USB Video Capture Problem

[sdculp]

I have Windows XP Home, Sp 3. My video card is an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 (includes TV). The audio card is a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio. The processor is an AMD Athlon 64 3500+. The mother board is an ASUS Tek A8V Rev. 1.xx.

In the process of trying to get VHS tapes into the computer to edit and convert to DVD, I gave up on the GeForce board and installed an AverMedia DVD EZ Maker USB Gold input device.

The capture software which came with the USB device is Cyberlink Power Producer 4 and does a satisfactory job of capture, except that the audio level is extremely low--too low to be practical. I’ve been through all the audio input settings in Creative and Windows, so that is not the problem.

I have other capture software, including Ulead Video Studio 11, ShowBiz DVD 2, Virtual Dub, Windows Movie Maker, Ulead DVD Movie Factory and Nero. Ulead Video Studio and Ulead DVD Movie Factory will capture TV with normal audio level but will not capture USB. Windows Movie Maker will capture USB video OK but not the audio and will not capture TV at all. Nero will capture USB in a single freeze frame but otherwise does nothing at all. Virtual Dub does nothing at all. And ShowBiz DVD 2 erupts into a weird, uncontrollable, runaway snapshot behavior. All of the software shows both the NVIDIA and the AverMedia device as inputs.

I have been working with NVIDIA and GeForce tech support for months to try and get updated drivers, but none will support the TV function and don’t help the USB capture. I went from motherboard audio to the Soundblaster board to try and solve the problem from that angle to no avail.

I have not tried updating the motherboard drivers or the BIOS, but don’t have much hope that it will help solve the problem. Failure to update the video board has been the biggest problem, but I don’t see how that would affect the USB. The USB seems to be the culprit, but I can’t figure out how to deal with it.

Can anyone suggest what might be the solution?

[soup]

I found this product that I have been using as of the weekend, with no problems.

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV-191-EF/intro/USBAV_191_intro.asp?pid=USBAV-192-EF

[sdculp]

Soup

Thanks for the reply. What model video card do you have? How much RAM is on it? AGP/PCIexpress?

When I first started on this project, I got a Pinnacle USB device. It completely blew my video software so badly it had to be reloaded. Best Buy took it back and I then got the present device.

My video card has 128 mb of RAM and is AGP. If I replaced it, I should probably get PCI express which would require a new computer. Also, it has TV, which means I would have to buy a TV device. I now feel that the combination of TV on the video card is a mistake as far as future driver updating goes. I had the same problem several years ago with my ATI All In Wonder card.

The Video Xpress device you have seems worth the risk. If I could just get by this present VHS to DVD project I would forget all about the problem.

[soup]

The machine I was running it on has an ATI Radeon HD 3870. The machine I am currently running it on has an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. I might have hit a snag on the one I am currently running on, because it only has XP64 on it, had a couple of blue screens.

[sdculp]

Your video cards are quite a bit more powerful than mine and are PCIe. I was reading a review of mine and it talked about audio/video sync problems as well as audio conflicts depending on which sound card was used and whether or not time shifting was activated. It's also a 3 or 4 year old design.

I sure would like to complete this project and go on. My system works fine except for this. I think it would be worth the gamble and try the Video Express unit. That sure beats a new computer with PCIe slot, a new video card and a TV unit! I'm reluctant to mess around with the BIOS and the motherboard drivers--too much chance of creating havoc. I try to remember "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and " Don't keep fixing it until it's broke".

[doctorhardware]

What you do is create a restore point before doing anything to the system. So if you have a problem with a driver causing the OS to be unstable just restore the system back to before you updated the drivers.

[soup]

The software that comes with is called MediaTV 3, seems quite adequate for the job. There is also CapWiz for VideoXpress, but again I think I ran into an XP64 problem, BTW I think I might have solved the other XP64 problem, at least I have done one now without incident since trying a couple of things. Done about 8 in total since getting this product. I still can't believe Windows wanted an unsigned driver over a WHQL driver on XP64, but if it works I am fine with it.

http://www.adstech.com/support/downloads/downloads.asp?product_id=USBAV-192-EF

[bretlee]

please go through this : altoedge.com/usbcapture/index.html

Thanks