VT Adjust - TV Tuner Capturing in DiVX

[Ryan]

Hi there,

My problem is as follows:

I have a WinTV PCI stereo TV card with wich I am trying to capture TV progs with Virtual Dub and the following occurs with every Codec I use (e.g. DivX 5.02, Xvid, DivX 4 Low motion)

When I record a prog, after some time, the VT - adjust starts to display a slowly increasing number of milliseconds of adjusment of the audio stream, wich leaps up to over 200 in half an hour. If I replay the prog the sound is sometimes clearly out of line with the video and sometimes it stays reasonably synchronized.

I know that this can be caused by settings for to high compression but the CPU indicator does not exeed 50 % and there are no frames dropped.
I do not compress the audio stream (32000 kHz 16 bit PCM) because that only worsens the problem.

Also I can not exeed 80 Kb of compression for audio
(e.g. DivX WMA audio V2 : 128 Kbps 44 kHz Stereo 16 Kb/s) virtual dub sais I do not have enough audio buffers. I have tried a lot of options and tried to make a compromise featuring quality vs speed but I think there is something else wrong cause I got a reasonably fast PC.

What I would like to know is if there are some settings that I didn't discover that can solve this problem especially the part with the audio buffer.

Here are my specs of capturing and my PC:

Platform: windows XP home edition (set on best performance and system restore off and no screensafer or standby)
Program : VirtualDub
Format : 384 * 288 YUY2 (1/2)
Audio : 32000 kHz 16 bit PCM
Video : (e.g.) DivX Pro 5.0 Codec; 25 fps; 1-pass; Use GMC; Use bidirectional encoding; Bitrate 5000; max keyframe interval 10; All frames are interlaced

Note that 1-pass is the only setting that works properly here.

Under settings I tried Lock audio to video stream but that makes no difference and for Drop % limit I used 10; 1 and 0 with no results.

For the rest I used the Codecs Default settings.

My PC consist of:

Asus P4B533E motherboard
P4 2.4 GHz
512 MB DDR ram
Matrox G450 Millenium 32 MB
80 GB NTFS Harddisk (partitioned in 4 partitions of wich I reserverd one 20 GB partition for movie recording only)
Terratec DMX6Fire 24/96 Soundcard (with master clock set to 32000 kHz - sample rate locked)
Hauppage WinTV Stereo FM tuner card.

I also tried to use the BT8X8 tweaker function, (placed Virtual Dub into the installation directory of Dscaler) but it doesn't work.

Well thats a storie ain't it

Any help is welcome or links to manuals that discribe this problem. Unfortunately I did not encounter this problem during a fast scan of the topics but I am sorry if I am asking something that is already explained..

Greetings Ryan

[techno]

good system, good card, my fav card personally. how many times do I have to tell ppl NOT to capture using a codec!

if u capture and encode at the same time using a codec, u will LOSE quality. Capture using these settings:

352*288/320*240

YUY2/YUY12/YUV12

NO RECOMPRESSION

30fps

CD QUALITY uncompressed audio

file size will be big, so use AVI_IO to capture over several file and files are about 650/minute but then, encode to ur desired output

and capturing under no recompression will give u near DVD quality results, depending on source.

Techno

[apcunningham]

I record a lot of TV and Videos and stuff I have over 300 cds worth of it. The best way I have ever found for recording TV is to use a program called Showshifter and compress while recording so that I do run out of hdd. I compress the video with divx 4.02 and the audio to ACM PCM (1411Kbs Stereo 44100Hz 16). I also use a divx calculator for movies so that I get the best quality I can and the file at the end of recording is about 1.5gb for a 90min movie and anything above 120min usally is about 2gb. Then after that I go into VDUB and compress the audio to mp3 at, for a movie, 128 kBit/s, 44100 Hz, Stereo, and the movies then come out at about 700mb for 1 cd. Now with normal TV I compress the video to 428 kBit/s, and the audio with ACM PCM (706kbs Stereo 44100Hz 8). Then once I have recorded the tv I go into VDUB cut out the ads and compress the audio to mp3 98kBit/s this time because I do all normal tv at a lower quailty so that I can fit a series on one cd.

Yes you do lose quailty but not that much with the TV setting I use it is fairly noticable but the Movie settings I use it harder to notice. Also to record from TV you need Good reception or the file size goes through the roof and the quailty through the floor. Now if your recording from a Camcorder you will want to use technos method.

Showshifter is a great program for recording TV. You can also set it up to record a show while you sleep. You can also get it to record two or more show in one night while you sleep and Showshifter will change the channel for you. Showshifter is a TV watching program so its also great if you use a remote control with your Computer like I do with my other one.

