Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

[lettuce]

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.

Yeah has been mentioned before about YT bitrates, would that have any effect on the framerate issues with that Youtube clip though?.

Regarding resizing the capture to 720p or 1080p, i take it would be best to

1. resize filter once to 720x448, disable AR, nearest neighbour,
2. add null frame and crop to remove black borders
3. resize filter again to 1280x720, AR disabled and lanczos3

would that keep it at a 4:3 aspect ratio, or make the actual video 16:9 thus buggering up the look of the video?

[Fudoh]

Make that first scaling 720x672. The crop the remaining black on the sides. Second resizing to 960x720 using lanczos3 and then pad with black to 1280x720.

And remember that you can save the filter chain for future use.

[blizzz]

would that have any effect on the framerate issues with that Youtube clip though?

Your input signal is 60.01 frames per second and you convert that to 29.97 fps. That means you skip every second frame, but after ~14 seconds you drop two frames instead of one. Maybe that's what you see?

[lettuce]

Make that first scaling 720x672. The crop the remaining black on the sides. Second resizing to 960x720 using lanczos3 and then pad with black to 1280x720.

And remember that you can save the filter chain for future use.

When you say pad with black to 1280x720 is that using the Framing Options and Letterbox/Crop to size and 1280x720?

Im trying to get my head around these resolutions, now i understand the 720x672 is 3 time 224, and 960x720 is the 'active' 4:3 res but i was wondering what settings id need for a 1920x1080 final resolution, would it be, 720x896 for the first scaling but how do you know what you need for the next resolution is there a formula to work this out?

would that have any effect on the framerate issues with that Youtube clip though?

Your input signal is 60.01 frames per second and you convert that to 29.97 fps. That means you skip every second frame, but after ~14 seconds you drop two frames instead of one. Maybe that's what you see?

Hang on, how can that be as in AmaRecTV in the recording tab i set frame rate to 30fps, so it should only be capturing 30fps right?

[Fudoh]

yes, padding is using the framing option.

res but i was wondering what settings id need for a 1920x1080 final resolution, would it be, 720x896

you don't have to stay under the final resolution, you can go over as well. For a very sharp video, you could scale to 1440x1120 and then - after cropping - resize to 1440x1080.

[lettuce]

yes, padding is using the framing option.

res but i was wondering what settings id need for a 1920x1080 final resolution, would it be, 720x896

you don't have to stay under the final resolution, you can go over as well. For a very sharp video, you could scale to 1440x1120 and then - after cropping - resize to 1440x1080.

And that would give better results? So...

1st resize Filter>>>>>1440x1120, Disable AR, Nearest Neighbour
Add Null Frame
Crop
2nd resize Filter>>>>>1440x1080, Disable AR, Lanczos3
Framing Option>>>>>>Letterbox/Crop 1920x1080

Is there above correct?

[Fudoh]

yes, should be right.... just give it a try.

The 500N1 does not capture pixel perfect on the horizontal, so the scaling options applied there are not as important. Maybe you like it better if you stay at 720x1120 with the first scaling. Just try both.

[lettuce]

Thanks for the info Fudoh, you have been a massive help.

Will this method of going over the final resolution size to get a very sharp video that you mentioned above, work for HD 1280x720 captures from say the XBOX 360 for example, or is it only really effective when going from SD to HD??

Moving on to another topic, i have been noticing with this Startech card when capture longer gameplay vids (1hr +) that sometimes i see the 'No Signal' screen pop up that AmaRecTV program displays when there is no signal, it displays it for a frame then goes back to the video capture for a few more frames then shows the 'No signal' screen for a frame again and does this about 3 or 4 times very rapidly and then be fine for another 45 mins or so and then it might do it again. Has anyone else experienced this at all?, dont know if its some sort of interference or not sure it its my PC, the actual capture card, HDMI cable or XBOX console.

[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.

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.

After VirtualDub gave me a 3.5GB file for 50mins 1080p gameplay video at 8000kpbs using x264vfw codec, i want to go back to using MeGUI as that appears to give a much smaller output file. But im still unable to get frame server to work with MeGUI, i have my resized file all ready to go in VirtualDub, i then start frame server process save the file as .vdr, load the vdr file up in AviPmod (avisynth mod) and change the 'DirectShowsource' to 'AVISource' so the line reads, AVISource("E:\CAPTURES\My Records\test2.vdr") and save the avs file. I then load MeGUI and drag the avs file to Avisyth script line and i get the following message...

