TalkingSoft.com Forums: WinTV Codec issues - TalkingSoft.com Forums

While I've been in the computer industry for years, I'm definitely a codec noob... particularly when it comes to encoding.

As such, I recently began to use WinTV and wanted to use it as a DVR. The board is old (98) but works fine, and the software (WinTV2000) seems to work fine. It even RECORDS fine, but uncompressed, my files are 40GB per hour, and not exactly viewable at that size.

There are compression options for recording: under the settings menu, under movies, it asks for the DVR record path and the quality level. Only "AVI" is listed under the "quality level" menu. However, I can click "advanced" next to the quality level drop down and it brings up a window with a codec drop-down list. Several are listed, including various Intel and Microsoft codecs.

However, no matter which video encoder I try (I've tried them all), hitting "record" generates an error. Either: "Can not Connect VidCompressor to AVIMux: HR=0x80040207" or "WARNING: Video Compressor not compatible with Video Format Compressor ignored during Capture."

Either way, the recorder defaults to uncompressed settings. Sadly, I really have no idea what's going on here. Should I download a codec in particular? Is this XP WDM driver (http://www.hauppauge...rt_pci_878.html) really incompatible with all those encoders?

Thanks for any help anyone can offer!

Teddy

It would seem I posted moments too soon. I just found another settings box in WinTV allowing me to change the video "mode." The choices are: RGB 24, RGB 32, YUY2, YVU9, UYVY, YV12 and RGB 555 (16-bit). I can also change the frame rate and resolution. It appears that some of the compression codecs WILL work with some of these settings, but I'm still lost.

I'll go read some tutorials! In the meantime, can someone suggest a combination of the mode settings above and one of the codecs I have available to me:

Cinepak codec by Radius, DV Video Recorder, Indeo Video 5.10, Indeo Video 5.10 compression filter, Intel 4:2:0 Video V2.50, Intel Indeo Video R3.2, Intel Indeo Video 4.5, Intel IYUV codec, Microsoft H.261 Video Codec, Microsoft H.263 Video Codec, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1, MJPEG Compressor, MSScreen Encoder DMO, MSScreen 9 Encoder DMO, WMVideo Encoder DMO, WMVideo8 Encoder DMO, WMVideo9 Encoder DMO.

Wow - that's a lot of choices. And what about audio? I see MP3, WMA, and about two dozen other weird ones to choose from.

Thanks again,

Teddy

I use the Hauppage PVR 250 TV tuner card and WINTV software to record shows. Just matter of following updates & patches in order including installing latest Video decoder.

Unfortunately, Hauppage uses proprietary codecs so can't use the other codecs on your machine. I could use MPEG1 (VCD) or MPEG2 (SVCD), but DVD offers best quality for me and I can view it using MPC or WINDVD.

Quality level and settings I use: Long play DVD (program MPEG2) with video @ 720x480 res, variable bitrate 4800-6200kbps and MPEG1, layer 2, 48khz audio @ 224kbps which generates a program MPEG 2 file about 1GB for every hour of video.

This post has been edited by Mischcabob: 05 October 2006 - 05:39 AM

Wow~ I thought that the PVR 250 was actually a model... is it software too? I'll check out the downloads - it'd be really cool if I could use it with my PCI WinTV Radio model. I had very limited success trying the different codec combinations... usually the file was unplayable, if not, the audio wasn't synced up right.

Thanks for your help!

Teddy

No, you are are right. I updated the wording on my initial post. I use WINTV 2000, scheduler and IR software as part of the bundled package to record my shows. It works quite well and I sync the TV schedule so my computer shuts down automatically when it finishes recording my shows while I am away.

Well, I looked into your post, and I'm pretty sure your MPEG codecs must've come with your WinTV PVR. Since mine's older, it didn't come with any codecs. WinTV seems to be able to use non-proprietary codecs though - I downloaded some XVID and DVIX encoding codecs at free-codecs.com and I'm messing around with them, with limited success. I can't seem to up the resolution (it's pretty low) and the audio is always too quiet, and often not synced.

Does anyone have any other recording settings they swear by?

FYI - On WinTV, there seems to be two windows that affect recording - I'm not quite sure if/how they work together yet:

Under "Menu -> AVI Recording -> Set Video Format," you can change the frame rate, color space/compression, and output size. There's also compression settings, which is always grayed-out on mine. I'm particularly interested in what the color space/compression stuff is all about - RGB? YV12? What in the world?

Under "Preferences -> Movies -> MPEG" there is the DVCR Record Path, and the Quality Level. The Quality Level also has an "Advanced" button that lets you choose the video and audio codecs.

Thanks,

Teddy