Also recording live you can not use the computer you are using to record with or you will drop frames. I use a 1Ghz Duron with 40Gb HDD to record from my pay-tv provider. I use pixel view TV turner card, so it isnt the greatest card but it works great for me so if you have a better Tuner card you will probley get better results.

[techno]

tut tut tut...DIVX v4

tut tut tut

tut tut tut


tut tut tut

[Ryan]

Almost there

Ok, I fully agree with techno. To record uncompressed and then, when the record is finished, compress, is the best solution. I do get near DvD quality then. But the problem that I encounter then is that I can only record (about) 20 minutes on my 20 GB partition with 25 FPS.

You said something about AVI_IO. I don't know what that is (yet) but a link to an explanation or a short explanation from you is allways welcome.

So: I would like to be able to record 4 hours (that covers about all movies with commercial breaks and sometimes even a newsbulletin in between them) on a disk off 20 gig and if possible (but not necessary) to have some room left to put the compressed movie as well (2 gig or so)

I also tried a framrate higher then 25 but when I capture it sticks to 25 (could be a limitation or setting of the codec itself and I can't remember if I tried it without compression (at work now ) )

About what apcunningham said, thanks for your reaction. Now I know that my settings are not wrong. I use mainly the same settings as you do (or tried them). I will lookup showshifter and try it. I also tried the record funtion that came with my TVview software of my TV card (WinTV2000 record) but that gave an unsattisfying result (choppy playback of the video)
I did a quick search for the Fraunhofer mpeg III VBR audio codec but didn't find it yet .

Nevertheless I still would like to use Virtual dub because of it's open source character, continous developments and improvements, realtime indicators of audio and video filesize, streaming, record time etc.

Cya laterz Ryan.

[techno]

....

nice words thanks

right AVI_IO is a program that captures over several files, on the fly:

https://www.nct.ch/multimedia/avi_io

remember to set the max size per file to about 3995MB

you can also compress the audio, while capturing to MP3 128kbps 44100Hz

what u said about the 20 min thing is true, same thing happened to me when i first started to capture, you can try to convert to NTFS and see if that will help (I am sure it will)

u can try to capture using the DIVX 3.22b codec (scene detect patch), but u will lose some quality, but it's better than other codecs, if u wanna capture using a codec.

if u wanna capture using that, :

75 crisp
5844 bitrate.

good luck

[Ryan]

Thanx

Ok I will try everything you said.
Further more the 20 minute limit. I did convert the partition to ntfs but did not try to record uncompressed yet, I did it becaus I was told it works faster.

So I will try that. But, although I'm not entirely sure at the moment, my dicovery was that I couldn't record longer because the filesize was 20 GB (I literally saw the Indicator shoot away with 400 MB/min or so....) It could be that that recording was with Full image (768 x 487 (dunno the right numbers at the moment))

Thanx for your time

[techno]

your very welcome I'm here to help

remember, capture in a smaller res 320*240/352*288, same quality just that it won't make such a bigger file size...anyway, i'll leave u to it


*EXPERT IN CAPTURING....DO NOT DISTURB*

teheheh

[UncasMS]

mjpeg picvideo2 is a very good codec for capturing and NOT running into terrabytes as opposed to huffyuv.

[techno]

rusm....fusm.....bloody... only joking

damn..i got this thread... j/k

but we want quality

[UncasMS]

well, you really gotta be joking!


talking about quality and proposing settings like these:

352*288/320*240

and btw: setting picvideo2 to the max really prduces very good material, are you sure you ever tested it?

[techno]

!!!!!!!

UnCASMS...that is quality.

u c, the way I do it anyway, it does produce top quality at that res, I then encode to MPEG2 a few times, then to DIVX...works out perfect for me.

you go try it, buy the hauppauge wintv go pci card and capture using those settings, I am sure u will be impressed!

o, and even tho if we capture at a different/higher res using those settings, it's the same quality! but file size will be huge in seconds

[UncasMS]

i do have a tv card and i did do some testing

and thus i do know that a small resolution is quite fine (still bigger resolution is better in terms of details and sharpness) but i wont let you get away with a statement that picvideo2 in particular with a small resolution IS NOT good quality, because i very well know it is.

[techno]

good to see ur getting into capturing

only for capturing it is good, of course, not for DVD!

however, everyone has their own opinions.

I have a video to proove that the res is good...after encoding several times to MPEG2 and then DIVX...


anyway..let's not baffle, up 2 the user But yes UnCASMS, u r right

[UncasMS]

i didnt mean to battle nor to pretend to be omniscient, all i wanted is suggesting another codec, that might come in handy for those who want a balanced output file in terms of filesize vs quality.

and i do consider mjpeg picvideo2 with setting of 17 or more a very good choice for capturing and later processing to divx.