Creative VideoBlaster DVCR

[JQuaglino]

Originally posted by Narflex
Does anyone have information on the bitrates that the Creative card uses in their application?

What happens if you use Fair, Good, Great or Best? Do those crash?

Creative uses, I believe 2.0 to 8.0 Mbs. I currenlty testing Fair. What are the corresponding bit rates for the recording settings.

[ruel]

Recording settings for Creative VB DVCR software:

setting - (a) sample rate - (b) audio - (c) video - (d) resolution
Best - (a) 32k - (b) 384 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 4 Mbits/sec - (d) 640x480
Better - (a) 32k - (b) 384 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 3 Mbits/sec - (d) 480x480
Good - (a) 32k - (b) 192 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 2.2 Mbits/sec - (d) 480x480
Fair - (a) 16k - (b) 128 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 1.6 Mbits/sec - (d) 320x480

[jmeeks]

JQuaglino, what is chopping the files to 1GB size? and what are you doing to require or need a 1GB file instead of the whole thing (movie) in 1 file. Is it just a problem with your DVd authoring software?

Just trying to understand what you are doing. Been looking into getting into the DVD authoring thing and if this is an issue I wanted to understand what is going on.

Thanks,

John

[Narflex]

These are the default qualities in SageTV.

Quality  VBR AvgVideoRate Resolution AudioBitrate
Best     No  6Mbps        720x480    384kbps
Great    No  3.8Mbps      720x480    384kbps
Good     No  2.8Mbps      480x480    256kbps
Fair     No  1.7Mbps      480x480    256kbps
CVD      Yes 2.5Mbps      352x480    224kbps
SVCD ELP Yes 1.152Mbps    480x480    224kbps
SVCD LP  Yes 1.6Mbps      480x480    224kbps
SVCD SP  Yes 2Mbps        480x480    224kbps
DVD ELP  Yes 3Mbps        720x480    384kbps
DVD LP   Yes 4.8Mbps      720x480    384kbps
DVD SP   Yes 6.4Mbps      720x480    384kbps
MPEG2Max No  12Mbps       720x480    384kbps

NOTE1: For Creative VBDVCR, 640x480 is used instead of 720x480 and 320x480 insted of 352x480
NOTE2: AudioSampling of 48kHz is used for all of these

What I'm most suspicious of with Creative is whether or not they support VBR very well.

[JQuaglino]

jmeeks,

I'm trying to burn dvds of movies recorded of satellite for my kids. The mpegs play fine but when I bring them in Ulead Movie Factory or other software they lose audio sync when they are chopped into 1G vobs.

Jeff,
Fair worked fine. I'll try and up to Good and let you know what happens.

[jmeeks]

Why do you have to chop them to 1 GB? I thought DVD's could hold 4.7GB.

I'm assuming the VOB is just a DVD compatable file format.

John

[JQuaglino]

Vob is what is found on commercial dvds. This is what a standalone player looks for. That is the size they need.

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I've done some more testing and I think your right. I seem to be able to capture fine with the cbr modes but not with the vbr. I still have not found a solution to the vob sync problems. I read somewhere that the creative card doesn't actually capture at 29.97 but something like 29.3. Anybody have any info on this.

Jeff,
Have you all made any vobs with a creative card? If so what dvd authoring software do you use?

[ruel]

Originally posted by JQuaglino
I read somewhere that the creative card doesn't actually capture at 29.97 but something like 29.3. Anybody have any info on this.

It's 29.97 when I measure the exported mpeg2 files using PVAStrumento. I think the "29.3" could be when people may be making adjustments to get the sound back in sync when they are having the oh-so-typical-problems after resampling/converting the exported video mpeg2 files. That "29.3" is really too slow and must be for a really badly out of sync video. The original exported mpeg2 files are in sync at 29.97. And the 29.97 comes across when I divx the video files but the sound is then out of sync after the divx conversion and then I have to slow down the fps to 29.9665 or 29.9655 to get the sound back in sync. This is not what you want when you make a DVD or a SVCD, but it's good enough if you are merely archiving the video.

[Narflex]

Haven't tried doing any DVD authoring from the Creative files yet.

Can you tell me more about the sync problems you're having? The MPEG2 multiplexor that's used when recording from the Creative card is something I wrote from scratch. It has extensive audio/video synchronization management in there. If you've found a problem with the a/v sync in the recorded files I'd like to know more about it.

