Newsletter #87 was about two different people as they work their way from the analog to the digital video editing environments. Click the image to read it.

DVDRHelp - Capture Video is a good reference for this topic.

See the section about camcorders when using, or trying to use, a digital camcorder to "pass-through" an analog video signal. Also see the Problem Solving Checklist if you're having problems in this area.

The Capture Process (this info came from the dialog started by the 7/25/03 post below)

Movie Maker captures the uncompressed digital data to a temporary file and converts it dynamically in the background to your final WMV file "as fast as it can" during the capture. If your computer can't keep up with converting it in the background, the size of the temporary uncompressed file will grow. This ensures that Movie Maker doesn't drop frames of video while capturing. The less desirable alternative would be to just throw away frames of video if it's not keeping up.

To minimize the size of the temporary file, defrag your hard drive. A highly fragmented drive will spend lots of time seeking back and forth for the fragments of the uncompressed temporary file.

The size of the uncompressed file will go down dynamically as data is moved from the uncompressed temorary file into the final wmv file. There's normally some uncompressed left when you finish the capture wizard, hence the progress dialog - it's moving the last of the uncompressed video into the WMV file.

PapaJohn Comments For my Hi8 analog camcorder, I have 4 ways of getting the footage into Movie Maker. 1 - play the Hi8 tape in a digital8 camcorder, connected to my desktop or laptop computer via firewire. 2 - play the tape in the Hi8 camcorder, connected to a Dazzle 80 device, which in turn is plugged into a USB port on my desktop or laptop computer. 3 - play the tape in the Hi8 camcorder, connected to a RF Modulator (a $30 black box from Radio Shack), which is connected to the TV tuner card of my laptop. I use the Media Center software to record from the tuner card to a specialized MPEG2 file (dvr-ms file), then convert the file to MPEG2 (separate video and audio files) using MyDVD, then convert those files to an AVI file (using TMPGEnc and Media version 9 compression codec), which is then imported into Movie Maker. 4 - dub the Hi8 camcorder tape to my digital camcorder, and then capture it from the digital tape. There's always a way to get your analog video into Movie Maker... use the tools you have and explore others as needed. A digital camcorder might produce higher quality video than my Hi8 one... but 99% of my videos are distributed via the internet at a lower quality than Hi8...

At one extreme, a really fast computer - the temporary uncompressed file might never be noticed as the data can flow through it so quickly, and the needed hard drive space would be just a bit more than the size of the final WMV file. At the other extreme, a slow computer, could build a large uncompressed temporary file and need a good bit of time after the capture is done to finish the rendering of the WMV file.

As the capture progresses, you can watch the temporary uncompressed digital video file fluctuate in size and the final WMV file grow. The WMV file will be in the folder you selected in the wizard, with the name you gave it.

Dated but Timeless Posts About Analog Capture

10/18/05 - Q: I have many VHS 10 to 15 year old tapes, and like to save to DVD... Can I do it directly from the VHS player into Windows XP/Movie Maker via a USB port?

A: If you don't want to do any editing, then I'd recommend a DVD recorder, plug the VHS into it and record away. Very easy, no imagination required. Now if you want to get fancy, then you'll need to capture it... although many people capture well using cheaper analogue solutions, you can get out of sync audio and video... to get the best you need to buy quality equipment such as Canopus or Miglia units.

4/15/03 - Microsoft - To capture video from tape in an analog camera or VCR

1. Make sure your analog camera or VCR is connected properly to your computer, and then set the camera mode to play recorded video (often labeled VTR or VCR on an analog camera).

2. On the File menu, click Capture Video, or In the Movie Tasks pane, under Capture Video, click Capture from video device.

3. On the Video Capture Device page, do the following: • In Available devices, click the analog device you want to use to capture video, and then, in the Video input source list, click the input line you want to use. • If you want to adjust and configure the video capture device settings, click Configure. • In the Audio device list, click the audio capture device you want to use, and then, in Audio input source, click the input line you want to use. • To adjust the volume of your captured audio, move the Input level slider to the level you want to use.

4. In the Enter a file name for your captured video box, enter a file name for your captured video file. Then, in the Choose a place to save your captured video box, select the location where you want your video to be saved or click Browse to select a location.

5. On the Video Setting page, select the video setting you want to use for capturing video and audio.

6. To separate the video into smaller clips, select the Create clips when wizard finishes check box.

7. To prevent audio from playing over your speakers while capturing video, select the Mute speakers check box.

8. To automatically stop capturing after a time period has elapsed, select the Capture time limit check box, and then type or select the length of time you want to capture. Time is displayed in the form of hours:minutes (h:mm).

