The WTF do you use for capturing videos thread

[GaijinPunch]

I've got a new capture device which came with Premiere Elements. It also works (sort of) with Premiere. I'm under the impression that Elements sucks, and my old version of Premiere is a bit whack. So, what do you use, and how's the quality?

Two people's vids I've seen taht I like are MrMonkeyMan's, and Icarus'. Perhaps they can share their secrets (hardware, software, settings, etc.)

[zakk]

I use this card: http://www.pluggedin.tv/site/sweetspot/index.html with RGB capture.

Software: http://www.iulabs.com/

I do all my encoding/processing in virtualdub (sometimes AVISynth is involved too) . I've converted over to h264 encodes, since I can get decent looking videos at only 850kbit/sec.

I only bother with 30fps right now. You can extract 60fps out of most captures by splitting each frame into two half-height frames (i.e split the even and odd fields into seperate frames). It even makes since for most arcade captures; they're 15khz "progressive" anyways. I'm not sure about consoles, honestly. You're just undoing what the capture card did anyways. I stick with 30fps mostly for file size issues. I think I have a decent balance between resolution and size right now. One day when I make a video that doesn't suck, I'll consider 60fps.

Direct capturing arcade RGB is..interesting. Like if I capture Gunbird 2 directly, every other frame is off by 3 lines (!?). I can correct that. Some boards just have weird sync rates and you have to tweak stuff, etc.

[GaijinPunch]

My gun only has S-Vid, composite, and 21-pin RGB out, so that card would be no good to me (other than for the S-Video and composite). I might try that software. I could never get Virtual Dub to capture for me, for some reason.

Looks like uiVcr is freeware, no? I've never seen h264 encoding. Is this a very common codec? Nothing like making someone install something to see your work.

[zakk]

I think there is some fee for iuVCR. I can't remember if it actually disables/limits anything, or if it's just a 'hey, you should really pay for this if you like it'.


If you had some way to break out the RGB and sync to rca you could use the RGB parts of the card. I have an overly complicated video setup (I need to diagram this for fun, I may do that tonight) that makes this easy, but I recognize I'm in the minority (like 1). I think they actually sell exactly what you need cable wise, but it's probably stupidly expensive to import from the UK AND it may be wired wrong for a japanese SCART type connector.

I can't really say how popular h264 is. It's essentially the next step beyond divx/xvid. Anyone who has ffdshow installed can decode it. It's been gaining popularity over the last year or so, mostly because you can get away with lower bitrates and retain good quality. Or keep your old xvid bitrates and get very good looking encodes. It does take longer to encode, however.

Personally I'm fine with making people install h264 decoders. They're going to have to eventually anyways, so whatever.

[GaijinPunch]

JPN 21-pin is definitely different from SCART. It's rewireable, but I don't know how if you can just rip open the connector and start rewiring (never tried). It would make sense to actually do the rewiring on the device itself. Do you have such a device/cable, or did you wire yours yoursefl?

That card does seem pretty solid, and it would give me something to screw with if I ever did want to capture in RGB. I couldn't find the link where they sell it though.

I need to get my main Windows machine back up and running. I completely fucked it up yesterday, restoring from an image of which only half existed. I know, I'm an idiot.

[Dave_K.]

Although I haven't bought one yet, I'm still convinced a DVD recorder is the way to go, for shear simplicity at least:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... =superplay

[zakk]

I'm not really convinced a dvd recorder is 'simple'. The whole process of getting the data to your PC when you want to encode it seems way too annoying for me. At that point I might as well have just directly captured it.

The other danger is you're at the mercy of the capture hardware in the recorder. Those things are designed with a fairly 'normal' range of expected inputs. PCBs are far from normal. Even some console games. You may end up with parts cut off from the picture, jumpy sync etc. Then again, you may not, depends on the source.

I had a component->DV bridge that refused to capture PS2 Galuda or DOJ tate modes because they're so big. It didn't even play nice and chop off some part of the screen; it just claimed there was no input at all and refused to output anything. One of the advantages of the PC based bt8x8 cards is you can get a utility that lets you tweak the internal registers. You can compensate for some weirdness that way. And that chipset is incredibly lax about what it takes in, even if it results in a weird picture sometimes. You can usually recover it via tweaking somehow.

