Poor Quality using Pinnacle8 USB

[lingoguysw5]

I need to enhance the quality of my videos and am absolutely stuck as to what to do next. The image once avi'd or mpeg'd, burned to cd remains blurred and pinnacle is supposed to do it all for you. I've tried HQ makes no difference. I feel the settings or something should be altered or I need a better capure device. If so, could someone plse tell me how I should alter these settings or what capture device I should consider? Deeply in your debt. Thanks Clive.

[sfheath]

What source of signal are you using?
Have you got your hard drives set for DMA?
Are we talking USB1 or 2?
Are you formatting for VCD or SVCD?

[lingoguysw5]

Thanks for getting back to me I am actually using a USB capture lead and have tried saving my tape with pinnacle's "create an avi, mpeg and cd/dvd. I have even tried capturing with similar software i.e Moviemaker, Sonic and the picture quality is still bad. I don't expect perfection at the price I paid but this is absolutely appaulling. I used WMP and others to view the result before I burn to disk and it is just a little better on the pc, no doubt that's down to its smaller screen. You asked about DMA I have checked and they are not available it seems, it says PIO only if that makes any sense which currently are not set. I hope that you'll be able to help with the info I have provided. I must admit I am still a bit of a novice but am getting there slowly. Thanks again. Clive

[sfheath]

I'm really out of my depth here not having delved into capture.
I've searched on Pinnacle 8 USB and have come up with two devices, the Studio Moviebox which sadly gets rather negative reviews from what I've seen and the Dazzle series which I have seen good reports for.
The DMA switch on the hard drive access would give you the fastest access times for streaming the video into your machine. Most people stream it as uncompressed AVI just so they get everything since this is time dependant.
Next comes the compression/encoding to whatever format you're aiming for eg mpeg2 for standalone DVD compatibility.
An alternative capture software you could try is VirtualDubMod. If it detects your device it should load your system less than say Pinnacle.
Step 1 then is to get the footage onto your PC so it previews as near as possible quality to the original.
You haven't answered my question regarding USB 2 ?

Also, could you let us know your PC speed, RAM etc?

[rsquirell]

Pinnacle picked up Dazzle and dropped support for all but 2 of its products...the DVC-80 (USB1 320X240 external device) and the DVC150 (USB2 720X480) device. The 80 is cheap....but only gives you a blurry copy. The DVC-150 will give you quality that looks as good as your source VHS tape....I know that Pinnacle9 claims to stabelize jittery video...but generally, you can't improve on your source capture. If you bought the cheap DVC80 trade up...or quit complaining.

[sfheath]

thanks for the info rsquirrel. I was somewhat surprised to see the Dazzle on the Pinnacle site - I must get out more

[lingoguysw5]

sfheath I am not sure if my drives are set to DMA it just says under the Advanced settings "DMA if available" and as for USB1 & 2, I thought u meant what ports am I using? If not then I don't know what you meant. Forgive me I am not a computer wizard yet still learning a great deal. Now you mentioned Virtualdubmod and I gave it a try, the pic is much better as good as the source, however I need to know what I can do with its settings as it has no audio on playback and once burned with vcd or svcd I get static noise accompanied by coloured squares. What might that be down to? If I can get audio and get rid of the squares I'd settle for that I reckon. I am not sure if I am using the best codec for audio and video at present they are preset to uncompressed and PCM. I've tried extracting the audio from virtualdub and even reformatting it to mp3 and there is still no sound except the static noise. Perhaps u might be able to help here. Thanks again Clive. Sorry to be a pain but I am sort of new to all this.

[sfheath]

We are all new to this strange black art Clive!

I was referring to the standards of USB1 and 2, 2 being in the region of 40 times faster. If you read rsquirrels explanation you will see the picture sizes are different in league with the speed of the interface.

"DMA if available" is fine I'm sure.

I'm sorry to say I'm not very familiar with VirtualDubMod as my practical DVD work is mostly with an already encoded mpeg2 stream. For DVD standalone compatibility you need to aim for mpeg1 for VCD, or mpeg2 for SVCD/DVD. Maybe TMPGEnc Plus would be more appropriate.
VirtualDubMod is a very powerful but somewhat complicated tool for first-timers

[rsquirell]

Identify the external device you are using to capture on your USB port (tell us!). Read your computer documentation and see if that USB port is 1 or 2 and tell us! If it's a DVC-150 device and the port is USB1, then your problem can be solved by buying a USB2 PCA plugin card...or by capturing at a lower bit rate....but since you left the 2 crucial elements out of all of your posts, and after repeated requests haven't identified your USB port, I'm beginning to think you are a troll.

