Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

[lettuce]

AFAIK the SNES can only do 240p NTSC and 288p PAL

Ah ok. I did try to select the 720x288 option in AmarecTV for the snes, but gave me this error message....

The only issue I see with using the Amarec codec is the logo. You may as well use Huffyuv/Lagarith and have a codec that has been tried and tested by millions rather than a hundred thousand or so that have used Amarec.

I do think Huffyuv is the best codec just a shame that hardly any of the encoding progs (VirtualDub, Sony Vegas, MeGUI) support it

[Fudoh]

I do think Huffyuv is the best codec just a shame that hardly any of the encoding progs (VirtualDub, Sony Vegas, MeGUI) support it

something wrong with your setup, definitely. HuffYUV is a classic VfW codec and EVERY editing program supports it. I've edited hundreds of hours in HuffYUV with VDub, Premiere and others.

[GregI]

lettuce, are you actually supplying 288p PAL Material and if so, don't forget to change the video mode to PAL_B in the capture video settings.

As Fudoh said Huffyuv does work in the programs you mentioned (I have 6 years experience in Sony Vegas).

[blizzz]

lettuce, I'm pretty sure the card is auto sensing what is connected for resolutions in Amarec.

No, I've got all resolutions available at any time. Even when no signal is connected.

lettuce, are you actually supplying 288p PAL Material and if so, don't forget to change the video mode to PAL_B in the capture video settings.

With RGB there isn't really PAL/NTSC. You don't have to change anything besides resolution and frequency.

[GregI]

It could be the revision number differences between the SC-500N1 and StarTech? Regardless, as long as the correct resolution is displayed when needed it's fine in my book. If the correct resolution was not there THEN we have problems.

Reason I said to change to PAL is because if you look back afew pages I had the exact same error codes as lettuce. I had to set NTSC as it was on PAL_B and then it worked.

[fagin]

There are deinterlacing artifacts (field blending) in your video. Not sure how you managed that coming from a progressive source and going to progressive output. Also I don't know how it's for you, but for me Youtube is often so slow that even 480p videos spend more time buffering than playing. Going from 240p to 4k doesn't seem to be the perfect solution for this.

It's not a problem I have with buffering if I'm being honest. My download speed is like 70Mb. But I appreciate bandwdith is a problem for most, so this was more of a technical test than a "best approach" scenario.

The artifacts have been introduced through my re-encode with Sony Vegas. Again it was a technical test for the resolution, rather than choosing the other correct settings to keep everything else at optimum.

[blizzz]

I had another look at HuffYUV. The following is only relevant for people with a 64bit Windows.

There are two kinds of drivers in Win7 x64, native 64bit and 32bit in a wrapper. Now, the software you are using will only see the drivers for the corresponding version. If you are using the normal VDub you will only get 32bit drivers and in the 64bit build of VDub you will only get the 64bit drivers. If you are using 64bit software (Vegas Pro is 32 / 64bit, Vegas Movie Studio HD is only 32bit) you need to install HuffYUV64. Just google for it, extract the two files (dll and inf), right click on the inf and select 'install' and it'll work. For 32bit you will need to download the normal build of HuffYUV and extract it like before. But now you must open an elevated command shell (start menu, search for 'cmd', right click start as administrator) and execute the following command: 'rundll32.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 P:\huffyuv.inf' (you have to change the location of the .inf to your folder). This will install the 32bit HuffYUV for 32bit applications on Win7 64bit, like VDub or Vegas Movie Studio HD. The most prominent hit on Google for "windows 64bit huffyuv" doesn't give the correct tutorial to install it correctly...

There is also ffdshow which has its own version of HuffYUV (that is not compatible with Vegas Movie Studio HD), a multi threaded HuffYUV version from a Japanese guy and the built-in version in VirtualDub.

But to be honest you can just use Lagarith which has none of these problems with x64.

It's not a problem I have with buffering if I'm being honest. My download speed is like 70Mb. But I appreciate bandwdith is a problem for most, so this was more of a technical test than a "best approach" scenario.

I've got 14 Mb/s download which is enough for any HD stream, but somehow the Youtube servers here are extremely slow at times. Could also be my ISP throttling Youtube if there's too much traffic in the area.

