ULead MSP7.3/Matrox MJPEG avi playback errors

[Miklos]

Does anyone have a problem with the latest UMSP 7.3 VFW analog capture
driver? (done all the recomendedl modifications to ULead32.ini)

1. Cannot play back analog captures (ULEAD VFW Capture-PAL MJPEG Matrox Hardware Capture Driver) viz. Can capture analog avi file OK but can't play back in MSP7 Capture modules or MSP7 Editor module.

2. However the avi VFW capture in MSP7 will load and play back in MSP 6.5 Capture Module; MSP6.5 Editor and DVD Movie Factory

3. Error Messages:- (i) In MSP7 Capture-Playback get "Unable to open the video file. maybe the file is destroyed or does not exist"

(ii) In MSP7 Editor, insert above file to timeline OK then on play get "No combination of intermediate filers could be found to make the connection"

4. In fact above applies to any Matrox avi file that attempt to load into MSP 7.3

5. None of these errors occur with ULMSP5 and ULEAD MSP6.5.


Thanks

Miklos



System:-Windows' 98SE (All MS updates added)) (FAT32 ) / Epox 8KTA2 Main Board (VIA KT-133, 100ASA support) (VIADrv4in1v 4.4Cool 8) /Athlon 1.2MB / 384MB PC133 SDRAM/ Maxtor20GB UDMA66 Primary Master/ TDK Cyclone CDRW Primary Slave/ Seagate Barracuda 80GB UDMA100 7,200 Secondary Master ST320021A (captures land here) / Seagate Barracuda 80GB UDMA100 7,200 Secondary Slave ST320021A/ Matrox Marvel AGP G400TV16MB (PD 6.82.016) /DX 9.0/ Pine PCI SC (Essolo drv) /Ali Firewir
e/USB2 PCI Card

[Debbie]

It looks as if UMSP 7.X is not recognizing the hardware compression.
I recall having this problem with VFW in version 7 but since I have given up using VFW for quite some time, I am not sure what I did then.

This appeard in the copatibility of capture cards on the Ulead site:

http://www.ulead.com/msp/compatibility.htm

NOTE 1: Please add these strings to the Ulead32.ini file in the Windows directory.

[HardwareACC]
NotSaveOpenDML=1
AviPlayEngineMCI=1
[Playback]
RenderAudio=1

Debbie

[Miklos]

Thanks Debbie for your input. I guessed this might be the case.

Ulead insist there is no bug in V7 regards this but how else do you explain the fact that 6.5 (and indeed 5.0) do not exhibit this error and work fine with VFW Matrox Capture in MJPEG?

Shame you can't remember if you solved it. I've added all the ususal recommends from ULEAD ironically which modified the ULEAD32.ini to solve issues in V6.5 but do not address this issue with V7!

I guess you are using DV now instead of VFW. I could I suppose convert my analog tapes to DV using the analog to DV input of my camcorder but this would be a bit round about and stress my camera heads somewhat. Hopefully something may develop further on this.

Miklos

[DarrenD]

Miklos
My Canon MV-600i can convert analogue audio/video input to DV output over 1394 into the PC without having a DV tape in the camcorder. If yours is the same you will not stress the camera heads (I assume you mean the DV camcorder heads). It also means the DV camcorder can convert 3 hour VHS tapes to DV and let the PC capture a 3 hour DV stream. If you recorded the analogue tape onto DV tape and then played that to the PC you would stress your camcorder heads and also be limited to 1 hour (assuming a 1 hour DV tape) at a time.
If I have completely missed the point please correct me. If I have not missed the point then I may have saved you some grief
If you have the option of using the camcorder to convert analogue to DV I would definitely go that way since DV is so much easier than analogue capture/audio sync problems. Oh for the days of my G400-TV!!!

[Debbie]

I'm now using DirectShow (ATI) and DV (Firewire). My days of VFW (Marvel G400 - TV) are quite a way behind me.

Debbie

[Miklos]

DarrenD
You are spot on with your point. I had not thought of using my DVcamcorder in this way. I don't know if it will pass an analogue to digital signal straight through to a 1394 input. Yes this would very handy for the longer SVHS/VHS VCR tapes so will investigate the possibility. I'll not want to dispence with my G-400 just yet though it has such a great TV capture capability.

Thanks again

[Debbie]

You can use AVI_IO with software compression, like the PicVideo MJPEG codec.
This combination gives exelent results, the more so in Win98 because you will not have to warry about the size of your captured file since AVI_IO will split it with frame accuracy.

You will also require the "Flying Dutchman's YUY2 enabling utility for Win98" and VidTools 1.52 .


Debbie

[Miklos]

Thanks Debbie.

I have used AVI_IO in the distant past with PiCVideo and Huffyuv codecs if I remember rightly my Athlon 1.2GB /HD could only manage 1/2 screen resolution before shedding frames. I'm really want to capture at full screen (704x576) so I can later burn to SVCD or DVD quality.

Oh by the way just done a ruthless purge of everthing ULEAD inc the registry and made a fresh instal of ULMSP 7, added the patch and modified the ULead32.ini. Guess what, nothing has changed: still wont play any Matrox MJPEG captures. If check the compression setting in Capture module get "run time error". Seems anything to do with Matrox hardware compression throws MSP7.

[Debbie]

I have never had any problems with AVI_IO + PicVideo MJPEG at 704x576 (PAL).
Yes, your Athlon 1.2GB + SDRAM is perhaps a little inadeguate for the job

Make sure all your hardware is working well, mostly the RAM strips.

If you had good results with UMSP 6.5, I would use that version. Probably you will not miss
the updates in version 7.x

Debbie

[DarrenD]

My old machine was
Asus K7V (KX133 VIA chipset - Dr Mordrid don't laugh)
Slot A Athlon 700 overclocked to 900
256Mb PC133 RAM (1 stick)
SBLive! 1024 Player OEM (Dr Mordrid don't laugh)
Windows 2000
Adis' drivers
With this setup I managed to use AVI_IO capturing 704x576 PAL. Even though I was using Windows 2000 I set AVI_IO to split at 2 Gb. As you can see it uses VIA chipset and Sound Blaster which are usually derided for providing very low PCI bandwidth (VIA) and taking too much PCI bandwidth (Sound Blaster). However, it seemed to work for me, probably since I didn't have a RAID controller and other PCI stuff hanging off it.

The video files created are now being used on my new machine which is Windows XP with the MJPEG Compressor codec from DirectX and I am able to play them in MSP 7 without my old G400-TV card in the machine at all.

[Miklos]

Well, I guess I will have to go back to UMSP6.5 (at least for capture) if retaining my current set up.

I might give AVI_IO another try although I don't quite see why it should be any better at analogue avi (apart from the segment captures) than using UMSP7.3 with a soft MJPEG codec. viz. 1/2 screen captures around 7MB/s with no drops.

If I do get an answer though elsewhere to this problem I will post it up

Cheers
Miklos