Hi,

I am using Enter Multimedia's VCD Producer Pro capture card to convert my home VHS movies to VCDs. But the video captured with the card 'quivers' when there is a movement in the scene. However, if the video is still there is no problem. (But how can there be a video without movement!)

How can I get rid of this 'quivering' (I don't know the correct word,but I suppose you've got the idea) in my videos?

I think it is caused by the low quality of the capture software shipped with the card. Can anyone please tell me which capture softwares my capture card will support so that I can try one?

The chip used in the card is Winbond's W99200F. I contacted Winbond but there was no reply.

The card manufacturer's site www.entermultimedia.com isn't available these days. I presume that the company has been aquired by some other giant.

So please help me!

Vinod

My guess is that your hardware isn't working at a high enough speed to both provide detailed images [high resolution] with lots of colours AND high enough speed [frame rate] to produce fluid movement. [not that I'm any expert]

What speed CPU are you using?

It may be that all the info is present in the file and all you need is a PC capable of playing that back without difficulty.
Try playing a typical file on a better PC.

When converting, can you select the level of quality?

Dear Sylvander,

Thank you for your reply.

But in my opinion it is not the problem of the PC. I am using AMD Athlon XP 1700+ with ASUS A7N266-VM motherboard. The RAM is 256 MB DDR.

Actually I bought the card in question three years ago and worked with it for a few months. As the video captured with it showed quivering movements I bought another capture card - and it was a better one too. It was working very fine and the captured movies didn't have the quivering. But last month it stopped working. I couldn't troubleshoot it. It appeared that the problem lay with the hardware(i.e., the card).(I will be posting a thread in detail about the problem with that card later). So, as I was not rich enough to buy a third card, there was only one option before me: use the old Enter Multimedia card. And I did it. That is the history.

There are only two possibilities, I think: 1)the problem lies with the capture card itself; 2)the problem is with the capture software.

The second one is easier to identify and fix. For that what I need is another capture software that supports the capture card. I tried many including Adobe Premiere, Pinnacle Studio, Ulead Video Studio,MGI VideoWave and Cyberlink. None of them supports my card. Could you please recommend any capture software that will support my card?

The present software allows to select the level of quality. However, while making a VCD it is convenient to select the option for VCD so that we need not worry about the frame rate, resolution and the like. Everything is fixed in accordance with the White Book specifications and the software does the job. This is what I use to do.

Sincerely

Vinod

"Could you please recommend any capture software that will support my card?"
Sorry to be of little help to you, but I've never done videos, so know little to nothing about the practical aspects.
I know about physics and photography; just the basic principles.
I was hoping that if I gave a reply it would keep your thread near the top of the list and others with practical experience would see it and contribute.

I wouldn't have thought software would introduce a performance limitation.
Unless there was a fault in its operation.
Perhaps it's sharing a [low priority] IRQ with another prog and being forced to wait it's turn at the processor.
I'm thinking of "Pre-emptive Multi-Tasking".
That's where the processor acts like a multi-barrel machine gun.
It rattles around each task [with its IRQ] in turn and each has its own separate independant message queue.
In theory each should be independant and no task should influence any other task. But sometimes when there's a shortage of IRQ's they get shared.
Perhaps you should try "msconfig->Diagnostic Startup->Normal Startup" to see what the effect is. This like safe mode with CD drive access. Then you'd have no competing software running.

But in my opinion it is not the problem of the PC. I am using AMD Athlon XP 1700+ with ASUS A7N266-VM motherboard. The RAM is 256 MB DDR.Uhh... yeah...

Sorry to burst your bubble there, but while that computer is fairly powerful, it's no where near enough to be crunching video without issues! If that capture card is an internal PCI card, and if it doesn't convert to MPEG1/2/4 on-the-fly, then your system needs more power! The min system that I've found works the best with video crunching is 2GHz CPU (or AthlonXP 2000+), 512MB RAM (1GB DDR recommended), and a 7200rpm hard drive (SATA hard drive recommended).

