MMC 8.8 newbie requests reassurance I'm on right track

[Diane]

Head spinning from lurking, Googling, digging in archives, dvdrhelp, doom9,
and lordsmurf during the month - but feel like I'm making some progress. <g>
Many thanks to all who have blazed the trails!

Like 5 billion others here, my target is to convert camcorder Hi-8 and VHS
home movie tapes to DVD. Rather than risk my old tapes right now, I'm
trying to learn terms, techniques, & tools by capturing & re-capturing movie
clips.

Q1: Are the MMC 8.8 presets (specifically the "DVD" and "DVD high") good?
LordSmurf didn't think too much of ATI's presets - but that may have been
for earlier MMC versions.

Q2: Should I be able to see a difference with light Soap on/off for
satellite capture (mine's C-band=big dish analog)? Hi-8 camcorder video?
Old VHS video camera stuff? I guess I don't have much of a feel for what
Soap's doing/filtering... Links?

Q3: The only difference I see between the "DVD" and "DVD high" presets is
that the Video Encoding Parameters/Target bit range is 8 for "DVD" and 6 for
"DVD high". That should mean that the file size of a movie captured with
"DVD high" should be smaller than if it's captured with the "DVD" preset,
right? I'm assuming that a higher value of "Target bit range" gives higher
quality. Right?

Q4: Is there a function/program to see what preset/values were used on a
captured mpg? Ah, duh, I captured a movie twice to test preset differences:
once (I thought) with "DVD" and once with "DVD high", but file sizes (after
trimming with mpeg2vcr) are not what I expected - by a long shot. I would
expect there's a Properties somewhere that I'm just overlooking.

Q5: Is there a log somewhere that (can) record the Dropped Frame value for a
capture? I don't see the value if I've used the scheduler.

Q6: Reality check: Have I missed something in this line of reasoning so far?
I plan to capture directly to MPEG-2 with MMC 8.8. I do not plan to do any
editing except cut & trim before authoring. My equipment is: Asus A7V with
Tbird 1.3, 256 MB PC133 ram, AIW Radeon 32, SB Live 5.1, W2k, separate
master IDE 30-80 GB drive (removable mobile rack) on 2nd channel for
captures. So far with a dedicated machine w/o lan connected, I usually get
1 or 2 frame errors just at the start of a capture using Composite and the
"DVD" preset.

Q7 I've given up for now on AVI capture -> MPG. Captured OK using
VirtualDub/Huffyuv2 (or was it MMC? I've forgotten...), however, there was a
slight, but noticeable audio synch problem after using TMPGEnc to go to MPG.
(This was immediate off-sync, not the 1/2 hour creep to out of synch) Since
I'm not planning to edit anyhow, this doesn't SEEM like a problem, and it's
a lot faster. However, if I have tracking problems with my old VHS tapes
latter (which I sadly expect to see), will AVI be the route needed for tools
to work on this?

 

[xman Charlie]

Why don't you go buy "soap" and try it out on some video...its only about
$300....

my 2 cents

 

[Diane]

Why don't you go buy "soap" and try it out on some video...its only about

$300....

my 2 cents

huh? If it's a joke, I don't understand it. If it's serious, I don't
understand it.

 

[Laurence Wilmer]

Head spinning from lurking, Googling, digging in archives, dvdrhelp, doom9,
and lordsmurf during the month - but feel like I'm making some progress.

Many thanks to all who have blazed the trails!

Like 5 billion others here, my target is to convert camcorder Hi-8 and VHS
home movie tapes to DVD. Rather than risk my old tapes right now, I'm
trying to learn terms, techniques, & tools by capturing & re-capturing movie
clips.

Q1: Are the MMC 8.8 presets (specifically the "DVD" and "DVD high") good?
LordSmurf didn't think too much of ATI's presets - but that may have been
for earlier MMC versions.

Q2: Should I be able to see a difference with light Soap on/off for
satellite capture (mine's C-band=big dish analog)? Hi-8 camcorder video?
Old VHS video camera stuff? I guess I don't have much of a feel for what
Soap's doing/filtering... Links?

Q3: The only difference I see between the "DVD" and "DVD high" presets is
that the Video Encoding Parameters/Target bit range is 8 for "DVD" and 6 for
"DVD high". That should mean that the file size of a movie captured with
"DVD high" should be smaller than if it's captured with the "DVD" preset,
right? I'm assuming that a higher value of "Target bit range" gives higher
quality. Right?