[lettuce]

Thanks for the informative post blizzz, i have downloaded and installed HuffYUV64, whilst it shows up in the 'Other Codec' list in AmarecTV when click update list it has no description/abbreviation next to the codec name like all the other codecs in the list have....




And when i click on the settings for this codec it comes up with 'Not install HYMT codec", i think this is infact the multithread codec though, as shouldnt the codec name be HY64 or something?

[blizzz]

Thanks for the informative post blizzz, i have downloaded and installed HuffYUV64

AmaRecTV is 32bit software, you'll need to install the normal 32bit HuffYUV the way I described... The FourCC is HFYU btw.

[lettuce]

Thanks for the informative post blizzz, i have downloaded and installed HuffYUV64

AmaRecTV is 32bit software, you'll need to install the normal 32bit HuffYUV the way I described... The FourCC is HFYU btw.

Ah sorry, i thought you were referring to a windows 32 or 64 installation. thanks

Hmm, have run the command...

'rundll32.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 C:\huffyuv.inf'

but get an installtion failed message

[blizzz]

Hmm, have run the command...
'rundll32.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 C:\huffyuv.inf'
but get an installtion failed message

Did you run it as administrator...? What's the error message you get.

[lettuce]

Hmm, have run the command...
'rundll32.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 C:\huffyuv.inf'
but get an installtion failed message

Did you run it as administrator...? What's the error message you get.

yeah ran as admin. The message is just that, 'Installation Failed'

[GregI]

I think you have to navigate to syswow64 folder first before you install.

cd C:\Windows\SysWOW64

then

rundll32.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 C:\huffyuv.inf

That has always worked for me.

[blizzz]

I think you have to navigate to syswow64 folder first before you install.

cd C:\Windows\SysWOW64

That's not necessary as you give it the full path to the right setupapi.dll. If you would just write setupapi.dll it would take the one in System32 and you had to cd to SysWOW64 first to get the right one. The only thing I can think of is that he doesn't have huffyuv.inf and .dll in C:\, or maybe a typo (it's the digit 0). Not sure how else it could fail.

(Also to clarify: on 64bit Windows the 32bit executables are in SysWOW64 and the 64bit executables are in System32.)

[GregI]

I know you can and the command should work put I have had issues writing shell scripts in Linux where I actually had to cd into a folder before the execution would work properly and since the guide I used does exactly as you said but cds first, it is worth a shot: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-c ... ffyuv.html

4th post.

[lettuce]

Im sure im doing everything correctly, this dos window shows the the huffyuv.inf is in c:\huffyuv, and the error message i get.......

[blizzz]

It's C:\huffyuv\huffyuv.inf on your machine...

[lettuce]

It's C:\huffyuv\huffyuv.inf on your machine...

Yeah i couldnt get it to install when it was in its own folder, as soon as i move it to the root of C drive it installed ok. Guess it didnt like being in its own folder. Thanks

[BuckoA51]

Ah ok. I did try to select the 720x288 option in AmarecTV for the snes, but gave me this error message....

Try entering this manually:-

*w=720 h= 288 fps=50.00 fcc=YUY2, bit=16

[GregI]

Does anyone know where you can buy spare component adapters that come bundled with the card?

[Vixtro]

Hey guys, I saw the Startech card for £89 delivered and couldn't refuse it at that price so I dived in and bought it. I ordered a Sync Strike too which I already have, it arrived in only 3 days. I'm still waiting on the card though as I'm not in any rush to have it, it might arrive sometime this week.

I messed about a little with the Sync Strike just seeing if I could get a picture on my TV or PC monitor, but not actually expecting anything. I tested using my Sega Saturn (which is PAL so outputs 288p correct?), on the TV I just got "not supported format" and on my PC monitor, it was very strange, it gave me a white image with some random patterns that gradually got brighter. I disconnected it all before it got too bright. So yeah, wasn't expecting it to work with anything except that cap card.

Anyway, reading through the thread as of late, I'm a little confused. Initially it seems you guys were using the Micomsoft drivers with this card to get 240p/288p etc. but now it seems some of you are just using the Startech drivers?

I'm not sure what drivers I'd need to use myself, I plan to use the card as a capture device so I can use it in a program called XSplit used for streaming live audio/video content.