[lingoguysw5]

rsquirell I am using a Pinnacle linx lcapture device with composite cables as my capture device, sorry if this wasn't clear in my earlier post. I have a Dell Dimension 8300 Series OS Microsoft Intel Pentium 4, 8 DMA channels. As for the ports it says I have 2 front-panel and 6 back panel USB 2.0- complaint connectors, so I guess that means I am using USB port 2 doesn't it? Call me a troll or whatever, but that still does not make me any more the wiser. Some of us have more to learn than others. No doubt this plugin card you talk about might be the answer. How much would I be looking at? Or I could pursue the VirtualdubMod option if I work out the no audio and static problem. The capture device by the way I connect it to 1 of the 2 front ports but in the device manager it appears under sound and games controllers

[rsquirell]

If you have USB2 ports you don't need tosupplement them with a card with more. I have absolutly no experience with your linx external device...you might want to check ouy the forums on www.pinnaclesys.com and talk with someone who does. Generally, pixcellation occurs when trying to capture at too high a bit rate....you can get DVD resolution with a bitrate as low as 2500kbps. You might also try capture at 320X480 ( which is also DVD compliant.) Unplug any USB1 devices (ie. printer) when you capture (just by having one connected could make all the USB2 ports think they are USB1 and assume those properties. Your device is most likely a MPEG2 capture device (if its an MPG1 or AVI device you're only going to get blurry capture) and as such you must capture with the software provided by Pinnacle (manufacturers write their own MPEG2 standards...and others won't work with it)...so a VDMod option is out.

[lingoguysw5]

You mentioned that Pinnacle has its own MPEG2 standards and therefore other softwares won't work with it. Well I have proved that theory to be inconclusive. I have managed to capture using Pinnacle Linx hardware capture device and other software's i.e. Sonic, WMM and burn/save files to both avi/mpeg1/2,cd/dvd but not to my satisfaction. This could be, as you mentioned cos other hardware is still plugged in i.e. printer, camera and the resolution I might have used. As for the bitrate I was advised to increase the bitrate to at least 8000 min using tmpgenc but I will try by decreasing it and see where it gets me. The Studio 8 reviews I've read comes over as very poor and other capture sources are strongly recommended. I might add when it comes to analog/dv camcorders the results are acceptable.

Just one more thing to reiterate even with VirtualdubMod it will capture with a pinnacle studio linx capture device, which indicates to me that the hardware in this case wouldn't really matter, but I best not count my chickens before they hatch I have still alot to read upon this subject.

Thank u for the guidance you've offered me up to now & "Time will tell" Clive

[rsquirell]

AHA...if other capture software recognizes the device for capture then it must be included in DirectShow (like the DVC-80) and is designed to be an AVI capture tool with 320X240 resolution...and you can use VirtualDub (NOT VDMod) to capture. It ISN'T an MPEG2 device...and your vids will be blurry by design...and you can run it on USB1 ports because it won't capture at high bitrates and doesn't need the extra speed. I'm afraid your video quality problem is built-in.

[atifsh]

ok i find pinnacle software very disappointing when it comes to encoding mpeg2. the result always sucks... even with pinnacle 9.

what u can check here first is , try to get / capture avi file un compressed and see how good that video looks. if it looks any better then ur captured files, then use ul;ead video studio 8, cyberlink power director 3 or even cinema craft encoder trial to get the best ever quality form ur avi file.

but if ur captured avi still looks blury then u need to either replace ur capture device or leads or even the inputs ur using, like incase of usb 1/2 try to get dv input aka ieee 1394 firewire if ur camera is dvcam.

i found my old snazzi's capture card worndrfull, but after i hav sold it for money, my simple firwire card input to dv avi and cenema craft encoder giv me same if not betterquality, ofcourse in trade of time, as previous one was hardware encoder. thus realtime encoding.

[lingoguysw5]

Well I invested in Adaptec VideOh 1100 (although I still have pinnacle 8 Studio and the s/w for VideoStudio 6) & this so far has been the best option even though the pic quality isn't all that. I am not going to invest more just for some vids. All I need know is to know how to clean it up satisfactorily. I don't know which filters I should use in virtualdub or tmpgenc to stop it jumping/flickering. Also is there a compressor which would reduce the size and perhaps improve the pic? Do I change the framerate which for TV broadcasts is showing at 15fps. I changed it once to 25fps for The Hitcher and messed around with what filters I could understand. with tmpgenc and it took 15 hours for a 90 min movie without adverts to download. So I really need some good advice here. I am not after top quality. Can I change it to divx cos I have a divx player? Let me know if u have any good advice especially with the settings cos I have never done vhs tvvrecordings to dvd apart from the one I mentioned. Thanks Clive