640x480 (full screen) DVD quaility

[jakfr02]

I've read a lot on the forum about people NOT getting 640x480 DVD recording quality.

It sure would be nice to hear from people who are achieving this (or better) and what equipment they are using. Maybe also what operating system, version of Windows Media... and version of SnapStream.

It sure would be helpful for those of us who are planning to build a box.

Thanks everyone.
Frank

[festivalman]

Snapstream 2.0 can record in 640x480, but the de-interlacing function doesn't work. They've fixed that for snapstream 3.0. That said, here are my system specs:

1.9ghz P4, 512meg 800mhz rambus ram. fast hard drive array, etc. Hauppauge WinTV/GO.

At 640x480, using windows media 8 video codec at 90 percent quality with windows media 9 audio codec at 64kb at 30 frames per second. De-interlacing is enabled, as I'm using a progressive scan projection screen.

While encoding, it uses a steady 80 percent cpu usage, and goes up to 90 percent during heavy on screen action.

At 150 kilobytes/second bit rate, the video looks rather good. Bumping it up to 200-250 makes it look almost perfect with the artifact level at a minimum.

De-interlacing is a rather serious cpu hog. If you're outputing back to a regular television, you can turn this off and save a nice amount of cpu cycles. As of the latest beta 3 of snapstream 3, its interactions with a windows media 9 installation were different than before. On previous versions, using windows media 7 video codec used the 80 percent cpu usage. Now 7 stays at 100 the whole time and drops lots of frames. wm 8 codec however is now at the 80 mark so I'm using that. Confusing? Good.. it was for me too, but I'm not complaining as wm8 gives better looking video than 7... hope this helps.

[SouthPaw42]

Originally posted by festivalman
At 640x480, using windows media 8 video codec at 90 percent quality with windows media 9 audio codec at 64kb at 30 frames per second. De-interlacing is enabled, as I'm using a progressive scan projection screen.

While encoding, it uses a steady 80 percent cpu usage, and goes up to 90 percent during heavy on screen action.

At 150 kilobytes/second bit rate, the video looks rather good. Bumping it up to 200-250 makes it look almost perfect with the artifact level at a minimum.

Festivalman you are setting the Video Bitrate to only 1200000?
What is your Quality Scale, Encoding Window and Keyframe Interval?

It would be better if you could please give all the parameters you were using.

[festivalman]

I don't have it in front of me, but the quality setting was 90 percent and the keyframe interval was 4 or 5. Other than the quality setting, I didn't touch the keyframe interval or recording window from the snapstream defaults when you create a new profile.

Remember, if you set the quality to 100, it will skip frames during encoding if the bitrate can't handle the full frames during heavy on-screen action. At anything below 100, such as 90, it basically tells it to get more pixelated during those short periods instead of skipping frames. That makes for more smooth playback at the slight cost of picture sharpness.

[jakfr02]

Good stuff. So I take it you are using Snapstream 3.0 (beta)? These soft settings sure will be helpful.

It sounds as if the tv tuner is not a issue, or is it for some folks?

Is there anything special you're doing for video cards or that even an issue. I know it must support Direct 8. What about good video on the TV. Are some cards better for non-HDTV's? Is the 640x480 the best recording resolution for full screen playback through the TV?

Again, I hear you and everyone talking about CPU utilization. I hope I've nipped that in the bud. I picked up a dual processor motherboard with two 1800 AMD Athlon MP's. I'll be running either Windows 2k or XP to maximize the dual processing utilization.

One other thing I'm curious about. Can SS capture video for other sources than you TV turner (i.e. Video in on Tuner Card and DVD drive)?

Thanks for the good information.
Frank

[V_D_O]

Is the CPU utilization less with WMP8 codecs than WMP7? How about the various MPEG codecs? I can't record at 640x480, the processor usage goes to 100%.

One other thing I'm curious about. Can SS capture video for other sources than you TV turner (i.e. Video in on Tuner Card and DVD drive)?

I'm guessing you select the composite/S video inputs on the sources menu.

[festivalman]

Q: It sounds as if the tv tuner is not a issue, or is it for some folks?

A: The Hauppauge WinTV/Go and regular wintv brand boards are probably your best bet for excellent compatibility and least problems with drivers etc. If you're set on snapstream, stay away from the specialty boards that do mpeg encoding like the pvr-250 etc. Snapstream may support those in the future, but they don't work at all right now.

Q: What about good video on the TV. Are some cards better for non-HDTV's?

A: The top 2 are boards based off the Nvidia core design, or the latest ATI cards. Some have capture abilities also which had problems in the beginning, but seemed to have been ironed out. I've read many reviews saying that the tv output and captured tv display is better on ATI, but I'm personally biased towards Nvidia boards since their excellent hardware and EXTREMELY high quality drivers ensure problem free use.

