Where is PAL Resoultion in Capture options?

[Phire]

PAL is 352x288 isn't it? I cant find that resoultion to capture to in PC-VCR's options. I can find 352x480 though.. weird.

One other thing.. I don't do much regular TV capturing, i mostly capture from my console systems but i've noticed that 704x480 capture comes out interlaced.. is this normal? doesn't do that with 352x240 or is it just that i cant see it with a human eye..

Another thing i was wondering about PC-VCR. Is it possible you could add a Sharpness bar so u can adjust the sharpness, TV's have it so i was wondering why PC-VCR couldnt intergrate it :P

[Wyntha]

I'm struggling with getting my TV stations tuned in my Autoscan. They aren't being picked up (ie. Autoscan reports "NOT FOUND") for some reason although after scan I can see then OK. I agree on sharpness though. My stations are fuzzy and out of focus, especially in full screen mode. Strange thing is I have signal amplifier on line. Also, I had Hauppauge WIN-TV card earlier and had a much sharper picture on my screen.

[fluggo99]

Strange that no one else replied before me...

Horizontal resolution depends on the card; in this case, Matrox cards give a max 704 rez in the horizontal direction, with lesser rezs at 352 and 176 (1/2 and 1/4 of full).

PAL has 576 active vertical lines of resolution, and NTSC has 480. Both are interlaced, meaning that in a single frame, half the lines represent one picture, or field, and the other half represent another, separate picture. The two hit the screen so fast that we can't tell the difference between them; we only know it looks smooth.

When you're cutting down to half that-- 288 for instance-- you instantly lose half the original pictures you had. So, yes, PAL can be captured with 288, but the original is interlaced, and the captured video won't be. Just know what you're missing.

NTSC is the same way, except the divisions are 480 for all vertical lines, 240 for half, and 120 for a quarter. Perhaps the reason NTSC looks "interlaced" for you is that you might be trying to play it on a PAL monitor. Normally, "interlaced" should be completely transparent to you.

If you're not seeing all the resolutions you want, Matrox's HD Benchmark tool may have given you bad ratings. It needs to believe you are capable of at least 3 MB/s. Run it again and see what you find.

[Phire]

Actually i'm an NTSC user, I wanted to try out PAL resoultion capture and see if it came out any better.. My goal is to capture at 704x480 or at a higher resoultion than standard NTSC and resize it down to something like 400x300. The original 704x480 video didn't really seem interlaced till i resized it down and the video became distorted, that is when i had to use a de-interlace filter and the video was fixed. So what you're saying is, the Interlace is always there but at smaller resoultions its harder to see?

[Pertti]

Phire,

That is something you cannot do, as the card detects the standard of the incoming feed.

[fluggo99]

The interlace is always there, but when the Matrox card is playing it back for you, it's hard to see. That's because it automatically does the de-interlacing to the screen to make it look nice.

Any other program that looks at the same file will see the interlaced video; unfortunately, very few programs know how to deal with it right. That's why you're seeing weird things when you're shrinking it if you don't add the de-interlace filter.

Cool beans, here's a trick to get it to come out right without the de-interlace filter: Always divide the vertical size of the picture by a power of 2. That way, you'll only get the even fields in the output video!

--fluggo99

[Michel Carleer]

Isn't it that if you divide the vertical size by at least a factor of 2, only the even fields are digitized? Just asking.
Michka