Capturing analogue video using a NTSC Hauppauge PVR2 USB capture device

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Capturing analogue video using a NTSC Hauppauge PVR2 USB capture device - warbly audio?

lchiu7

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#144240 12-May-2014 15:54

Replacing my desktop PVR that has a Hauppauge PVR250 capture card (I capture from a cable box) to a Brix based unit that only has USB of course, I purchased one of these units.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/old_products/data_pvrusb2.html

Getting it from Ebay I forgot that there could be PAL/NTSC differences :-( I got the NTSC version.

Anyway after installing it and trying it out the following strange things happen.

Feeding it a signal over S-Video from my cable box, I capture clean video but the audio is chipmunk like and warbly (like somebody is talking under water). I would have thought that sending it a PAL signal would mean nothing is captured.

A quick check of the MPG file created indicates it's NTSC.

Does anybody have any explanation why it can even capture at all and since it can, why only audio is distorted, video is fine.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

B1GGLZ

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#1042592 12-May-2014 19:23

Have you tried composite A/V instead of s-video? I've always had problems trying to use s-video on various equipment.

lchiu7

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#1042665 12-May-2014 21:13

Actually the video captures okay but I think it's truncated top/bottom because the capture device is set to NTSC. But that does not explain why the audio is garbled.

I guess I am going to have to find a PAL capture device to use instead.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

JonnyCam

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#1042766 13-May-2014 08:46

Can you actually hear what is being said in the audio - or is it just garbage?

knoydart

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#1042815 13-May-2014 09:56

"Underwater" audio might indicate a phase problem between the left and right channels on the audio capture.

How much detail can you dig into on the capture device?

lchiu7

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#1042850 13-May-2014 10:36

I dug out my NTSC Hi8 camcorder and plan to try to capture some video/audio from that. That should show if the audio issues I am having are PAN/NTSC or something else.

I suspect I might have to find a PAL analogue capture device that does hardware compression and is supported by GBPVR or if I am forced to, NPVR.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

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#1043233 13-May-2014 20:53

Well to answer my own post - I solved the problem, albeit by chance.

On the NPVR forum Sub asked me to construct a graph to show the filters used and he might be able to force the card into PAL mode. Well I could not get the render to work but when I changed the capture filter video properties to PALG just to see if I could see the video, while nothing happened in Graphedt, next time I tried a recording it was in PAL format! So I guess Graphedt forced the card into PAL mode.

So success! It's been ages since I have used the Graphedt tool and it took me a bit of time to work out what to do.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.