Poor quality video playback

[Guest]

--Have just made my first attempt to save some old VHS Tapes to my hard
drive using ATI TV Wonder 200 tuner for a capture device. Never was able to
make the program that came with the tuner work (Catalyst Media Center) so am
using the Windows Movie Maker that comes with XP Pro..

Movies down load Ok and look pretty good on the small window monitor, but
when I play them back full screen (From the hard drive) on Windows Media
Player they look horrible, with oversize pixels like a small photo that has
been enlarged to much.

These old tapes display just fine on my 25†analog TV and I am playing them
on the camcorder that they were originally recorded on, so I know I am doing
something wrong, but I can’t figure out what.

Settings are: WMV. 30 Frames Per second. Bit rate 512 kbs. Display Size 320
x 240.

System is a new build, Win. XP Pro with all the upgrades, Core 2 Duo X6800
with 2GB RAM & a pair of WD 250GB hard drives. Every thing else working just
fine. I never fooled with movies before and don’t have a clue as to what my
problem is. Any advice will be appreciated.

Linusverl

 

[John Inzer]

--Have just made my first attempt to save some old VHS Tapes to my
hard drive using ATI TV Wonder 200 tuner for a capture device. Never
was able to make the program that came with the tuner work (Catalyst
Media Center) so am using the Windows Movie Maker that comes with XP
Pro..

Movies down load Ok and look pretty good on the small window monitor,
but when I play them back full screen (From the hard drive) on
Windows Media Player they look horrible, with oversize pixels like a
small photo that has been enlarged to much.

These old tapes display just fine on my 25" analog TV and I am
playing them on the camcorder that they were originally recorded on,
so I know I am doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what.

Settings are: WMV. 30 Frames Per second. Bit rate 512 kbs. Display
Size 320 x 240.

System is a new build, Win. XP Pro with all the upgrades, Core 2 Duo
X6800 with 2GB RAM & a pair of WD 250GB hard drives. Every thing else
working just fine. I never fooled with movies before and don't have a
clue as to what my problem is. Any advice will be appreciated.

Linusverl

=============================
Can the 320x240 setting be changed
to something larger?


--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! -
Digital Image MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[Guest]

ATI recording software isnt very good,all you do need are the drivers for the
PCI TV card,for software download wm encoder + the utilities,the encoder can
capture & let you view the video from tv,and for genrl viewing,the WMCAP
utility
works well.Once youve captured the video,convert thru the encoder...

 

[Guest]

Thank‘s for your reply John, I used the 320 X 240 Display setting because
it’s displayed by the card as being “The best match for the capabilities of
Your system.†But after fooling with this thing for a few hours I have been
able to double the Display size to 640 x 480. I had to give up my ability to
set the bit rate and the frame rate though. At the 640 x 480 size the frame
rate is locked at 30 Frames per second and the bit rate just shows “Variable
bit rate†and it looks like this is the largest choice I have.

I captured some tape at this new size and when it played back on my monitor
(19â€crt) the video looks pretty good, but I wonder what it will look like on
a larger screen. I would be interested in hearing what display size other
people use for capture, also their bit rate and frame speed.

 

[Guest]

Thank you Andrew E. for your reply. The Catalyst ATI Software that came on my
disk was not usable with XP Pro. & kept locking up my machine. I down loaded
a version from their website but it did the same thing. All I am using now
are their drivers which I downloaded separately from their website.

I assume it’s the Windows software that’s making this thing work now. The
movies capture as wmv and I can play them from the hard drive, but clips
capture as mpeg-2 and I get a notice that I must buy a codec before I can see
them.

My machine is newly built and the board only has SATA connectors, people
tell me the only burner that will work with the board is a new brand called
“Lite On.†I have not bought one yet, hoping Samsung or Pioneer will make
one I can use that comes with good software to edit & burn.

But I never fooled with computer video before, only involved now because my
camcorder is 20 Years old and only plays back and down loads via a one wire
antenna connection. Don’t really know any thing about this so appreciate any
advice I can get.