9. Using the controls on your analog camera or VCR, locate the video and audio you want to capture from your tape.

10. To begin capturing, click Start Capture, and then press the Play button on your analog camera or VCR. Do one of the following: When the tape reaches the point at which you want to stop capturing, click Stop Capture, and then press the Stop button on your analog camera or VCR.

11. If you have selected the Capture time limit check box, wait for the specified amount of time for video to be captured, and then press the Stop button on your analog camera or VCR.

Repeat steps 9 through 11 for each part of the video tape you want to capture.

When you have finished capturing, click Finish to close the Video Capture Wizard. The captured content is imported into a new collection with the same name as the specified video file.

Posts

3/16/06 email ... for the audio, I had "Sound Blaster" selected when I should have had "Sony Imaging Device" selected. I made the appropriate change and now once again I am able to capture video and sound with just USB.

2/18/06 email - ...it hung after I clicked "Capture from video device". It also would BSOD (blue screen of death)/reboot my system sometimes when I tried to kill it with control-alt-delete... symptoms included jittering on the window, and the solid hour glass cursor. I have two capture devices on this computer, so I disabled one and the problem persisted. Then I made only the other capture device enabled, and the same hang happened! That was the key. It wasn't the video capture devices, it MUST be the audio capture.

Under Sounds and Audio Devices in the control panel, I saw, and suddenly realized, that I had installed "Total Recorder" and set it as my default sound recording device. Total Recorder is like an audio "snag-it"... cool thing to have, but it doesn't get along with the Windows Movie Maker! I set it to my 'normal' sound recording device (Avance AC97 Audio) and it didn't hang or reboot any more.

9/9/04 - (Microsoft) WMM is designed to capture digital video. It does sometimes work with analog, but not always. Better results can be obtained by using third party analog capture software.

9/9/04 - (Microsoft) Capture issues on Media Center... "ehrecvr" builds a Dshow graph which includes the drivers for your TV tuner (and any other software components it requires). MCE presumes that all video capture drivers are multi-instance, as this is a expectation in the design of Dshow. But in reality, some drivers aren't multi-instance, and will barf when more than one video capture application tries to use them. If you want to disable ehRecvr, do the following (be aware that any timed records will not proceed once you do this):

1. Choose "Start" | "Run", 2. Launch the services dialog by typing: services.msc, 3. Select the "Services (local)" node of the tree in the right-hand pane. 4. In the LEFT-hand pane, scroll down and find "Media Center Receiver Service". Right-click on it, and choose "Properties", 5. In the "Start-up Type" drop-down, select "Disabled". 6. Reboot to make sure your changes have taken effect.

If you later want to re-enable ehRecvr, just go back through the steps, and in Step 5, choose "Automatic".

8/11/04 - I am trying to capture footage from a Sony Hi8 camcorder through a Belkin capture device (F5u228) hi speed usb 2.0 dvd creator. I am using a composite video cable and an S-video cable. I get a good picture and sound but it is black&white (no colour) can anyone help. > (Microsoft) I've not had a chance to work with this device yet myself. I'll try to get a hold of one and try it. My suggestions would be to: (1) Make sure you have the latest drivers which are available from the Belkin website. (2) We've done some work on USB2 streaming devices in Movie Maker 2.1, which is shipping in Windows XP Service Pack 2, these changes may also improve the experience...

1/25/04 - I am getting the following error message: The video device cannot be used at this time because there has been an error when starting the device. I was able to download sound and video, but for no reason this has just stopped. > Go to "my computer", device manager, and find the device in the list. Delete it and restart your computer. It will tell you "new hardware found" and reinstall it. > Problem solved.... Also I found that the software from my digital still camera was deleting the driver for the analog camera. So what I did was left Win XP find its own drivers and did not install the drivers supplied by the manufacturer of my digital camera. All works well again. Both analog video and digital still camera.

12/9/03 (Microsoft) - Unfortunately Movie Maker 2 doesn't support capturing from an analog (i.e. non-DV) device to DV-AVI. A workaround is to record video from your VHS-C cassette to a DV tape in your miniDV camera, and then capture from the DV camera into DV-AVI (more info at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814835).

8/2/03 - I am trying to capture a clip from an analog VCR using the movie maker. However when playing back the picture is too jumpy and it is not playing back in the correct frame per second. Audio is fine > (Microsoft) have you tried playing around with the capture settings in the capture wizard? When you have your analog capture card selected, click on the "Configure..." button. The dialogs following it are provided by your hardware manufacturer - you'll probably want to set the resolution to 640x480, and the frame rate to 29.97 (or 30 if you don't have that option).

