Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

[airthrow]

Unfortunately I captured like 4-5 hours of video last night, can I use virtual dub to convert the video I captured into 4:3?

of course. You should do a 2-step scaling: 1st just double the lines using nearest neighbour and then resize to whatever 4:3 res you like using lanczos3. Just open the video and add the resize filter twice. You need to disable the aspect ratio control on the filter though.

Man this sounds helpful but I am not smart enough about video editing to know what this means. What options do I use in Virtualdub to do this? Also is there a way to change my settings while capturing so I end up with a correct aspect ratio video next time?

[airthrow]

Nevermind I figured it out, I fixed the aspect ratio in Sony Vegas, but my vid quality is still unsatisfactory, lemme post a youtube video to show what I mean.

[airthrow]

Here's a video example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhdH61Pm ... e=youtu.be

Maybe I need to use Virtualdub for the capturing instead of the software that came with the card to increase quality?

[lettuce]

The software i use is AmarecTV and use Lagarith as the capture codec

I have gone from using Windows Movie Maker to using a combination MeGUI, AviSynth and AvsPmod, as i was unhappy with the quality of my output video after putting it through Windows Movie Maker. MeGUI, AviSynth and AvsPmod gives me a vastly superior final output file than i could ever hope for from WMM.

Or though Megui is no where near as straight forward as WMM, this guys guide on youtube help me out loads and is easy to follow....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUrXUn0UBdA

He has a further 2 followup vids that are also worth watching

EDIT:

Here's a video example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhdH61Pm ... e=youtu.be

Maybe I need to use Virtualdub for the capturing instead of the software that came with the card to increase quality?

Look at your vid, i dont think that quality has anything to do with your capture card or software, it looks like the problem lies in the quality of the cables your using to connect the console up to the capture card, video also looks interlaced and not progressive??

One example of my MegaDrive using the capturecard and was just thrown through WMM with an output res of 720p nothing special done really (im still in 2 minds weather to leave at 240p for my vids or 720p)...

http://youtu.be/MMZE7f9u7aw

[yukbeezy]

Hi,

I have purchased a mini framemeister and SC500N1 card as i want to capture video from my arcade cabinet.
I will mainly capture CAVE games and others : xbox360 and retro gaming stuffs like gamecube games ...

I am trying to figure which type of DVI (DVI-I dual link or DVI-D dual link) i should use to connect the mini framemeister to the SC500N1?
Mini framemeister does output HDMI only.
I have seen this : http://www.amazon.fr/Cordon-MALE-DVI-I- ... B001UGEEQE
but not sure if it is ok for this!

Thank you for your help

[Fudoh]

DVI-D Single Link - that's all the pins connected in a HDMI cable anyway.

[blizzz]

Any reason why he couldn't just use the HDMI input on the SC-500N1? Is the card limited to the standard HDMI resolutions on its HDMI input? I don't have a Framemeister ( ) so I can't test it.

[Fudoh]

I just assumed that he's using the HDMI input for something else already (?)

[yukbeezy]

Pics of the SC500N1 shows DVI-I dual link connection on the card!
Don't know if you can use both dvi-d and dvi-i?
Perhaps better using DVI-I as it takes analog and digital signals.
It will help depending what you capture.

Do you think you can use HDMI directly even for low resolution capture 15Khz?

[yukbeezy]

I just assumed that he's using the HDMI input for something else already (?)

HDMI input will be used for XBOX360.
RGB In will be used by jamma adapter from arcade cabinet

[Fudoh]

But RGB uses the DVI-I connection as well ?

The capture card has a DVI-I input. You can use that for HDMI signals (DVI-D) and VGA signals (DVI-A) or 15khz RGB signals (RGBs or RGBHV through DVI-A as well).

If you use a cable with HDMI on one side, then it's always DVI-D single link on the other side. If the connector has more pins, they're unconnected.

[airthrow]

Look at your vid, i dont think that quality has anything to do with your capture card or software, it looks like the problem lies in the quality of the cables your using to connect the console up to the capture card, video also looks interlaced and not progressive??

