Looking for a GOOD video capture program

[eurosong]

OK, so it's what I thought then! Yes I knew that VOB files contain all the information mixed into one - but it's good to also know that an MPEG2 file is basically just copied byte-by-byte into a VOB, with the additional menu stuff etc. So that means if I have a video in MPEG2 format of, say, 8GB - then the resulting VOB files will total the same (or with whatever extra there would be if I added a menu) - right?

X264 is a mystery at the moment, in the light of what you said. For a start, my captured video was not raw: it is compressed by Lagarith as suggested. So according to what you say, the indexing should not be required. Secondly, after the indexing finished then nothing happened. No further processing. My command window just sat there with no further prompt, while the X264 process was still running idle. Weird! I might give it another go tonight.

[Mounir]

Fly 2000Tv is the best to me (contact me if you want it). Can record with mpeg encoder such as intervideo or avi. It works reliably with my card (no bugs) unlike COUNTLESS of softwares out there

[eurosong]

OK guys, I think I've cracked it!

Thank you SO much for all your help - everyone who replied.

Mariush: thank you for your advice. I tried x264 - however, I found that Nero Vision did the trick. I set it to transcode my AVI to MPEG2 in two passes, and to fit on a DVD9 utilising the maximum space. This is just what I needed.

Also, Mounir - thank you for the suggestion about Fly2000TV. I tried it, and it works well. I have been using Debut Video Capture over the last few days - which is also good, but for some reason it could only capture in 30fps. Then I had to use VirtualDub to convert it to 25fps, at the same time I was cropping the "overscan" from the bottom of the VHS (another issue I found out about!) It's a software problem - not hardware - because other programs, including Fly2000TV can capture in 25fps.

Anyway - with Fly2000TV, Lagarith, VirtualDub and Nero Vision I am at last able to capture exactly how I want.

Thanks a lot everyone!

[jmac698]

Virtualdub has confirmed sync issues by default. The only way I could get it to work was capture->timing->uncheck the first two items.
I wrote a test suite to generate and decode custom timecode, and verified that vdub does not work by default.
As for a lossless codec, the recommendation for huffyuv is very out of date, on a good system I'd use ffv1 from ffdshow. I tested nearly all lossless codecs in another thread as well.
I still don't know a program that can record cc as well.

[ChiDragon]

I got skipped frames when I disabled those top two items. Of course these aren't reported as either drops or inserts, since they aren't. Did you confirm that no frames were missing in your captures?

[jmac698]

Hi,
Could you run my glitchanalyzer to see what's happening? I've switched to a 64bit system and apparently the new drivers are giving me issues with my usual settings, so this trick doesn't seem to be universal. My problem right now is audio out of sync. I'm going to run my glitchanalyzer myself to see what's happening, I might have to update it with an audio sync test signal as well.
https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1463261
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1470667

[ChiDragon]

I'm not sure what your links are supposed to be pointing to. I was just saying FYI though regarding those two options, I can capture fine with the right settings.

[jmac698]

I understand now, thanks. Glad things worked out.

[Gew]

Originally Posted by eurosong

Hmm, I may have found a viable solution.

One program which I had previously written off was "Debut Video Capture", because it could not capture uncompressed. However, having installed Lagarith, it now recognises this codec - and if it's lossless then it may do the job for me. Debut does not appear to suffer from the synch problems of VirtualDub. This is mysterious: from what I can see, VirtualDub is a "power user" program which is configurable for every possible option, so it should be superior to any basic user program which includes default options which can not be changed. But for some reason, VD refuses to work for me, whatever options I choose - and the more basic programs seem to just get the synch right without any worries. Most mysterious.

I must bump in on this topic, because I most definitely concur. Check my situation out. I have this ASUS Eee 1015PN (Dual-core Atom @1.5GHz) with a built-in 0.3 megapixel web camera, capable of capturing 640x480 @ 30fps. Now. I thought I'd try to "record locally", i.e. not using it with Skype/MSN or suchlike IM clients. I _love_ free software, and have used VDubMod for years. However, VDubMod AVI capture seems to bug with W7 (x86). It fetches my device the first time, then after I "Exit capture mode" -- and then revisit capture mode -- it won't be able to connect to device. I'm then forced to restart my computer to have the webcam present again. However, with (original) VirtualDub I was able to chose between WDM and DirectShow for the web camera, and both connected fine.