Oh, quick diagram of my living room video distribution. Blue lines are component video, btw. There's also some miscellaneous sync processors I left out. I also have something that lets me scale VGA to component 480i, in case I ever need to capture Dreamcast stuff. But I only hook that up when I need it; it's hard to integrate into the setup since it only outputs component.

http://bigcore.rsdio.com/zakk/stuff/videodist.png

[ChronoLe]

Gaijin,

I have a rather expensive solution for you, although I havn't had the time to test it out comprehensively. I purchased the Canopus Twin Pact 100 a few months back. You can get it with academic discount for $400. My original purpose was to capture video coming from my xrgb-2/+ and Xselect-D4. It has a D-Sub 15 pin vga input that allows you to capture any rgb signal connected to it. Outputs via firewire. I've tested it with RE4 running in 480P as well as Guitar Hero running from the Xrgb-2 (RGB 21 pin jap) 480i. Initial raw captures look good, but I havn't done any encoding yet.

[zakk]

Gaijin,

I have a rather expensive solution for you, although I havn't had the time to test it out comprehensively. I purchased the Canopus Twin Pact 100 a few months back. You can get it with academic discount for $400. My original purpose was to capture video coming from my xrgb-2/+ and Xselect-D4. It has a D-Sub 15 pin vga input that allows you to capture any rgb signal connected to it. Outputs via firewire. I've tested it with RE4 running in 480P as well as Guitar Hero running from the Xrgb-2 (RGB 21 pin jap) 480i. Initial raw captures look good, but I havn't done any encoding yet.

!!! This might be exactly what I need. Simplifies the whole process. Any idea if it can handle 15khz RGB input from the D-Sub? Also, when you feed it 480p signal, is the resulting DV output progressive? Or does it scan-convert it THEN output to DV? I don't really care either way, just wondering. I'm more concerned with it being able to take 15khz RGB.

edit: Oh bah, I found some specs. 24khz-100kzh horizontal frequency. Oh well.

[ChronoLe]

Hey Zakk,

I'm not too familiar with your card, but is there any notable things that the Canopus cannot do that I might need the Sweetspot card for? From your previous post, I gather that the canopus can't capture the signals sent from the arcade pcbs that use 15kHz? Also, regarding your question: I'm neither sure if the resulting output is progressive; however, the unit is considered/labeled a "scan converter" which would leave me to believe that is does just scan-convert the signal. If you found anything in your reading that says otherwise, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

[zakk]

Hey Zakk,

I'm not too familiar with your card, but is there any notable things that the Canopus cannot do that I might need the Sweetspot card for? From your previous post, I gather that the canopus can't capture the signals sent from the arcade pcbs that use 15kHz? Also, regarding your question: I'm neither sure if the resulting output is progressive; however, the unit is considered/labeled a "scan converter" which would leave me to believe that is does just scan-convert the signal. If you found anything in your reading that says otherwise, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Their specs CLAIM it the acceptable input range starts at 24khz for the RGB input. It may just work with 15khz. It's hard to tell with these things. It may just work, or it may totally mess up the image. I always find it weird these things don't support 15khz RGB, considering the whole europe thing.

You could convert the RGB to Svideo and plug it into this unit, that would work for capturing PCBs.

I also wonder how it deals with widescreen/HDTV resolutions over the RGB in. That's my one disappointment with the scan converter I have now. It assumes PC input, throwing 720p at it weirds it out.

I may try mailing Canopus and seeing if they respond with anything enlightening.

[GaijinPunch]

I know Canopus products are really good. I might wind up getting one eventually. I've got my PC up and almost working again.... so pissed I fucked it up in the first place.

Thank for the posts so far. Wish Icarus and MMM would jump in.

[MrMonkeyMan]

Who me? I'm just using a DVD recorder now, splitting my S-Video signal at the source, one to the TV/Monitor the other to the DVD recorder.

Then I take the video off the DVD throw it in virtualdub, lay some filters down, and encode it at the highest quality I can.

The recorder is some Pioneer brand thing I bought cheap because I wanted something that could record my Ketsui videos properly. It's working out ok so far.

I don't think I do anything fancy.

[Icarus]

Oi, where did this thread come from? ^_-

I thought about writing a video capture FAQ for the Hardware forum since a few people have asked me already, but I'm having trouble with my supergun - my capture card won't receive a proper signal, and instead puts out a crappy looking almost flat grey video signal. Must be something to do with my SCART cable. Consoles of all descriptions work fine, however.

Anyway, you wanted to know what I use to capture, right?

• COMPUTER HARDWARE:
  First off, you'll need something to route a video signal into your computer for capturing. While you can use a graphics card with Video IN quite comfortably, or a USB/FireWire device. you'll preferably want some dedicated hardware which will give you better control of your video signal. In my experience, I've always used a dedicated videocapture card.
  