I just added some capacitors to the cable and some 100ohm resistors on the RGB lines, I hope that will help when I test out tomorrow. I think I need an RGB amp because on the monitor of the arcade cab and the capture software, the colors definitely get weaker when I plug in the capture cable.

But the image is not progressive since it is real MVS arcade hardware, so I don't know how to get the software to capture it's resolution natively, I'm having huge problems, it always auto-detects these weird resolutions. Like 720x240. I have wired straight from my arcade harness to a VGA cable and then used the included VGA>DVI adaptor. When I use xbox360 on vga it looks beautiful, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

one example of my MegaDrive using the capturecard and was just thrown through WMM with an output res of 720p nothing special done really (im still in 2 minds weather to leave at 240p for my vids or 720p)...

http://youtu.be/MMZE7f9u7aw

Yeah when I use scart cables to my sync strike, my consoles all look beautiful, there is something wrong with my settings and/or my cable. When you capture are you splitting your RGB or playing on your computer monitor?

[Fudoh]

But the image is not progressive since it is real MVS arcade hardware

the MVS outputs progressive at 240p (224 visible lines on a 240p carrier signal).

I'm having huge problems, it always auto-detects these weird resolutions. Like 720x240.

that is correct and the way it's supposed to be. The card always captures full D1 resolution for each line. This way you can also capture higher resolutions from PGM or CPS2 boards. To get a 4:3 video you have to apply postprocessing as stated before.

[airthrow]

Sorry, when I said it's not progressive cus it's real MVS hardware, I meant "interlaced" haha.

I didn't know it was right that it would capture it so widely, thanks

[lettuce]

Have gone back to dingo a bit of SNES retro gameplay capture, i dont have the scanline double option enabled within AmarecTV and have decided to adjust the 720x240 capture within VirtualDub to720x480, but have noticed when loading the capture into VD it reports the res of the capture as 720x224 and not 720x240!, any ideas on why this is?

[Fudoh]

And is anything missing ? The SNES's actual resolution is 224 lines, so it seems fine to me. Just double it with nearest neighbor to 448 lines and than add a mask to fill it up to 480 lines. Otherwise Youtube adds some unneccessary scaling. Also for YT you need a spare pixel ratio, so resize to 640x480 in a final step.

[lettuce]

No doesnt appear to be anything missing. Can you explain what you mean by 'add a mask to fill it up to 480 lines'?

I thinking of not using VD anymore as loading a 3.5GB capture and using the resize filter gives an output file of approx 18GB!!!. Instead I have been playing around with Avisynth...well the AvsPmod to be more precise with this script...

video=AVISource("E:\CAPTURES\My Records\capture1.avi")
video1=lanczos4resize(video,720,480)
return video1
ConvertToYV12()

and then save and loading it into MeGUI for re-encoding

Are you saying that i shouldnt be resize to 720,480, but 640x480?

[Fudoh]

I thinking of not using VD anymore as loading a 3.5GB capture and using the resize filter gives an output file of approx 18GB!!!.

but why do you save an uncompressed file from VDub ? Just render into the codec you want. AVS isn't better or easier, it's just a different approach. For starters VDub is usually easier to use because of the filter interface.

Scaling 224 lines to 480p is ok, but I wouldn't do it, as you wouldn't capture full 480 lines either way. I also wouldn't apply a 1-step scaling in AVS, but a two-step scaling as said before. I would suspect that you end up with a wider aspect ratio on youtube if you upload a 720x480 clip compared to a 640x480 one.

[lettuce]

Hmm interesting, thanks for the info fudoh probably explains why my retro videos in YouTube look like horse shit, as all I'd usually do is resize the capture to 720x480, crop any black boarders and then re-encode at 5000kbps. I'm new to virtual dub, can you explain a bit more the steps I need to do in VD after I have my non scanline doubled capture to get best results please

[Fudoh]

video, filters, add filters, resize, new size (720x448), AR disabled, Filter mode: nearest neighbor. Framing options (letterbox/crop size: 720*x 480).