However(!), there was trouble on it's way. The machine also has a built-in microphone (like most laptops). My concept was to be able to capture video _and_ audio. Now, I did raw YUY2 capture, and PCM set to 16-bit/44.1Khz/mono. The result is out of sync. I have tried _all_ timing settings but they tend do do very little. With some settings even more _progressively_ out of sync. Aawergh. I have also tried capturing in lower quality eg. 320x240@15fps. Same issues. I tried encoding to Xvid/etc instead of capturing raw. Now result suffered huge lag.

I was about to give up. I thought "Well, after all it's an Eee Atom netbook. Perhaps it's too slow to capture live A/V". Then, just an hour ago, I stumbled on that free-for-non-commercial-use program "Debut Video Capture". I installed it and gave it a go. Now, it worked out of the box. Perfect sync. It even manages to encode MPEG4-ASP. I even seem to be able to use x264vfw on the fly. It's awesome. Almost unbelievable.

However, there don't seem to be any "raw" capture mode, so even thought I've got HuffYUV over at ffdshow I assume it may not be "truly raw" i.e. color-space conversations and such will take place. Am I wrong here?

Would be cool if there was a way that I could actually use VDub. I hate the philosophy of anything but GPL/GNU/free (as-in-free) software, but I guess I will have to suffice with this program. Thanks to this thread I also found VirtualVCR, which seems to be free (sourceforge hosted). I will give that a go later on today, and see if it works just as well as Debut.

Just thought I'd share this experience, since it goes well hand in hand with thread-starters experience of VDub versus Debut. Aawergh. I would also be _thrilled_ if someone just gave me a brief "You could also try this setting in VDub" and viola it worked perfectly, since the VDub family is my all time favorite choice.

[Gew]

Hi (again) guys.
This is quite embarrassing, erhm, but erhm, it seemed, I was wrong about Debut.

x264vfw/MPEG2/Xvid produces a great amount of lag and dropped frames. Debut's internal MPEG4 (H.263-isch) encoder with AAC sound encapsulated in MP4/MOV works though, also WMV works fine. Losless YUY2, and it's compressed variants Lagarith, FFV1, HuffYUV etc works also. Thing is, which all these has in common, they tend to drop out of frame sooner or later. This is not easy to fix, as it's not a fixed delay, but more or less by random, during the capture. Debut sometimes reports lots of lost frames, and sometimes it reports 0 lost frames. Either ways, sync often goes bad. I thought it would be the poor Asus Eee's VGA webcam that was to blame, i.e. nothing to do about it.

However(!), I tried downloading the W7 software "Expression Encoder". With this, I'm able to capture VC1/WMA@ .WMV without any bad sync at all. The software feels bloat though, and I would much like to find some software that can handle various VfW formats (eg. lossless codecs). So, therefor I'm back in this thread. Any ideas about software I could try?

[dreamlayers]

Recently I did some capturing from Video8. I used an ATI TV Wonder VE, a Bt8x8 based card, and Realtek HD audio line in. At first, VirtualDub 1.9.11 was a disappointment, with inserted frames and wrong and drifting AV sync. Disabling "Correct video timing for fewer frame drops/inserts" fixed the sync issues. After that, sync seemed accurate to less than one frame.

The inserted frames were always right before recording was stopped and restarted or before severe interference. It was either "1 inserted, 1 normal, new scene" or "1 inserted, 1 normal, 1 old scene interlaced with new". The inserted frame was an extra duplicate frame, rather than a replacement for a missing frame. I deleted the duplicate frame and the following frames before the scene change.

On one particular 2 hour recording, I got 12 dropped frames. I'm not sure what's up with that. It's not possible to locate these in the recording. I suppose they were dropped for sync reasons, and so they simply don't appear in the video. I guess 12 frames in 2 hours isn't bad.

Overall, I wouldn't say VirtualDub is great, but it's ok.

[Andrey O.]

I wonder if our new capture app would be interesting to you guys.

This is just the very first version. We started it as an improved version of Blackmagic's Media Express. But we are ready to hear your feedback and move forward.

The app is free and works on Windows only for now.

[Aresias]

is it possible to capture real time FFV1 1080p @ 30 or 60 fps ? or this codec is not fast enough for real-time ?
i tried with Dxtory with the latest FFDshow build but it doesn't work properly.
Currently i use Lagarith codec YV12 colorspace.

My rig:
i5 4670k@4.2
16Gb 2400 CL10@1T
R9 290@1130/1350