Q4: Is there a function/program to see what preset/values were used on a
captured mpg? Ah, duh, I captured a movie twice to test preset differences:
once (I thought) with "DVD" and once with "DVD high", but file sizes (after
trimming with mpeg2vcr) are not what I expected - by a long shot. I would
expect there's a Properties somewhere that I'm just overlooking.

Q5: Is there a log somewhere that (can) record the Dropped Frame value for a
capture? I don't see the value if I've used the scheduler.

Q6: Reality check: Have I missed something in this line of reasoning so far?
I plan to capture directly to MPEG-2 with MMC 8.8. I do not plan to do any
editing except cut & trim before authoring. My equipment is: Asus A7V with
Tbird 1.3, 256 MB PC133 ram, AIW Radeon 32, SB Live 5.1, W2k, separate
master IDE 30-80 GB drive (removable mobile rack) on 2nd channel for
captures. So far with a dedicated machine w/o lan connected, I usually get
1 or 2 frame errors just at the start of a capture using Composite and the
"DVD" preset.

Q7 I've given up for now on AVI capture -> MPG. Captured OK using
VirtualDub/Huffyuv2 (or was it MMC? I've forgotten...), however, there was a
slight, but noticeable audio synch problem after using TMPGEnc to go to MPG.
(This was immediate off-sync, not the 1/2 hour creep to out of synch) Since
I'm not planning to edit anyhow, this doesn't SEEM like a problem, and it's
a lot faster. However, if I have tracking problems with my old VHS tapes
latter (which I sadly expect to see), will AVI be the route needed for tools
to work on this?

Gspot I've used before to see which codec is needed to view a movie - it may
tell you other things you want
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Only thing I'd say you haven't mentioned is that ATI formats like AVI tend
not to be useable by TMPGEnc and other utilities.
Personally I'm using the highest MPEG-4 640v576 from MMC8.8 and am quite
happy with it.

If you have got a combination that works I would stick with it.
Laurence

 

[Paul Grunwald]

Head spinning from lurking, Googling, digging in archives, dvdrhelp, doom9,
and lordsmurf during the month - but feel like I'm making some
progress.

Many thanks to all who have blazed the trails!

Like 5 billion others here, my target is to convert camcorder Hi-8
and VHS home movie tapes to DVD. Rather than risk my old tapes right
now, I'm trying to learn terms, techniques, & tools by capturing &
re-capturing movie
clips.

Q1: Are the MMC 8.8 presets (specifically the "DVD" and "DVD high")
good? LordSmurf didn't think too much of ATI's presets - but that
may have been for earlier MMC versions.

Q2: Should I be able to see a difference with light Soap on/off for
satellite capture (mine's C-band=big dish analog)? Hi-8 camcorder
video? Old VHS video camera stuff? I guess I don't have much of a
feel for what Soap's doing/filtering... Links?

Q3: The only difference I see between the "DVD" and "DVD high"
presets is that the Video Encoding Parameters/Target bit range is 8
for "DVD" and 6 for
"DVD high". That should mean that the file size of a movie captured
with "DVD high" should be smaller than if it's captured with the
"DVD" preset, right? I'm assuming that a higher value of "Target bit
range" gives higher
quality. Right?

Q4: Is there a function/program to see what preset/values were used

Gspot I've used before to see which codec is needed to view a movie -
it may tell you other things you want
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Only thing I'd say you haven't mentioned is that ATI formats like AVI
tend not to be useable by TMPGEnc and other utilities.
Personally I'm using the highest MPEG-4 640v576 from MMC8.8 and am
quite happy with it.

If you have got a combination that works I would stick with it.
Laurence

I don't have a specific recipe for you since I have not made the DVD
write plunge yet but I have found this site a great help for DV/SVD
recipes: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

HTH,
P.

 

[Diane]

Head spinning from lurking, Googling, digging in archives, dvdrhelp,

I don't have a specific recipe for you since I have not made the DVD
write plunge yet but I have found this site a great help for DV/SVD
recipes: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

HTH,

Yes, I know - I said that at the beginning of the post. I've spent hours
and hours and hours there. It's great, but, to paraphrase what someone else
recently said, "it's hard to find a needle in the haystack when you don't
know what the needle looks like"... I think I know what one kind of needle
looks like now, but is it the right one? <g>

 

[ME]