(* you can crop the horizontal resolution here to remove the black bars on the sides already, or you can do using the cropping feature on the filters tab.)

add a 2nd filter: resize, new size 640x480, AR disabled, Filter mode: Lanczos3.

If you're not happy with the results, you can upload a small original clip to let me have a look at it, if the source quality's fine.

[lettuce]

Thanks for the info, i have followed your guide, and have noticed that there are black boarders around the video, i take it its ok to use the crop tool in video>filters to remove these boarders at the last step?

[Fudoh]

no, because then again you don't have a 480p video and youtube resizes the vid. If you want to get rid of the bars, then leave away the framing in the first step and crop all around, but do that do that before the 2nd resizing step. This will decrease the quality though.

[lettuce]

no, because then again you don't have a 480p video and youtube resizes the vid. If you want to get rid of the bars, then leave away the framing in the first step and crop all around, but do that do that before the 2nd resizing step. This will decrease the quality though.

Ok so i need to do the same as your steps above but in the first filter resize option in the 'Framing options' section leave it as 'Do not letter box or crop' and dont change it as you suggested, then on this first filter resize use the crop tool to remove the side borders and then finally add the 2nd filter resize option (640x480)?

Is x264vfw the best codec to use for encoding with VD? Any pointers on what options to use for this codec, im guessing its best to use 'single pass -bitrate based (ABR)' option and change the bitrate to 4500kbps for a start??

[Fudoh]

To make sure the crop tool is the right spot, add a null transform filter in between the two resizing steps and add the cropping there.

4.5mbit should be plenty of bitrate for a nice looking video. You don't have to use x264vfw though if you like MeGUI or any other encoding tool better. You can frameserver from VDub and just go into your favorite encoder directly without the need to save from vdub first.

[lettuce]

Really?, VirtualDub seems to be very versatile. What does the 'null transform' filter actually do?, as i couldnt see anything visually different when i was cropping the video.

Ok i dont seem to be able to get VD frameserver to work with MeGUI, have started the framserver in VD, and save the profile file but when i drag it to MeGUI it says it cannot open the file

[Fudoh]

Really?, VirtualDub seems to be very versatile. What does the 'null transform' filter actually do?, as i couldnt see anything visually different when i was cropping the video.

it does nothing.

Ok i dont seem to be able to get VD frameserver to work with MeGUI, have started the framserver in VD, and save the profile file but when i drag it to MeGUI it says it cannot open the file

create a .avs file and put the .vdf into it as as AVISOURCE. Add nothing else. Then use the .avs file instead. Should work.

[lettuce]

Hmm might as well use x264vfw codec in VD, be simpler to keep it to using just the one program for everything. I guess once Youtube has had its way with the upload what ever difference in quality there was/is from using another program to encode the video is lost??.....unless you believe differently?

One other thing what is the VirtualDub Hack tick box for in the x264vfw settings??

[Fudoh]

encoding quality (compression) is one thing, but scaling is another, that's why you should make sure to upload in one of the supported resolutions (360, 480, 720, 1080p).

Never used x264vfw, sorry.

[lettuce]

Ok heres the youtube video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT-MFEFEF7c

Not sure whats going on as the framerate seems to be inconstant, if you look at the flames from the back of the craft. Theres a fair amount of artifacts around the craft itself aswell??

This is a clip of video that i uploaded to Youtube above, to me the quality is spot on, but seems to be a massive difference when you compare it to the YouTube clip!??....

http://ul.to/nfs7yj7y

Here is a 15 second clip of with the image resized and used lagarith to encode this clip so you can see what the raw file is like....

http://ul.to/gmjliwpz

Any ideas?

[blizzz]

Youtube uses fast (=bad) encoding settings and low bitrates. HD videos get a lot higher bitrates, so you could try to scale the 240p video to 720p and see how it looks then.