  Now, there are two types of videocapture cards that I know of: one is an RGB card, and the other is an MJPEG card. The main difference between them (to me anyway) is that an RGB card will allow you to capture at 30fps, while an MJPEG card will allow you to capture at 60fps.
  
  Generally, RGB cards give you the higher video quality of the two, while MJPEG cards, for games at least, give you a smoother playback. Thats because RGB cards generally capture alternating video frames (grab one, discard next, repeat) while an MJPEG card will capture both and interlace them into one frame, for seperating later.
  
  (NOTE: You can use an MJPEG codec to capture 60fps with an RGB card, but the quality takes a massive nosedive due to the recompression of the signal during capture. And that's before you've done DivX/XviD etc on it.)
  
  All good cards should give you the choice of composite or S-Video. Only expensive pro level cards give you other inputs such as RGB Split.
  
  As for my capture card, I'm using a Pinnacle/Miro DC30 MJPEG capture card with unofficial stable WinXP drivers. I picked it up off eBay quite a while ago for under £30, and it was a bargain.
  
  There's a bunch of them on eBay at the moment.
  
  As for sound, you can send it to your Line IN port using a combined composite/phono-to-composite/headphone cable (Video, Left Audio and Right Audio - the cable with red, white and yellow pins ^_-).
• OTHER HARDWARE:
  Since I'm doing direct-feed recording in this manner, I need some way of being able to send the video signal to my capture card, while still displaying the video on my TV screen. For that, I use a SCART Splitter box, that allows multiple SCART inputs, and has both SCART and Composite outputs. From that, all I do is route SCART to TV, and Composite (with L + R audio) to the capture card.
  
  This is the box I use.
  
  As for VGA signals, I use a VGA-to-Composite signal convertor to reroute the VGA signal back to my card. This works great for PC games and shmups, although the quality is degraded a little due to the scan conversion. You can also use this with an X-RGB2+ as well. ^_-
• SOFTWARE:
  Since I use a dedicated card to capture, I need software that is small, compact and does everything I need it to do. For that, I use VirtualDub. I does very good video handling, including using its own MJPEG splitting routines if required, has filters which can do things such as resize, add logos and subtitles, and crop among other things, and also has a very good capture suite that can take any card you throw at it.
• OTHER METHODS:
  There are other methods to capturing besides direct-feed. The best of the alternatives is using a DVD-recorder like MrMonkeyMan does. However, you'd probably need a lot of DVD-Rs, or use a DVD-RW for this. Also, with DVD-rec, you need to be able to rip and convert the video, and for that you can use standard ripping tools. VirtualDubMod can be used as well.

By the way Zakk, I'm not sure if you know, but you can capture from arcade boards using an X-RGB2+ (or similar), routing the signal to a VGA-to-somposite signal convertor (like that Trust Televiewer I use, or an AverKey iMicro), and into your videocapture card. Alamone has already done this with many PCBs, and although the signal that is captured is often cropped depending on the native resolution of the PCB, its excellent quality.

Just check out his RFJ replays.

(You will need to use an AVISynth script to delete the duplicate frames that result from capturing a sub-60fps game at 60fps, mind. With RFJ and other Seibu SPI games there is a simple formula that is used as the duplicate frames appear at regular times in the video, but other games will require other formulas, and some games need it done by hand. -_-;; )

I'm sure Alamone will be able to give you some help if you ask him.

[zakk]

• COMPUTER HARDWARE:
  
  (NOTE: You can use an MJPEG codec to capture 60fps with an RGB card, but the quality takes a massive nosedive due to the recompression of the signal during capture. And that's before you've done DivX/XviD etc on it.)

It would take no more of a quality hit than a hardware-based MJPEG compressor. Hell, you probably have more opportunity to tweak the compressor settings with some of the better software based MJPEG codecs than you would with it in hardware.


Also, RGB capture cards do not throw away every other field. They weave them into a full sized frame. Nearly every capture device that captures NTSC/PAL/15khz does this. It's why you can actually do the 60fps thing with MJPEG. The weave occurs before the compression step. You get 30fps at 'full sized' frames. 60fps at 'half sized' frames.

