Marvel, MS Pro and video capture.

[Rob RW]

Dr Mordrid (or others). I'm new to video editing (I'm an animator/modeller) but want to expand my skills into video production.
Have just bought a Marvel G400TV and MS Pro 5.2 on a PentIII 450 with 256 Ram running NT4 (SP5).

Have a few basic questions so please be patient?

My understanding is that video capture (MJPEG)is better using the hardware features of the Matrox card rather than through software capture(I have to use at least 4.6:1 comp for my NTFS SCSI drive after benchmarking it for PAL 704x576x25fps for zero dropped frames). Capture is from a DV cam and SVID in. Initial tests seem to give good quality. Is this correct?

From the forum there seems to be a 2GIG limit per file for capture with PC-VCR? Is this the main reason for using software codecs like YUY2 or Huffyuv? rather than Pc-VCR? or is there a way to capture through MSPro with the Marvel MJPEG to overcome this? What about problems with sound sync for long recording?

If I were to use these codecs for compression-editing and then decompression back to video output are there performance/quality advantages/disadvantages
over just using MJPEG from PC-VCR?

If I don't install Matrox video tools (PC-VCR) how do I activate the Matrox hardware capabilities in MS Pro?

Thanks for any advice/references you can give.

[Sciascia]

I personally like to use HuffYUV (at 352*240) for capture due to the fact that it is a lossless codec. Unfortunately you have to use PD 1.52 to be able to enable the software compression capability. (There is a utility on the downlaod page) Using the Matrox MJPEG would probably save some headaches though. It depends on your final product needs. If it is tape, the MJPEG would be a good choice. If it is to recompress to another format, using Huff would be better quality, because there is a difference between codecs (they use different info to compress and if it isn't there..) and the MJPEG looks bad recompressed to MPEG. By giving an MPEG encoder more info, it will compress much better.

How long is your intended capture? With MJPEG you would probably not hit the 2G barrier to often. With HUFF, it might happen. If the purpose is for editing, try to capture "clips" (small avi's of intended video with enough lead and tail to edit). this will also speed up editing considerably. It will also utilize your disc space better. If you do need to capture over 2G try "avi io", a program by Marcus Zingg. There is a link on the links page of this site.

As for decompression to TV out, use the same format and compression as the source footage. This should eliminate recompression, ar atleast keep the quality as high as possible. I am not sure about MSP5.2, but it should have "smart rendering" which will only recompress edited sections.

Sound sync problems: I have never had a problem with sync in MJPEG. I am currently trying to figure out a problem with HUFF myself. I seem to be the only person with this problem and I tried the new version of avi io (about an hour ago) and it went away. This program locks audio and video sync very well.

I think in order to capture you will have to install the Vidtools, because that installs the capture driver. Doc would know for sure. I would install them irregardless.

My suggestions are to think about what your final product will be and to try avi io ($25 or free trial), just because Marcus seems to be a good guy (and the program opens up a lot of other options).

[This message has been edited by Sciascia (edited 04 August 2000).]