Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

[blizzz]

The CPU bug doesnt appear to effect my machine at least, when I close Amarec, the CPU Frequency instantly drops from 99% down to 23% or so then goes even lower. (I'm using the current drivers on Micomsofts page).

The bug is that it doesn't always go down. It will go back to normal 95% of the time, but sometimes it won't.

[SuperDeadite]

I see, guess I better keep an eye on it then.

[SuperDeadite]

Ok my first attempt. I didn't use any filters on this one. Any suggestions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRocFYcpHrM

[blizzz]

You've blended 2 frames into one, which makes it look bad. The alternative for Youtube would be to discard every second frame, but that will destroy some effects. Sadly you have to live with one of these choices (until Youtube finally allows 60Hz or more).

Two more things you could do are: (1.) Center the picture and (2.) use some low anti-noise filter. There's some noise on solid blue spaces that should be removable with a software filter.

[SuperDeadite]

Thanks, yeah real shame youtube doesnt allow 60fps video yet. The video is off center cause that's how the PCE outputs, it just seems to favor that side of the screen when using RGB. Any advice on which filter to use? All I did to the video was a resize and interpolation for the framerate.

[BuckoA51]

I had to remove my PEXHDCAP from my PC. Since I got a pretty good laptop I decided to sell my older PC as I put my PEXHDCAP in my main desktop and it seemed fine. However as time went on I had more and more strange problems with my PC. There would be crackling on sound while I played games or MP3s for instance, and games locked up more frequently than I'd come to expect on modern PCs.

After a bit of Googling around I found a tool for checking DPC latency:-

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml (Windows 7 only)
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon (Windows 7 or 8 )

The results were shocking I was getting times over 16000us!

The weird thing too is that it would do that without any drivers installed for the card, just by being in the PCI-E slot the PEXHDCAP was screwing up sound playback on my PC. I tried moving it to another slot but, same issue basically.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

[blizzz]

Any advice on which filter to use?

VirtualDub has a "Smoother" filter that can get rid of noise. You could play around with it a bit. But it will obviously also remove details in other areas.

Edit: I checked the DPC latency on my gaming rig. I had done the test several months ago and just recently put the SC-500N1 in it. So if the results now were higher it would reinforce Bucko's findings.
The results: around 50µs (between 40 and 60). Pretty much the same as before.

[SuperDeadite]

I upgraded my boot SSD today, now I have plenty of free space, but the boot time is still longer then when I installed the card. Were talking going from 2 seconds to 7 or so, so I'll get used to it, but a bit disappointing though. I'm tempted to pull the card to see if it goes back to normal, but I just can't be bothered.

[BuckoA51]

Edit: I checked the DPC latency on my gaming rig. I had done the test several months ago and just recently put the SC-500N1 in it. So if the results now were higher it would reinforce Bucko's findings.
The results: around 50µs (between 40 and 60). Pretty much the same as before.

Probably just my motherboard then, or a conflict with another card I have in there (my trusty Auzentech sound card for instance).

[Thrill]

I'm also seeing really small readings with that latency thing (about 60 or so). It will raise itself slightly if you are running Amarec but it's nowhere near reaching 400.

[SuperDeadite]

Ok, so it seems the card DOES slow down my boot time. I disabled it in device manager, and now my super fast boot speeds are back to before I installed the card. Crazy. Considering I only use this once a month or so, I'll just keep it disabled until I want to actually use it.

[blizzz]

Which chipset do you have? Is there an easy way to measure the boot time in Windows 7 (minus BIOS time)? From a quick google search it looks like the best way would be to install the Windows 8 SDK (technet).

Edit: I installed the Windows Performance Tools Kit and used the following commands.
xbootmgr -trace boot -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+POWER -resultPath C:\Users\blizzz\Desktop
xperf -i boot_BASE+CSWITCH+POWER_1.etl -o summary_Boot.xml -a boot

The results for bootDoneViaExplorer:
With the card installed: 1. 21805ms 2. 19357ms
With the card disabled: 1. 16695ms 2. 17476ms

So there's a difference of about 2-3 seconds on my P67 PC.

[SuperDeadite]

I'm on H87 here. Really busy right now, so wont be able to run that test for awhile, but there's quite a difference with the card disabled.

[mvsfan]

I have the Startech Pexhdcap card and i was wondering if anyone knows the pinout for the dvi adapter. is it the same as vga? how does the sync work on it does it accept csync?

I read that it can accept an 15khz rgb input but i havent been able to confirm it.

Id like to buy or build an RGB cable for it instead of converting scart to component first.

[NightSprinter]

I don't have a pinout on me at the moment, but I believe the horizontal sync pin can also carry c-sync as well.

[Edit] I found it.
http://www.spywaredrguide.com/VirtualDr ... out_01.gif

[mvsfan]

Startech really did a poor job of making documentation for this card.

Its one of the few cards that can accept 240p and they dont even advertize it theres nothing in their documents or online that says such.

They totally missed an opportunity here. theyd probably sell twice as many if they did advertize 240p.

[eightbitminiboss]

Startech really did a poor job of making documentation for this card.