7/26/03 - I have my video camera connected to the TV Tuner card wich RCA jacks. Movie Maker can not find the camera. > It is expected to find the Tuner card capture device, not the video camera. No plug and play information can be transferred over the RCA jack. That is not a digital connection. You have to manually control the camera. If your camera is a DV camera it would be much better to connect it with a firewire card and cable or maybe your PC already has the firewire connector. My example on Movie Maker 2: File menu, Capture Video... --- shows ATI Rage Theatre Video Capture If I select that available device, there is a Video Input Source pull down menu where I can select TV Tuner, Composite (RCA), or S-video. There is also a Configure button for more settings.

7/25/03 - With a USB video capture device, I was trying to capture a VHS video tape onto the computer, from my VCR through the capture device, using MM2.. After capturing just ten minutes or so, it came to a halt, with a message like "no more space on hard drive". Well, there was still several Gigabytes of space left on the HD. There was certainly space enough for the entire movie I was trying to capture, in the compressed .WMV format I thought it was capturing to. The capture resolution was only 320 x 240, certainly should have been plenty of space for the resulting .wmv movie. It occurred to me that it was probably capturing the video as totally uncompressed .AVI, and then would encode that capture to .wmv afterwards.

Theoretically, if one had unlimited storage space, or a gigantic hard drive, I would think that to be the best way to do it. Capture the video totally uncompressed, do whatever editing you want to do to it, and then compress it as the very last step. (I know that's true with music and still photos also.) Otherwise, one recompresses every time one saves the file, and that's not so good.

However, although that might be the best way to do it if one has the space, uncompressed video takes up such an incredible amount of space, that unless one has a giant hard drive, that's not very practical. Couldn't a full length movie with sound recorded totally uncompressed take up 20 Gigabytes or more? Well, the HD on my notebook (my only computer) has less than 30 GB total, and there are less than 10 GB free. So, I don't think there is any possibility of capturing a full movie totally uncompressed.

Is that the way Windows Moviemaker always captures video--totally uncompressed? If so, that would prevent many users from capturing long stretches of video with it, for the reason described above. Or, did it have something to do with my settings? Is there a way to configure the program so that the video and audio are compressed while capturing, rather than waiting to do the encoding until after the capture is finished?

7/11/03 - I have the latest WDM and display drivers for the Personal Cinema GeForce 4 MX440, running on AMD 2Ghz WinXP with all updates. When I capture in from my composite source, I get dropped frames (about 1 in 5) at anything over about 8 fps. Have tried both Adobe Premiere 6 and Windows Movie Maker. The device is, I think, capable of 768 x 576 at 25fps. > is your hard drive severly fragmented? are you capturing at a highly compressed codec? do you have the proper chipset drivers installed? > No, have defragged. Have tried uncompressed and all possible combinations. Have latest drivers for absolutely everything. > hmm, well its hard to say if its not one of those.. for what its worth, try capturing with virtualdub? > Ok, have changed to version 1.9.1 of the WDM driver and it's a bit better now, however I still get 1 dropped frame in every 275 or so.

4/21/03 - I've successfully transferred my vhs-c analog movie to my hard drive but there is no audio...????? > Microsoft - First off, are you ripping to AVI? If so, check your tape to see if you recorded it using different bit rates (16 bit, 12 bit, etc). If you are trying to rip a tape across several different bit rates, then Bingo! We've probably found your problem. The filewriter apparently has trouble handling bitrate changes. Either rip each section seperately, or, in the future, choose one bit rate and stick to it. You can confirm this is your problem by re-ripping to WMV - it uses a different filewriter, and shouldn't have the "missing audio" problem.

3/21/03 - Microsooft - Some things to keep in mind - The available capture profiles are limited by the device currently selected. For an ANALOG Device, (like a ATI 128 AIW PRO Capture Card, a Philips 720K Webcam, or a Dazzle Dongle): In both Movie Maker 1.1 and Movie Maker 1.2 - the capture profiles max out at "Video for Broadband NTSC 768Kbps)" (320x240x30fps). Since most capture devices at best offer a 320x240 stream size, you won't get an option to capture 640x480 from them (and chance getting a terrible resize experience).

3/18/03 - Microsoft - If you are recording from an analog source, then you are forced to save as a WMV; you won't be offered the DV-AVI choice. In a WMV, the frame rate is variable (they were designed for streaming video, after all). When you see a frame rate listed in the WMV profiles (example: "Video for Broadband (768Kbps)" is listed as "320x240 pixels 30 frames per second"), that frame rate is a "target" frame rate - if the ASF filewriter can save resources by dropping frames, it will.