Yep, dual proc machines lay waste to the competition. I'd suggest windows XP as some have said that the dual proc usage is more efficient by a bit than in win2k.

Q: One other thing I'm curious about. Can SS capture video for other sources than you TV turner (i.e. Video in on Tuner Card and DVD drive)?

A: Snapstream 3.0 can capture from anything that has a solid WDM driver that can deliver uncompressed video to the system. DVD drives etc don't count.

[festivalman]

Q: Is the CPU utilization less with WMP8 codecs than WMP7?

A: In snapstream 2.0, before the wm9 betas were released, wm7 was faster than wm8 because it was less advanced. It also was more grainy looking. Something weird happened with snapstream 3.0 and the latest release candidate of the wm9 player/codecs. They did some kind of optimizations to the wm8 codec so that it now performs better than wm7. They obviously also changed something in the wm7 codec so that it performs far worse, always sitting at 100 percent for me. So, since wm8 now uses less cpu than 7, and looks a nice amount better, I'm not going to complain.

[jakfr02]

Good stuff.

festivalman, I am very greatful for the time you taken to answer these questions. And to others who have ask more questions thanks to you as well.



Happy Holidays
Frank

[festivalman]

I'm a high quality video junkie, so I always rush to help people so they can get the same results.

[vogelap]

Originally posted by festivalman
I'm a high quality video junkie, so I always rush to help people so they can get the same results.

Your knowledge and expertiese are certainly appreciated!

Can you characterize the quality of the recordings you're able to capture with SnapStream? I'd describe mine as equivilent to VCR quality, and I am wondering if I could get better quality.

[festivalman]

Well, assuming that all of your settings are the same as what I've mentioned above, you're probably not going to get much better at this point. Windows media 9 is supposed to be even higher quality, but looks like it needs the highest end 2.5ghz or faster P4 to do 640x480 resolution in realtime. I can't comment on this as I don't have a P4 that fast.

Something I did notice though, is that hardware mpeg2 encoded video, even at relatively low bitrates beats the pants off this software encoded stuff when it comes to picture clarity and color quality. The colors seem a little washed out in the output that snapstream gives. I'm using a windows media center edition machine with the hauppauge pvr-250 and the output is truly excellent looking. Colors are wonderful to look at. Something that Snapstream needs to do, is make WDM driver settings available within the interface. The Hauppague cards have tons of color, contrast and sharpness values that can be tweaked in other video capture applications, but Snapstream can't do any of that. I'm confident that I could mess around with the settings for a while and probably get output that comes close.

To be accurate by the way, the VHS standard calls for video to be at 640x240. DVD gives you the full NTSC standard of 640x480, so what we're capturing is definitely close to DVD spec. With color and contrast tweaking you could probably bring it up to something really good looking.

[drumrigj]

Festivalman - thanks for the headsup on the MediaCenter and the PVR 250! I had given up on that a while ago until now, I got it up and running last night and it works great!

Jase

[aharbour]

Ok - i screwed around with settings for a whole day now and would like to share my findings.

I run a P4 2.4 Dell with a Hauppage PCI card. I installed windows media encoder 9 after already having the beta v3 snapstream on.
Interestingly enough i was able to record in wm9 format until i restarted the pc at which point selecting wmp9 gave a blank output. However no great results were acvhieved with 9 anyway.

My current high quality setting is 480X360 at 55% quality on wmp8 format. Audio was wmp9. I set it to 220K. I also used the interlace option because I was getting the horizontal lines on movement. I changed the quality and encoding rate up and down with no noticable change, so the 55% and 220K could go lower if size were an issue.

I tried 640X480 and did not notice any difference, only less horizontal lines in interlace was off - i figured why waste the cpu on the extra lines which I doubt are noticable anyway.

I am still getting a slight jerky movement every 5-10 seconds - not too noticable unless looking out for it but anyonig anyway. Its especially noticable with ticker channels such as cnn, fox news etc. Anyone any ideas how to get rid of it? I have plenty of power and HD speed so it cant be that.

Other than the jerky thing I think that I have reached the point where I can forget the VCR.

[festivalman]

that jerkyness isn't the fault of lack of power of your machine, but the keyframe that you're noticing. for those that aren't familiar with it, the way that mpeg encodes, is that it draws a full frame every 5-10 seconds. every frame after the keyframe and before the next one, is just the information that makes up the difference between the previous frame and the next. when the keyframe hits again, it has to draw a complete frame and therefore constitutes far more information to draw than the difference frames. Concerning fixing this, try modifying that "5" value to something else. the tickers are where i notice it the most too... it even happens with the hardware encoding with MCE.. very difficult to get rid of.