Your system is just barely under the CPU speed requirement and I think a 1700+ should be able to do VCD's, but your RAM is severely lacking. To make up for your lower CPU, I'd recommend 768MB of RAM as the min for your system, and double-check on your hard drive to make sure it can keep up. Until you at least triple the RAM, I don't think there's any way you can rule out the system as a bottleneck here.

Thank you for your kind information, Saphalline. But in the same thread I had clarified that another card I had been using had worked well in the same machine. It may be that cards also vary in their 'capacity'. Both the cards are real-time mpeg capture cards.

Vinod

Both the cards are real-time mpeg capture cards.Oh they are? Well, nevermind then!

But I'm still not clear on what you mean by "quivering". Can you explain that more?

We have an out-of-business card manufacturer's product and it doesn't work right. That speaks legions in my book. :rolleyes:

The card is either not compatible with your current setup, may need faster system, or it is defective in some other way. If you don't hear back from the chip maker, the best thing is to buy another card that, in it's specs, is compatible with your current setup. I realise that you said money is an issue but there's only so much that can be done.

If you were having problems with it when you first got it, why didn't you do something about it then? Is there any documentation with it? Does your pc meet the minimum requirements?

Other options:
1:
Lower your screen resolution to 16bit if it is set higher at this time. see if it helps.

2:
Join a site such as Driverguide (http://www.driverguide.com/) and search for drivers for that card, especially updated ones.

3:
Uninstall the cards in Safe Mode, then find any referrence to the card in your registry with either doing it manually or using a registry tool that finds orphaned files (esp ones that pertain to the card) such as Regseeker (http://www.snapfiles.com/get/regseeker.html). Remove the orphans and then reboot. Reinstall the card. See if the problem persists.
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Edit:
Found out that this card encodes in mpeg-1 in a Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=W99200F&btnG=Google+Search) and that it is compatible with systems as old as Win95 here (http://www.driverfiles.net/Other/WinBond/W99200F/download/page,show,19277,741,3,.html) so processing power should not be an issue. Downloading drivers from either of the 2 links I have posted may or may not help. Also as the link in this edit states, you take matters into your own hands as these drivers have not been tested for viruses or other malware. Good luck.
.

In relation to the "quivering", it could be a signal problem. Maybe the DSP on the card itself is bad, or perhaps the cables are to blame. Have you tried using different or higher quality cables? Have you tried using a different VCR for input? When you capture the video, how many technical options do you have? You aren't trying to mix NTSC and PAL, are you? ;)

Found out that this card encodes in mpeg-1 in a Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=W99200F&btnG=Google+Search) and that it is compatible with systems as old as Win95 here (http://www.driverfiles.net/Other/WinBond/W99200F/download/page,show,19277,741,3,.html) so processing power should not be an issue. .

True.
I downloaded the driver and the application from Driverguide and installed them, but it was of no use. The video application (WinMPEG-200F) captured only audio and no video. The application I got with my card is also the same but the version is 2.21 whereas the one I downloaded is 2.2.

However, your reply was with substance and I thank you for that.

Could you also tell me what other video capture applications my card supports?

Vinod

Unfortunately I think you are out of luck. Drivers for chipsets are extremely propietary or specific to the video card.

I did a fresh search for about a half hour, reading various hits in Google but when I came to page 5 of many more, it contained a link to this very thread at pcguide. :)

Now that we have our lives on the marquee and we are now famous, I think it's time, considering that most of the articles I read were from 1999 and the product is no longer available, to call it a day.

Here's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122180R) a refurbished capture card that I have and use that is leaps and bounds ahead of the limited one you are trying to fix. I suggest scraping up a few pennies and buying it. I paid more for mine as it was not a refurb item.

If you are not in the USA, maybe there is some distributor closer to you who can compare to NewEgg. W-e-l-l, somewhat close, I hope. ;)