[blizzz]

Anyway, reading through the thread as of late, I'm a little confused. Initially it seems you guys were using the Micomsoft drivers with this card to get 240p/288p etc. but now it seems some of you are just using the Startech drivers?
I'm not sure what drivers I'd need to use myself, I plan to use the card as a capture device so I can use it in a program called XSplit used for streaming live audio/video content.

That's because we didn't know about the StarTech card initially The Micomsoft and StarTech drivers are just different versions of the same thing. Micomsoft has the old 108 version and StarTech the newer 114. There are some benefits with the StarTech driver (you can adjust stuff like brightness and contrast which is broken in the older version) and it works with the Wii. The picture quality is a tiny bit different though and you may have sound problems in the official Micomsoft capture app (which you won't be using anyway). Switching between the driver versions just takes a couple of seconds, so you can test both and stick to one.

I ran into a new problem yesterday. I've got a Ubuntu 12.04 machine with a 6 x 2TB ext4 raid (Samsung F3 / F4 5400rpm drives) which I want to use for capturing with a normal samba share under Windows 7. The speed is fine (~110MB/s for hours) but when I try to use it in Amarec I get duplicated frames from time to time. This doesn't happen when I save to the internal drive which is slower than the raid. Setting the cache in Amarec to max (512MB) helps a bit, but still doesn't work right. Is there anything I can do to fix this like adjusting TCP packet size or some setting in smb? Or is it just the drive cache of the internal drive that's making the difference?

[Vixtro]

That's because we didn't know about the StarTech card initially The Micomsoft and StarTech drivers are just different versions of the same thing. Micomsoft has the old 108 version and StarTech the newer 114. There are some benefits with the StarTech driver (you can adjust stuff like brightness and contrast which is broken in the older version) and it works with the Wii. The picture quality is a tiny bit different though and you may have sound problems in the official Micomsoft capture app (which you won't be using anyway). Switching between the driver versions just takes a couple of seconds, so you can test both and stick to one.

Okay thanks for clearing that up, I'll mess about with either driver to find which one suits my needs best.

[BuckoA51]

I messed about a little with the Sync Strike just seeing if I could get a picture on my TV or PC monitor, but not actually expecting anything.

You won't get a picture, the Sync Strike doesn't convert from 15khz to 31khz it just splits out the sync. Very few monitors and TV's accept 15khz on the D-SUB 15 (VGA) connectors.

[BuckoA51]

Here's a little idea I had today, if you want to capture from the PC, and you have a Framemeister or a DVDO Edge or something, you could pipe the PC through a HDMI splitter with one end to your Framemeister and the other to the display. Now, set the Framemeister to output 720p effectively downscaling the PC. You can now play in 1080p and capture in 720p, as long as you can find some way to route the audio signal too of course.

[lettuce]

Here's a little idea I had today, if you want to capture from the PC, and you have a Framemeister or a DVDO Edge or something, you could pipe the PC through a HDMI splitter with one end to your Framemeister and the other to the display. Now, set the Framemeister to output 720p effectively downscaling the PC. You can now play in 1080p and capture in 720p, as long as you can find some way to route the audio signal too of course.

Could you just do this by a single hdmi cable, 1 end to the capture card and the other to the hdmi port on the pc's gfx card?

[BuckoA51]

Of course, provided you play in 720p resolution or lower.

[dieKatze88]

Of course, provided you play in 720p resolution or lower.

No he's talking about using a scaler to step down from 1080 to 720, so you could play in 1080p on your expensive 1080p computer monitor, but still stream it.


Yeah that should work.

[lettuce]

Of course, provided you play in 720p resolution or lower.

No he's talking about using a scaler to step down from 1080 to 720, so you could play in 1080p on your expensive 1080p computer monitor, but still stream it.


Yeah that should work.

Yeah sorry should of been more clearer. But im guess FRAPS already does this so not sure why i would ever consider it. Im guess it would be ideal for people who dont have enough processor grunt to play a game whilst capturing with FRAPS??

[BuckoA51]

It's so I can play on my TV at 1080p and capture at 720p, yeah you could sort of do that with FRAPS or Xfire if the game supports it but yes correct it will not consume any cpu cycles if you record on a different PC.