Its one of the few cards that can accept 240p and they dont even advertize it theres nothing in their documents or online that says such.

They totally missed an opportunity here. theyd probably sell twice as many if they did advertize 240p.

It's not really the market they're going after though. Weren't these cards sold as a combo with security systems at some point?

[mvsfan]

i dont know , eightbit but if they were, that would explain the 240 compatibility.

[mvsfan]

thanks for the dvi pinout - but most of the scart to computer video cables i see use a 15 pin dsub.

I just want to verify that whatever one i get is wired right before i use it.

[NightSprinter]

No problem, mvsfan. I think it'll be best if one uses the appropriate HD15-to-DVI adapter that supports the analog pins.

[mvsfan]

my startech card came with an adapter. I guess now i just need to buy a scart to hd-15 cable.

[blizzz]

my startech card came with an adapter. I guess now i just need to buy a scart to hd-15 cable.

A simple cable won't work, you need a sync cleaner. The SyncStrike is the easiest solution, but you can also built it yourself with a LM1881.

[blizzz]

I captured from Atari ST using RGB cable

Here is a pic using the new drivers, notice the very green dinos at the top:



And here is with the old drivers, much better colours imho:

Did you set the RGB range to limited (16-235) in the driver? By default it is set to full range (0-255).

Full


Limited


This is with the latest driver. I think limited range gives the same result as before. The image is maybe a bit too bright though, but that's an easy fix.

If I try to set the source to 720x240 RGB24 or RGB32 it just gives me an error. So YUY2 and limited seems to be the correct setting.

An update on this: Today I tried to record some screenshots from the Framemeister and the SC-500N1.

This is how the preview looks like:


And this is how the recording ended up (both if I take a screenshot or record an avi and open it in VirtualDub):


The greens are way too intense and some shades blend together, for example the green letters. When I went back to the initial drivers from 2011 it looked fine.

After some discussion with Thrill (who gets the right colors in his video player with my avi) I found a solution that works with the newer drivers:

Code: Select all

AviSource("amarec(20140608-1315).avi")
ConvertToRGB(matrix="PC.709")

Saving that code as an avs script gives me the same colors as the preview.

Btw, the Elgato HD doesn't have this issue.

[Fudoh]

Saving that code as an avs script gives me the same colors as the preview.

but you should be able to get the same results by altering VDub's decoding settings.

[blizzz]

Thanks, took me a while to find the setting for it. It's called "alias format" filter.

Edit: I'll just leave this here. http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/78215
First pic is with force 709 color matrix in VirtualDub.

[Sixfortyfive]

On a similar note, I've been wondering if there's anything I can do to correct color issues on the XCAPTURE-1.

On the Wii U, this is what I get on an Intensity Shuttle (which is relatively accurate and can be verified by comparing it to the Gamepad), while this is what I get on an XCAPTURE-1. The Wii U is known to output limited RGB only and has no color space adjustment options.

On an Xbox 360 with an XCAPTURE-1, this is what I get by changing the Xbox's color options:
full RGB
limited RGB and YCbCr709 (nearly identical)
YCbCr601

And this is what the XCAPTURE produces on the Genesis and Dreamcast.

In most cases, the XCAPTURE-1 seems to produce greens that are too bright and reds that are too dark. This seems to be possible to circumvent on the 360 by changing the color space to the 601 option, although I don't know if games would produce the same results as seen in these snapshots from the media center app. For the other systems, there isn't really anything that can be adjusted on the console side. (Curiously, the Dreamcast seems to produce more uniform results than the others. There's still white and black crush outside of the 16-235 range, but for some reason the increments within that range seem to be more uniform between the different colors here than they are on the other consoles.)

I've assumed that this is just a consequence of the XCAPTURE-1 sampling everything in YUY2, but if there's anything that can be done to improve color accuracy, I'd be interested in hearing it. I do most of my capturing in VirtualDub and most of my livestreaming in Open Broadcaster.

[blizzz]

Can you upload a short clip from AmaRecTV? 5-10 seconds with Lagarith encoding.

[Sixfortyfive]

Not at the moment.

I know that those screenshots are lossless though. They were recorded in VDub without any compression codec loaded at all.

[blizzz]

The problem with the screenshots is that they are already in RGB. The problem I had with the SC-500N1 was that the translation of the raw video to RGB uses the wrong color matrix by default. Your problem looks similar, so it would be worth a try to save a lossless video (4:2:2 YUY2 Lagarith) and then use the alias format filter in Virtual Dub to change the decoding. (If you don't see that filter you have to update VDub)

[Fudoh]

They were recorded in VDub without any compression codec loaded at all.

which already means a colorspace conversion from (in case the XCAP's running in YUY2) and you're writing uncompressed RGB to your harddrive. Rec.601 vs. 709 has been done wrong for years, especially on capture equipment and even more so with 480p (which is supposed to get decoded with the 601 matrix).

I was under the impression that the Shuttle can't record in RGB, so you're already converting RGB back into YUV422 right there.

That fact that limited RGB and rec.709 from the 360 look (about) identical, speaks for the XCAP's color handling. Setting the 360's output to 601 with 720p output is plain out wrong.