The one known problem is when you change channels it will become out of sync, but it will correct itself soon afterwards. The more times you change the channel, the worse it gets and the longer it takes to correct. This is because the video stream stops during the channel change because the signal is lost, but the audio digitizer keeps going and outputting data. So you get extra audio data which will eventually be detected by the statistical analysis in the synchronization algorithm and then corrected (a minute or two at the most if you're doing a lot of channel changing).

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I have absolutely no sync problems with the mpeg files generated by sagerecorder. I only have problems after converting them to vob with Dvd authoring software.

[JQuaglino]

Problems solved. I updated Ulead and all works well. I'm still getting crashes with vbr but not cbr.

[Narflex]

I'm going to disable VBR for the Creative cards by default in the next build. They definitely seem to be problematic. You'll still have all of those bitrate options, but they'll all be CBR.

[Narflex]

Oooh, and I just found a bug regarding the Creative card while disabling VBR for it. Apparently, V1.1.4 would randomly enable VBR unless vbr was explictily set to 0. And it's not explicitly set to 0 in any of the default properties. This was because the code wasn't initializing the VBR field of the data structure that went to the encoder unless vbr was explicitly set. (stupid C memory initializtion; another reason Java rocks, because it always initializes your memory for you)

What that means is good news for any random crashes with CBR, because this is a VERY likely culprit for those. There'll be a new beta out within the next couple of days; this will be fixed in it.

[LPC]

I'm not having much luck wth the "Moonlight Odio Dekoda DirectShow filter."
I downloaded the .zip file and extracted the files and then double clicked
on the .exe file and afterwards I got a window with the title "RegSvr32"
along with a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark in it. Below are
some lines the first of which states "No DLL name specified." There are some
other lines but I don't have the energy to type what they are.

Someone suggested that I double click on the reg.bat file that was also extracted from the zip file which I did. I then got a DOS window with a path at the end of which is >regsvr32 mlcom.ax. I also got a window saying RegSvr32 at the top and below it it said "DLLRegisterServer in mlcom.ax succeeded." There was also an "Ok" button which I selected. I then went back to the folder to run the regsvr32.exe file and I got the same "No DLL name specified" window. Anybody know what's going on here?

When I attempt to open the program I get a window saying that it can't "Cannot load DirectShow filters" so unless I figure this out I won't be able to use it.

Thanks.

[jmeeks]

Is the file mlcom.ax in your Frey Technologies\common folder?

[Narflex]

LPC,

You also need to get the MPEG Layer III Encoder DirectShow Filter from Elecard and download and register that. Then the Cannot Load Filters message should go away and it should work.

[LPC]

Originally posted by jmeeks
Is the file mlcom.ax in your Frey Technologies\common folder?

No it isn't. I see it in the OdioDec folder. Shall I copy and paste it into my FreyTechnologies/common folders?

Before posting here I downloaded and unzipped the MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder for DirectShow from the Elecard site but I'm still getting that annoying "DLL" window. I then double clicked on the reg.bat folder and I witnessed a DOS window flicker in front of me and then double clicked on the .exe file again but I still got that "No DLL name specified" window. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Narflex]

You don't need to concern youself with the location of mlcom.ax, it's irrelevant.

When you register the Elecard filter, you just double-click on reg.bat and you're done. that little window flashing is what's supposed to happen. You're not supposed to try and just run regsvr32.exe.

Does it work now? You could also try the 1.2.2 beta, you might have better luck with it.

[LPC]

Originally posted by Narflex
You don't need to concern youself with the location of mlcom.ax, it's irrelevant.

When you register the Elecard filter, you just double-click on reg.bat and you're done. that little window flashing is what's supposed to happen. You're not supposed to try and just run regsvr32.exe.

Sorry, I'm not very technically advanced so I figured that the .exe file was the key. However, when you said that what I had done was correct I went to open the program and it opened!

There are, however, some instant issues of concern.

Firstly, I'm in Canada so I don't have a zip code which means I can't use the guide. Secondly, the audio is a little off. I was also disappointed that it didn't correct the poor reception that I have with some of the channels when using the Creative software which means that problem is obviously with the hardware-related. I also can't use the remote which is drag.

One very good thing (at least according to the FAQ) is that it's possible to use a sattelite service with the sofware. Hopefully, this also includes Canadian sattelite providers.

Thank you very much for helping me get this thing going.