BTW, the 60fps field split thing isn't limited to MJPEG. You can do it with any compression codec. All it does is take the odd lines and make one frame out of it and then the even lines become another frame. This obviously doubles the framerate. The advantage to MJPEG is that virtualdub has its own internal MJPEG processing routines. These let you separate the fields on load. There's a filter called 'view fields' that will let you see the fields for non-MJPEG files. The problem is the way virtualdub is written, filters cannot change the framerate (or change the number of frames, I forget which). So you can't do the double framerate/half height trick via filters. If you're not using MJPEG, the only way to do this is to use AVISynth, and use its SeparateFields() function. THEN feed this into Virtualdub.

Really, in these modern times, it doesn't much matter WHICH card you get for capturing. The biggest differentiators are going to be type of inputs, how many inputs you get, and if it does any on-board encoding. There's only about 2-3 chipsets for capturing, and even the cheap $15 cards use one of these and they have to try very hard to screw it up. And with CPU power these days, the onboard encoding is nice to have but not required.

[Icarus]

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I always assumed that RGB discarded the second frame, as I would expect some weird scanlining if it didn't. The MJPEG codecs I've used in the past though have always captured at around half the framesize of my MJPEG hardware card, but I'm not sure about how good newer MJPEG codecs are (since I've been an MJPEG user for quite a while).

As for changing the frame rate, doesn't VirtualDub have an option to alter the video framerate in the Video menu?

[zakk]

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I always assumed that RGB discarded the second frame, as I would expect some weird scanlining if it didn't. The MJPEG codecs I've used in the past though have always captured at around half the framesize of my MJPEG hardware card, but I'm not sure about how good newer MJPEG codecs are (since I've been an MJPEG user for quite a while).

The PICVideo MJPEG codec is excellent. No problems handling realtime 720x480 at highest quality setting.

And regarding the RGB stuff. You do get 'weird scanlining'. It's why you have to deinterlace the clip. You get the 'interlaced' look where things move because the even and odd lines of the frame are actually different points in time. Which is why with the half-height 60fps thing, you can really just get away with resizing all the frames back to full height. That's actually perfectly good 'deinterlacing'. Although there are other reasons you want to use different deinterlacing techniques. Deinterlacing is a very complicated topic; to the point of being annoying, really.

As for changing the frame rate, doesn't VirtualDub have an option to alter the video framerate in the Video menu?

Yeah, it does. I think that's distinct from the filter chain. The filter API hands you bitmaps I think. You can't do anything fancy like delete or add frames, just tweak the image you're handed.

[GaijinPunch]

The recorder is some Pioneer brand thing I bought cheap because I wanted something that could record my Ketsui videos properly. It's working out ok so far.

Yeah, I'd say it is. Just using S-Video from the Super Gun?
What settings do you use when you encode? I assume you do it in Virtual Dub, w/ DiVX (2nd pass) or something? What bitrate and audio codec are you using?

[zakk]

The recorder is some Pioneer brand thing I bought cheap because I wanted something that could record my Ketsui videos properly. It's working out ok so far.

Yeah, I'd say it is. Just using S-Video from the Super Gun?
What settings do you use when you encode? I assume you do it in Virtual Dub, w/ DiVX (2nd pass) or something? What bitrate and audio codec are you using?

He's using DivX 5, 30fps (well, 29.971, but whatever). 1202 kbps (so he's probably setting it to 1200). MP3@128kbps.

The real question is what filters is he using. Deinterlace etc.


Oh, I forgot to mention this. if you're doing direct from PCB RGB captures, you need to drop the signal levels down. I have resistors on the RGB lines to do this. Otherwise the colors get 'clipped' and shit is way too bright and you lose lots of dynamic range. I can't remember what SCARTs levels are at, but I think it's 0-1V, whereas PCBs tend to be 0-5V or so. Ideally you'd like to find something that has RGB gain controls you can plug into and dynamically adjust things. A static resistor works just fine tho. I'd have to go look at what value mine are, however.

[Icarus]

The PICVideo MJPEG codec is excellent.

Thats the one I used to use. ^_-

It used to bug the crap out of me how the codec wouldn't capture at anything higher than 1600KB/s without dropping a lot of frames, when my MJPEG card (back then it was a Pinnacle DC10+) would do it at twice that with no problems. One of the reasons why I went with hardware MJPEG as opposed to software MJPEG.

Now to solve the problem of a dodgy video signal from my supergun... -_-;;

As for PCB captures, some superguns use variable dials to control the RGB output. Perhaps they can be used to control the signal so it stops clipping?

[zakk]

The PICVideo MJPEG codec is excellent.

Thats the one I used to use. ^_-

It used to bug the crap out of me how the codec wouldn't capture at anything higher than 1600KB/s without dropping a lot of frames, when my MJPEG card (back then it was a Pinnacle DC10+) would do it at twice that with no problems. One of the reasons why I went with hardware MJPEG as opposed to software MJPEG.