2/28/03 - I have several movies on VCR. I want to import video clips to Movie Maker 2, edit, and then return them to VCR for convenient viewing. The final video will be about 12 minutes long. Do I need a special interface cable to achieve this transfer? Alternatively, I have a mini dv camera. I could transfer my VCR clips to mini dv tape, download to computer by firewire connection, edit, return to a blank dv tape, and then copy back to VCR tape. Any recommendations? What would be the easiest way? What would produce the best quality VHS tape? My computer is a Dell 866 Pentium 3 with a firewire connection. > As you already have the firewire connection, try it that way. It should be as good or better than another analog capture device on your computer. > If you have the right kind of mini-dv, you might be able to use it to pass-through the VCR (analog) signal directly to the computer, bypassing the step of copying the VHS tape to mini dv tape. I can do this (and have, numerous times) using my Canon ZR40.

2/17/03 - I have a Dell 2100. What do I need to hook my VCR to it? > Microsoft - You need a graphics card with the ability to capture analog video or a TV capture card .

2/10/03 - Using the dongle I was provided with my computer, I connected RCA cables from the video and audio outputs of my (oldish, cheap) VCR to the computer. I'm not positive that the dongle is connected to the USB port, since my Gateway documentation fails to provide complete information about all the ports in the back of the hard drive, but I've stuck it in the only one into which the dongle fits. I then started up WMM and clicked on record. Next to "record:" it says "audio only" with no video device indicated. I imagine that it's possible a video device is not recognized because it's not connected to the proper port. I also wonder if I don't have the right dongle, since it should probably have a USB type flat plug instead of the rounded one that most computer cables have. I considered that my VCR might be too old for the computer to recognize it, so I thought I'd try asking on this newsgroup before investing in a new VCR! > If you have a means to capture an analog video, such as a capture card, you should be able to capture your video without any "dongle." By the way, what is the "dongle" for and what kind of "round" plug does it have, like your mouse/keyboard or a sound card input? > You don't need to buy a new VCR, because when you are capturing analog video, Movie Maker reads the capture device, (i.e. the dongle, webcam, or capture card) not the video source which is the VCR. What model of USB capture dongle are you using? When you attach the USB dongle to the computer, you should have a tooltip pop up on the taskbar which tells you that you've attached a USB device. You also need to make sure that you've got the correct drivers installed for the dongle. > What's this USB dongle? I've never seen or heard of one. > A USB dongle is a USB analog capture device which takes composite or S-video inputs. They are in general less expensive than capture cards, but have the disadvantage of being limited to USB data transfer speeds... so there are more dropped frames.

1/26/03 - can you record video and audio at the same time, or do you have to add audio to video later? > Microsoft - Depends on how you are capturing it.... if analog, you can capture audio through the line-in port on the sound card as you are capturing video through the composite cable. If digital, audio and video travel together through the firewire cable. So generally, you capture both together. It's not the days of film and sep mag!

1/24/03 - Microsoft - For digital video, MM 2.0 will work with any OHCI 1394 compliant card. For analog, it will work with any Direct Show compatible card.

1/23/03 - I want to purchase a cable that will enable video capture that was included with Windows XP®. But am unable to find just the cable without video capture software. Does anyone know where I can purchase just the cable (RCA - audio/video to USB). > Such a cable does not exist... RCA connectors are analog, and the USB connector is a digital signal connector. You will have to either get a unit that connects to your USB port and will connect to your camera (and you will not be pleased with the results), or get a card that has RCA inputs.

12/31/02 - If you are capturing analog video, then the audio is carried on a separate cable usually to the sound card's line in. Ensure that the Line In is not set to Mute.

12/22/02 - I am unable to capture from any source. Have tried MM1 and MM2. Unable to capture analog or digital. Get error that capture device is being used or a setting is incorrect. Mainly I want to capture from VCR. Running Windows XP on an HP873n with standard configuration and equipment that came preinstalled. > The HP873n is a Media Center PC. Currently, you can't capture analog video using Movie Maker on a Media Center PC. The analog capture cards supplied with Media Center PCs output an MPEG2 format which Movie Maker cannot process.

11/10/02 - Microsoft - 99.9% of s-video ports are TV-out ONLY. Therefore, although you can 'switch' output so that the signal that used to go to the monitor will go to the camcorder or the TV, it does not work the other way.

To capture analog video you need a graphics card with VIVO (video in and video out) capability (look at the ATI All in Wonder ranger) or a specialized analog capture card such as the Dazzle, Pinnacle or Hauppage range.