AviSynth script error:
AviSource:Could not locate video stream,
(C:\Downloads\Files\test2.avs, line 1)

Have noticed that the Framsever mode window that pops up has

Frameserver name: videotest.avi
Non-A/V requests : 18
Number of frames served: 0
Audio segments delivered: 0
Frameclients installed: AVIFile Only

The Non-A/V requests is at 0 until i try and load it into MeGUI and then goes to 18 when i get the error message

Any ideas where im going wrong?

[Fudoh]

First test if the .vdr itself works. Just drag it into another VDub instance to see if it shows up fine.

My .avs script just contains a single line:

AviSource("d:\aaaa.vdr")

That's it and this works fine into any encoder I use. Maybe the space in your path is a problem. Try saving the .vdr file to a drive directly.

[Fudoh]

After VirtualDub gave me a 3.5GB file for 50mins 1080p gameplay video at 8000kpbs using x264vfw codec

that's - by the way - a VERY reasonable file size. You usually calculate 4GB per hour for a 24p 1080p clip. And yours has 60p instead.

[lettuce]

First test if the .vdr itself works. Just drag it into another VDub instance to see if it shows up fine.

My .avs script just contains a single line:

AviSource("d:\aaaa.vdr")

That's it and this works fine into any encoder I use. Maybe the space in your path is a problem. Try saving the .vdr file to a drive directly.

Ok started the frameserve again and saved the vdr file to the root of my E drive, then loaded the vdr file into AviPmod and edited so the line reads, AviSource(e:\test.vdr) and then save the avs file to the root of the E drive, so i have

E:\test.vdr
E:\test.avs

I can drag either the .vdr or .avs file to another instance of VirtualDub and they both load the video into VirtualDub, but i still get the error message when dragging the vdr or avs files to the avisynth script section in MeGUI.

After VirtualDub gave me a 3.5GB file for 50mins 1080p gameplay video at 8000kpbs using x264vfw codec

that's - by the way - a VERY reasonable file size. You usually calculate 4GB per hour for a 24p 1080p clip. And yours has 60p instead.

I know its not massive size compared to some but when i was using x264: *scratchpad* codec in MeGUI for the same duration gameplay the files where coming out at around 2-2.5B in size and MeGUI seemed to encode it a lot fast than what VD took

[lettuce]

DP

[Fudoh]

Sorry, can't help you there. I don't use MeGUI, but x264.exe directly via command line or batch files. Maybe you should do the same.

x264 is easy to use. Here's a 2-pass encoding batch for a PAL interlaced clip:

x264.exe --tff --fps 25.0 --pass 1 --bitrate 5000 --stats "med.sta" --output NUL "p:\xxx.avs"
x264.exe --tff --fps 25.0 --pass 2 --bitrate 5000 --stats "med.sta" --output "p:\tribute2_med.264" "p:\xxx.avs"

And for merging, splitting audio and video etc, I use mmg from mkvtoolnix.

PS: In Megui I get the same access violation when opening the AVS file. Might be a version mismatch between my AVS version and the internal Megui version.

[lettuce]

PS: In Megui I get the same access violation when opening the AVS file. Might be a version mismatch between my AVS version and the internal Megui version.

Could be i guess, just seem strange that it i take just a non encoded avi file and drag it to AvsPmod and then just save it as am avs file then load that in MeGUI it works fine

Have you used RipBot264, seems to be a GUI for 264.exe???

[jeffsledge]

Anyone know a good choice for sync splitting that takes BNC input? The Extron SC 210 I bought doesn't work and my a/v setup mainly uses BNC: for my distribution amp and Sony PVM. I would just get a sync strike but then I would need another scart to BNC so I could get scart input into the sync strike after being output from the BNC distribution amp.

[lettuce]

Have noticed some screen tearing when capturing whilst playing on the Xbox 360, any suggestions to help eliminate this?

[blizzz]

Have noticed some screen tearing when capturing whilst playing on the Xbox 360, any suggestions to help eliminate this?

Do you have Aero deactivated? Enabling Aero should eliminate any screen tearing.

[lettuce]

Have noticed some screen tearing when capturing whilst playing on the Xbox 360, any suggestions to help eliminate this?

Do you have Aero deactivated? Enabling Aero should eliminate any screen tearing.

