nVidia WDM capture drivers - do they only support UYVY (lousy) compression?

[Jeff7]

I have a VIVO Geforce4 Ti4200, using the 30.82 Det's and the v1.19 WDM capture drivers. It seems that the only way to capture images is using UYVY compression, which results in lousy images, similar to 256-color quality. The moving image it displays in the capture program (using the capture option in iPhoto Plus) is of good quality, direct from the camera. But actually capturing the image to a file results in lousy quality.
I can't just take a screenshot, because when I paste the image into a photo editor, the video in the pasted picture is still being fed from the camera! It won't produce a still-image that way.
How can I get good images from this camera through my VIVO card?

 

[ScrewFace]

Good question. Anybody?

 

[Jeff7]

Anyone? I don't have any other good capture options; and these pictures that this card is making are pathetic.

 

[alexruiz]

What software are you using for the capture???

most of the commercial software are unable to override the preferred setting. Virtualdub and iuVCR allow you to choose the format (yuy2 usually)...... *sigh* but you need to trick the system to make virtualdub work with a wdm input.....

 

[Jeff7]

I've tried both iPhoto Plus and Microsoft's Photo editor that comes with Office2k. That's all the photo editing stuff I have; it's all I've ever needed. However, Photo Plus doesn't play nice with Windows XP, so I will probably need to buy a standalone photo editing software package.

 

[rbV5]

nVidia WDM drivers should allow for capturing in XP with VirtualDub. An easy/free way to do this is to install VirtualDub to open/capture your video files. When in VirtualDub>Open your video file>scrub to the frame you wish to get your still(make sure you have "Options>Display input video")>Video>copy source frame to clipboard. Open MS Paint>Edit>Paste...now you should see your frame in MS Paint>File>Save as...pick from the different compression formats and save.

Make sure your captured video or video files are a supported format for VirtualDub, and use a codec like huffyuv or MJPEG and the highest resolution to capture with for your best quality when making stills.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: rbV5
nVidia WDM drivers should allow for capturing in XP with VirtualDub. An easy/free way to do this is to install VirtualDub to open/capture your video files. When in VirtualDub>Open your video file>scrub to the frame you wish to get your still(make sure you have "Options>Display input video")>Video>copy source frame to clipboard. Open MS Paint>Edit>Paste...now you should see your frame in MS Paint>File>Save as...pick from the different compression formats and save.

Make sure your captured video or video files are a supported format for VirtualDub, and use a codec like huffyuv or MJPEG and the highest resolution to capture with for your best quality when making stills.

"scrub to the frame you wish to get your still"
Not sure what you mean there. Do I have to capture a video first then use Virtualdub to extract a specific frame?

I did try File -> Capture AVI, then go to Video -> Format, and there it gives me the same 640x480 UVYV option.
The "Set custom format" option only yields "Unsupported Video Format" and kicks me back to the capture window.

 

[rbV5]

Not sure what you mean there. Do I have to capture a video first then use Virtualdub to extract a specific frame?

That would be the easiest I guess, just capture a small amount and then pick from the best frame for your still.

I did try File -> Capture AVI, then go to Video -> Format, and there it gives me the same 640x480 UVYV option

Are sure its not UYVY? That is a common FOURCC code (the one I use myself). When you set the format to 640 X480 do you see video in the preview window? (Overlay enabled)

 

[Jeff7]

Yes, yes, UYVY, sorry. I do that constantly - mix up stuff like E and 3, W/Y/V, etc...only in the past year or so too. Strange.

Yes, I do see video in the preview window. If I use Overlay, it looks fine; when I take a screenshot, one of two things happen when I paste the image into Paintbrush:
a) The screenshot pastes fine, but the image window still shows in realtime what the camera is seeing! Like a live screenshot.
b) Or sometimes, instead of the video preview, it just comes up blank.

If I use Preview Mode instead of Overlay, I can take a screenshot, but the interlacing is extremely apparent.

 

[rbV5]

OK, you don't want a screen cap. Try capturing (hit F6 when the video is showing in the Overlay window) a short amount of video of the footage you want your image from using the 640X480 with no recompression (UYVY), the default is CAPTURE.AVI . Then open that file in VirtualDub and follow my instructions above.

also, you could try a capture application like iuVCR which has a snapshot mode which would make things easy <trial> but my method should work well, is free, and you can use Virtualdub's filters for processing your video as well.

 

[Jeff7]

Ok, guess I'll have to do that then.
I was just used to my old TV-tuner/capture card - it could take pictures in a variety of formats - YV12 or something like that, or RGB formats. No drivers for XP though; and it was just plain getting old. I had expected something onboard a Geforce4 Ti4200 would be a bit jazzier than an old capture card.

 

[rbV5]

UYVY is the default FOURCC code for the Rage Theater, so you're not losing quality due to support of that particular format at all. I did a couple of captures while checking it out for you off of some analog capture from a camcorder, the quality was excellent. The final quality depends greatly on your source footage.

 

[Jeff7]

Ok, did that, and it seems to work. I guess I should invest in a "real" digital camera sometime.
If I use the "Get Image" feature in Photo Plus to take the picture right from the video-in, I get this:
Quick method

Capturing to video first, then getting the frame I need:
Longer method

The first one just looks almost 'muddy' - like it was shot in 256 colors. The lighting was not changed, nor was the camera repositioned for either picture; both were saved first to 24-bit bitmap, then to JPEG at 90% quality; same settings for both.