Yes, I know - I said that at the beginning of the post. I've spent hours
and hours and hours there. It's great, but, to paraphrase what someone else
recently said, "it's hard to find a needle in the haystack when you don't
know what the needle looks like"... I think I know what one kind of needle
looks like now, but is it the right one? <g>

I've spent many an hour and dollar pursuing the same thing as you.
For VHS or TV I capture to computer (via AIW 8500DV on P4 2.6Ghz 512
Mb DDR 3200). I don't like the DVD presets in MMC 8.8 so I adjust the
bitrate so captures fit 2+ hours per 4.7 Gb DVD-R. I captured
interlaced video on my PIII (but I de-interlace on my new P4). I
like "video soap", though I wasn't able to run it effectively on my
PIII 1.2 Ghz machine (hence the upgrade to a P4).

Original box: PIII 1.2 Ghz, AIW 8500DV, on Intel MB, 512 Mb PC133,
MMC 8.8 XP Pro, NTFS, OS HD and capture HD are separate (both 7200
rpm)
-Dropped frames "<1%", did better on defragged capture HD
-Wouldn't run very many filters in video soap without dropping more
frames
-Didn't do any justice to Hi-8 captures (artifacts galore-quick pans
don't help the situation)
-Better captures (fewer dropped frames) when captured interlaced

This setup did pretty good captures of TV and VHS content. When
authored and burned to DVD they looked pretty good.

1st solution: Bought a AVS Instant DVD 2.0 - but caused A/V syncing
issues, so I returned it.

2nd solution: Upgraded box: P4 2.6C, AIW 8500DV on Asus P4P800 MB, 512
Mb DDR 400, MMC 8.8 XP Pro, NTFS, OS HD and capture HD are separate
(both 7200 rpm)
- No dropped frames, (exception: dropped frames when captured to a
fragmented drive - this was expected though).
- Video can easily be captured with de-interlacing on.
- Video soap can be used with nearly every setting turn on.
The kicker...
- While it did look appreciably better, Hi-8 captures still didn't
look "right". The AVS Instant DVD, though un-synced, showed me that
the captured Hi-8 video could look nearly identical to the source
tape. With filters (video soap) on the captures definately had fewer
artifacts, but just didn't look fluid or real when played on a DVD
player. By the way, TV and VHS captures look great (even better than
on the PIII). A lot of noise can be filtered out with video soap.

3rd solution: Bought a dedicated DVD-Recorder (Toshiba D-R1).
I wouldn't say it does a better job of copying VHS, but my Hi-8 copies
look fantastic. The copies look just like ("just like" is a
subjective phrase-it means I can't tell the difference) the source.

I spent too much time and way too much money to find all of this out.
However the upshots are: I wanted to upgrade the computer anyway, DVD
authoring is much faster, cutting commercials from AIW television
captures (via either Womble MPGVCR or TMPEG DVD author) is much easier
than the set top DVD-Recorder. I don't, and won't, have to buy a DV
camcorder. And I think the list goes on. I have the best of both
worlds now and I can record TV content to the AIW and D-R1
simultaneously (has come in handy many a prime time evening). The
D-R1 has the advantage of no authoring and subsequent burn required.
Discs do have to be finalized before being played in another stand
alone player, but this is only 1-2 minutes. The downside is in terms
of editing, is only DVD-RAM content can be properly edited on the
D-R1. So I record to DVD-RW on the D-R1 and rip to the PC, edit and
re-burn to DVD+RW's or DVD-R's.

P.S. I also run an AIW 7200 on a PIII 866 and it does decent TV
captures as well (occasional frame drops - I'll ascribe these to the
VIA chipset as the same CPU captured TV flawlessly on an Intel board).
As soon as I have time I'll rebuild that box with the old PIII 1.2 and
Intel board.

 

[Bob Howell]

I have almost your identical system(MB, Video Card, CPU, SB Live) and am
trying to install the capture drivers. The system check shows that not all
capture drivers are installed properly. Device manager shows legacy capture
drivers and Audio drivers installed. I up dated the SB live driver but no
help there. I don't know where to start with the legacy capture driver. I
have found Lord Smurf and read a lot but not as you described. I have to get
the Capture drivers installed. I updated to MMC8.8 and installed WDM Capture
as they instructed. I don't know where to look for help.