So i want the 'Invalidate Desktop composition. (Win7)' option ticked?, would this introduce input lag?

[blizzz]

No, you want it unticked. Aero = transparent window borders. If you get screen tearing with Aero activated I'm not sure what could cause it.

[lettuce]

No, you want it unticked. Aero = transparent window borders. If you get screen tearing with Aero activated I'm not sure what could cause it.

Hmm it was unticked already, maybe its just the game itself.

[Ed Oscuro]

How is Aero going to reduce tearing from video input? Sounds like a subtle frame rate mismatch to me.

[blizzz]

AmaRecTV shows the video at standard framerates, which shouldn't cause screen tearing. Also the 360 outputs at 59.94, so the problem must be something else. Aero uses double buffering which should remove most causes of screen tearing. But if the problem is indeed the game itself then there is nothing to fix it (other than playing the PC port).

[Ed Oscuro]

Your standard PC monitor / display is 60Hz (or very close, not 59.94) which would indeed present a chance for screen tearing. Double buffering won't do a thing if you are trying to capture 59.94 and display it at 60Hz. Buffering is for content generated by the PC itself.

[lettuce]

Your standard PC monitor / display is 60Hz (or very close, not 59.94) which would indeed present a chance for screen tearing. Double buffering won't do a thing if you are trying to capture 59.94 and display it at 60Hz. Buffering is for content generated by the PC itself.

We my LCD TV that is connected up to my 2nd hdmi port on my gfx card is set to 60hz 1080p and my setting in AmaRecTV are w=1280, h= 720, fps=59.94, fcc=YUY2, bit=16, which i then move the Amarectv window over to my 2nd display (LCD TV) and make fullscreen and play and capture at the same time.

So we defo want, 'Invalidate Desktop composition. (Win7)' option unticked then?

Also have noticed that as soon as AmaRecTV is loaded the CPU is at 100% usuage even though nothing is being captured any ideas on this.

I take it its almost impossible to capture and play if trying to use x264vfw codec, is it a CPU limitation (at this point in time) or the actual codec?

Speaking of which looks like version 2.31 is coming out soon....

http://www.amarectv.com/english/amarectv_e.htm

[blizzz]

x264 is a very computational intensive codec, especially if you want a high compression. I've used the lossless setting of x264vfw in the past, but in most cases you have more hdd space than cpu time to spare. At optimal settings for 1080p you'll only get 1-2 frames per second even on a high end (consumer) pcs. So you'll either have to use the lossless setting and see if it works or upgrade you cpu (or upgrade your hdd and use lagarith).

The way I understood double buffering (which could be totally wrong) is that the display buffer which is used by the GPU is write locked while the data is sent to the display. So AmaRec would refresh the back buffer 59.94 times per second, but the result won't be copied to the display buffer if it's not complete in time for a display refresh. Without Aero the gpu will use the back buffer directly which can lead to inconsistent states (= screen tearing) if a write occurs while the display refreshes.
For your screen tearing: did you try setting the refresh rate for your LCD TV to 59Hz instead of 60Hz? I doubt that it would affect it but it's worth a try.

[lettuce]

After doing a fresh OS install on my PC im even getting this screen tearing on the Xbox 360 dash now as well. It seems to scroll down the screen slowly but just the top half of the screen, when it gets to the bottom half of the screen i dont see the tearing effect anymore. I can see it moving down when i scroll the xbox 360 dash from left to right. I dont think its the LCD TV as i move the AmaRecTV screen over to my PC monitor and it does the same thing. The tearing doesn't appear to show up on the captured video however!, not sure why this is happening?

EDIT: It must be a settings in AmaRecTV program, as i have just tried Video Keeper and that has no tearing at all

[Stefan_L]

Speaking of which looks like version 2.31 is coming out soon....
http://www.amarectv.com/english/amarectv_e.htm

I been using 2.31 since last year... i think you can download it from the japanese page, the english page is just not updated.

[lettuce]

Speaking of which looks like version 2.31 is coming out soon....
http://www.amarectv.com/english/amarectv_e.htm

I been using 2.31 since last year... i think you can download it from the japanese page, the english page is just not updated.

Damn didn't know that, is it a improvement over the previous version?, hopefully it might sort out my screen tearing problem. Is it easy enough to fine on the Japanese site?

[blizzz]

Is it easy enough to fine on the Japanese site?

Yes http://www.amarectv.com/download_amarectv.htm