I'm pushing out 20,397 kilobit/sec with MJPEG right now. I don't drop frames. Well, sometimes I drop one or two, but that's likely because the disk in this machine is not the fastest and is getting a bit old.

As for PCB captures, some superguns use variable dials to control the RGB output. Perhaps they can be used to control the signal so it stops clipping?

Yes, this would work. Although the problem there is what may be the right settings for the capture card might be wayyy too dark for your display. You'd have to fiddle with it. Ideally you'd like independent controls for each.

I'm also not entirely convinced RGB capture is really needed. I do it just because I'm a nerd; but after you mangle the video with xvid/h264/divx etc, I'm not so sure you're really going to see a big difference between a RGB source and an RGB->svideo source. At that point your quality more depends on your bitrate and how you've configured the codec.

If I had something that could convert RGB to svideo, I'd run some tests myself. Don't think I do, unfortunately.

[Icarus]

Yes, this would work. Although the problem there is what may be the right settings for the capture card might be wayyy too dark for your display. You'd have to fiddle with it. Ideally you'd like independent controls for each.

Some superguns do indeed come with individual control dials for each part of an RGB signal. I doubt it would be difficult to add them to a supergun that doesn't have any (soldering and wiring permitting), ^_-

I'm also not entirely convinced RGB capture is really needed. I do it just because I'm a nerd; but after you mangle the video with xvid/h264/divx etc, I'm not so sure you're really going to see a big difference between a RGB source and an RGB->svideo source. At that point your quality more depends on your bitrate and how you've configured the codec.

I agree. Although pure RGB capture might be optimal in some cases, I doubt anyone but the most anal of video-tech-freaks will be able to spot the difference after compression. The only important factor is how high quality your source material is prior to DivX/XviD/whatever compression.

As long as what you have set up works, and you're satisfied with the output, there's no need to fiddle. ^_-

Just a quick question: what do you think causes this?

[zakk]

That looks like somewhere, something is applying an emboss filter to the image.

See: http://bigcore.rsdio.com/zakk/stuff/desktop.png

[Icarus]

I have no idea where its coming from then, because there are no filters applied to the videosignal during capture. -_-;;
My capture settings are hardly ever changed.
Plus the emboss on your screenshot is more pronounced than what comes into my capture card. A lot more. :/
This is extremely baffling. :/

[zakk]

Actually, I exaggerated it a bit via the filter settings. The default looks very much like that screenshot you posted.

I can't even think of any way the input signal could be bad that would cause such an effect.

[Icarus]

Actually, I exaggerated it a bit via the filter settings. The default looks very much like that screenshot you posted.

I can't even think of any way the input signal could be bad that would cause such an effect.

I've tried an RGB capture card, and it has the same effect as well, so it must be something originating from the supergun itself. I'm not sure what could be causing it, as it displays fine on my TV. -_-;;

I might pick up a SCART-VGA cable and see if it works okay through my signal convertor. I'm not optimisitic about it, but I can see no other solution at the moment. Thanks for the help. ^_-

[GaijinPunch]

zakk:

What h264 codec package are you using? I tried x264, and it just crashed Virtual Dub. I got iuVcr to capture though.

[MrMonkeyMan]

The recorder is some Pioneer brand thing I bought cheap because I wanted something that could record my Ketsui videos properly. It's working out ok so far.

Yeah, I'd say it is. Just using S-Video from the Super Gun?
What settings do you use when you encode? I assume you do it in Virtual Dub, w/ DiVX (2nd pass) or something? What bitrate and audio codec are you using?

He's using DivX 5, 30fps (well, 29.971, but whatever). 1202 kbps (so he's probably setting it to 1200). MP3@128kbps.

The real question is what filters is he using. Deinterlace etc.

Yeah, just S-Video straight from the supergun.

The only filters I use are deinterlace, cropping, rotating and resizing. For encoding with divX I throw it on insane quality, and it seems to make them look pretty good. I don't bother with multipasses because by the time the first pass is done my computer is ready to call it quits.

[GaijinPunch]

Fucking DivX. Won't let me rotate it. I get a "source image isn't valid format" or some bullshit error like that. It's only when I rotate it, so it has to do w/ the size of the video, although it follows the rules (width divisible by 4, height by 2).

[MrMonkeyMan]

What resolution are you trying to encode in? DivX is anal about all sorts of resolutions.