Capturing old VHS is my objective. The settings you discuss will be
important some day but I must get capture working first.
Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

 

[One2Go]

Q7 I've given up for now on AVI capture -> MPG. Captured OK using
VirtualDub/Huffyuv2 (or was it MMC? I've forgotten...), however, there
was a slight, but noticeable audio synch problem after using TMPGEnc
to go to MPG. (This was immediate off-sync, not the 1/2 hour creep to
out of synch) Since I'm not planning to edit anyhow, this doesn't
SEEM like a problem, and it's a lot faster. However, if I have
tracking problems with my old VHS tapes latter (which I sadly expect
to see), will AVI be the route needed for tools to work on this?

Use VirtualVCR which does an on the fly audio sync since your video and
audio are using video in from ATI card and Line In from audio card.

One2Go

 

[One2Go]

- While it did look appreciably better, Hi-8 captures still didn't
look "right". The AVS Instant DVD, though un-synced, showed me that
the captured Hi-8 video could look nearly identical to the source
tape. With filters (video soap) on the captures definately had fewer
artifacts, but just didn't look fluid or real when played on a DVD
player. By the way, TV and VHS captures look great (even better than
on the PIII). A lot of noise can be filtered out with video soap.

What is this video soap and where can it be found. Google search only
revealed Videos with girls and soapy business.

One2Go

 

[ME]

What is this video soap and where can it be found. Google search only
revealed Videos with girls and soapy business.

One2Go

Video soap is ATI's fancy name for video filters in Multimedia Centre:
Despeckle, soft focus, combo filters, etc... these filters are applied
as video is captured. The do a pretty good job at clearing up poor
source material or noisy cable TV signals.

 

[One2Go]

Video soap is ATI's fancy name for video filters in Multimedia Centre:
Despeckle, soft focus, combo filters, etc... these filters are applied
as video is captured. The do a pretty good job at clearing up poor
source material or noisy cable TV signals.

I found all the documentation yesterday in the disc under MMC. They did a
pretty good job there. My only complaint is that I can't save in AVI format
at 720x576 resolution it will only do 704x576. It will do ATI VCR which is
there proprietory format in 720x576 but than no one else can read it. Since
I do all my processing afterwords including conversion to MPEG using CCE as
encoder I wish they would save it in plain AVI format with any of the
decoders that are installed, but than they would duplicate finctionality of
programs like VIrual VCR which is excellent for capturing.

One2Go

 

[Bilar Crais]

it will only do 704x576.

I was able to manually edit an .avi profile from the registry to
720x480...there was no adverse effect and it turned out fine.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI Technologies\Multimedia\Features\TV\Video
Capture

 

[Diane]

I have almost your identical system(MB, Video Card, CPU, SB Live) and am
trying to install the capture drivers. The system check shows that not all
capture drivers are installed properly. Device manager shows legacy capture
drivers and Audio drivers installed. I up dated the SB live driver but no
help there. I don't know where to start with the legacy capture driver. I
have found Lord Smurf and read a lot but not as you described. I have to get
the Capture drivers installed. I updated to MMC8.8 and installed WDM Capture
as they instructed. I don't know where to look for help.

Bob, FWIW, I started with a 100% fresh install of Win2k sp4 + all the MS
update patches. I know it's real important to *deinstall* any existing video
drivers before installing the new ones so you're just using the plain,
generic VGA driver. The driver files I'm using are from Catalyst 3.10:
tv-capture-wdm-6-14-10-6227.exe, wxp-w2k-7-962-031202m1-012924c.exe, and
control-panel-7-962-031202m1-012924c.exe. This was the "current" Catalyst
when I downloaded on Jan8. I suspect it doesn't make any difference, but
the earlier control-panel 6.14.10.5072 is now listed as part of the Catalyst
3.10 package. You need to install the wdm *before* the regular video
driver, per the ATI WDM Release Notes.

HTH

 

[Diane]

I found all the documentation yesterday in the disc under MMC. They did a

pretty good job there.

Did you actually find Video Soap documentation on the CD? I bought my card
a couple of years ago and my CD is for MMC 7.x (pre Soap era). All I have
is the MMC 8.8 FAQ & Release Notes. Maybe there's some documentation
elsewhere?

 

[One2Go]

Did you actually find Video Soap documentation on the CD? I bought my
card a couple of years ago and my CD is for MMC 7.x (pre Soap era).
All I have is the MMC 8.8 FAQ & Release Notes. Maybe there's some
documentation elsewhere?

The CD I had was for MMC 8.6 and it had the documentation. Having said this
I played around with test clips and post processing using AVISynth and it
is much more flexible as well as powerful. This is the way I will go. After
AVI capture do post processing to get a decent MPEG file.

One2Go