then I get the error. The video continues.

No lost connection sound.

By the way, I tried it with Windows Movie Maker and what happened there is at the time it drops out the video is very choppy. (maybe dropping frames). However Windows Movie make just kept recording and playback was ok. So the problem must be with Video Studio. I would upgrade to ver 9 but I can't afford that right now.

[THoff]

1. Try plugging the capture device into a port on the motherboard of its own if it currently is plugged into a hub.

2. Avoid using other USB devices during the capture if at all possible, including mice and keyboards, but especially USB mass storage devices like external hard disks.

3. Keep an eye on the CPU and memory utilization using Task Manager. If the CPU can't keep up or Windows needs to swap because your system is low on physical RAM, your system may not be able to keep up with the capture.

[ronack]

1. Try plugging the capture device into a port on the motherboard of its own if it currently is plugged into a hub.

I don't think my motherboard has USB 2.0 I have installed an Adaptec USB 2.0 adapter card. I

2. Avoid using other USB devices during the capture if at all possible, including mice and keyboards, but especially USB mass storage devices like external hard disks.

Wasn't using anything else should I unplug them?

3. Keep an eye on the CPU and memory utilization using Task Manager. If the CPU can't keep up or Windows needs to swap because your system is low on physical RAM, your system may not be able to keep up with the capture.

Will do.

Do you think ver 9 would work any better?

[ronack]

It appears that the CPU can't seem to keep up. Memory is fine but as soon as I start the capture, CPU Utilization jumps to 95% - 100% and bounces around a bit until it crashes the capture. Didn't have that problem with USB 1.0 at 320 x 240.

[Ken Berry]

In all of this exchange, you have never actually told us what your computer specifications are, particularly the CPU. RAM and motherboard.

[ronack]

2.8 GB AMD Sempron 1gb FSB 400 RAM, motherboard is a uGuru Abit NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra400/MCP-T Chipset.

It does have USB 2.0 on board but it's not optimized.