6 replies to this topic

[dbrad]

Hello,

I am using EMC9 with a Hauppauge PCI video card to capture home video from VHS tapes through a composite input, capturing in DV-HQ format to produce an mpg file.

The capture seems to work fine, the VHS tape is 1 hour and 40 minutes long and the captured mpg file is about 5GB in size. When I open this file in Window Media Player is says that the video is 8 minutes and 11 seconds long (which seems strange when it should be 1:40 long). When I play the file it plays to the 8 minute mark and then keeps going, playing properly to the end of the file - the whole 1:40 - so it really isn't an issue in playback.
Where this is causing me problems is when I try to edit the video. When I bring the video into Videowave I again see this length of 8 minutes and these first 8 minutes are the only portion of the video that I have access to edit, it will just stop at that point. If I try to convert the mpg file to a different format (burn it to DVD, convert to Divx, etc.) only the first 8 minutes of the video are converted, the rest is lost. Obviously the entire video has been captured as I am able to watch the whole 1:40 on my PC but I don't know where this 8 minute length is coming from and it is stopping me from editing and converting the file to DVD. I have tried the capture twice, one time the reported video length was 8:11, the next time it was 8:44, even though the file itself does play to the whole 1:40 captured length.

Any help you could provide on this would be greatly appreciated. Is there something I should be doing differently during the capture, is there a way to edit the captured file so that it knows that it is actually 1:40 long and not just 8 minutes?

Thank you for your time and attention to this.

[james_hardin]

This has nothing to do with Roxio, contact Hauppauge…

Let us know what you find out.

[grandpabruce]

Hello,

I am using EMC9 with a Hauppauge PCI video card to capture home video from VHS tapes through a composite input, capturing in DV-HQ format to produce an mpg file.

The capture seems to work fine, the VHS tape is 1 hour and 40 minutes long and the captured mpg file is about 5GB in size. When I open this file in Window Media Player is says that the video is 8 minutes and 11 seconds long (which seems strange when it should be 1:40 long). When I play the file it plays to the 8 minute mark and then keeps going, playing properly to the end of the file - the whole 1:40 - so it really isn't an issue in playback.
Where this is causing me problems is when I try to edit the video. When I bring the video into Videowave I again see this length of 8 minutes and these first 8 minutes are the only portion of the video that I have access to edit, it will just stop at that point. If I try to convert the mpg file to a different format (burn it to DVD, convert to Divx, etc.) only the first 8 minutes of the video are converted, the rest is lost. Obviously the entire video has been captured as I am able to watch the whole 1:40 on my PC but I don't know where this 8 minute length is coming from and it is stopping me from editing and converting the file to DVD. I have tried the capture twice, one time the reported video length was 8:11, the next time it was 8:44, even though the file itself does play to the whole 1:40 captured length.

Any help you could provide on this would be greatly appreciated. Is there something I should be doing differently during the capture, is there a way to edit the captured file so that it knows that it is actually 1:40 long and not just 8 minutes?

Thank you for your time and attention to this.

If, by chance, you got the Capture program, in EMC 9, to recognize the Hauppauge card, and you captured as a DV-AVI file, the size of that captured video would be close to 20GB, so it is obvious that it didn't capture properly.

What Hauppauge card do you have?  Were you watching the video as it was being captured?

[dbrad]

If, by chance, you got the Capture program, in EMC 9, to recognize the Hauppauge card, and you captured as a DV-AVI file, the size of that captured video would be close to 20GB, so it is obvious that it didn't capture properly.

What Hauppauge card do you have?  Were you watching the video as it was being captured?

Hello,

The card is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II capture card. It is recognized by the Media Import program in EMC9 and I captured the VHS tape using the DVD-HQ capture setting through a composite input which produced a 5GB .mpg file. I was watching the video as it was being captured and it did capture the entire video as I am able to watch the entire video in Windows Media Player after the capture. The problem I am having is that every program I open the .mpg file in gives the video a length of 8 minutes when it is actually 1 hour and 40 minutes. Its not a big deal when I am watching the video in WMP as it counts to the 8 minute mark and then just continues on normally to the end of the video, the whole 100 minutes. My problem is that when I try to bring the file into Videowave to edit the file and save it in a different format or burn it to a DVD, only those first 8 minutes are availble to edit, and only those first 8 minutes will burn to a DVD.

Thanks.

[mikiem]

Hello,

The card is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II capture card. It is recognized by the Media Import program in EMC9 and I captured the VHS tape using the DVD-HQ capture setting through a composite input which produced a 5GB .mpg file. I was watching the video as it was being captured and it did capture the entire video as I am able to watch the entire video in Windows Media Player after the capture. The problem I am having is that every program I open the .mpg file in gives the video a length of 8 minutes when it is actually 1 hour and 40 minutes. Its not a big deal when I am watching the video in WMP as it counts to the 8 minute mark and then just continues on normally to the end of the video, the whole 100 minutes. My problem is that when I try to bring the file into Videowave to edit the file and save it in a different format or burn it to a DVD, only those first 8 minutes are availble to edit, and only those first 8 minutes will burn to a DVD.

Thanks.

You don't mention which programs you've tried viewing it in -- PowerDVD for example might show a good length, and if so, that might point to a potential problem with mpg2 codecs & supporting files installed on your PC. (PowerDVD uses it's own decoder files) Otherwise, while it won't answer the question of "what went wrong", you might be able to salvage the mpg2 file, though it'll probably be a bit of trial and error...

I'd suggest taking a look at the various software tools listed at videhelp.com if the file is bad -- maybe after capture the complete file (end of file etc.) was not written correctly? Besides repair utilities you'll find several apps that in the course of processing the file will re-write it for you, and might just correct it by doing so. There is a catch 22: it's common for software to mis-read the duration of m2v (video-only mpg2) files, so if you de-mux the file to get separate video/audio tracks as required by some of these tools, you might have to re-mux or re-combine the audio & video into an mpg file to test your results.

[myguggi]

You don't mention which programs you've tried viewing it in -- PowerDVD for example might show a good length, and if so, that might point to a potential problem with mpg2 codecs & supporting files installed on your PC. (PowerDVD uses it's own decoder files) Otherwise, while it won't answer the question of "what went wrong", you might be able to salvage the mpg2 file, though it'll probably be a bit of trial and error...

I'd suggest taking a look at the various software tools listed at videhelp.com if the file is bad -- maybe after capture the complete file (end of file etc.) was not written correctly? Besides repair utilities you'll find several apps that in the course of processing the file will re-write it for you, and might just correct it by doing so. There is a catch 22: it's common for software to mis-read the duration of m2v (video-only mpg2) files, so if you de-mux the file to get separate video/audio tracks as required by some of these tools, you might have to re-mux or re-combine the audio & video into an mpg file to test your results.

mikiem,
You did not read dbrad's post very carefully otherwise you would have read that he was able to watch the whole video using WMP.

dbrad,
have tried to load your captured video into Windows Movie Maker and see if it plays there

[mikiem]

Actually I think the 1st thing I'd try is several shorter captures -- if they worked, or didn't, that would go a long way towards figuring out if there's a problem, if it occurred only during longer captures, or if this was a (hopefully) one time error.

mikiem,
You did not read dbrad's post very carefully otherwise you would have read that he was able to watch the whole video using WMP.

dbrad,
have tried to load your captured video into Windows Movie Maker and see if it plays there

Not arguing or disagreeing or anything, really   , but he posted: "The problem I am having is that every program I open the .mpg file in gives the video a length of 8 minutes". I probably mis-understood.

If it helps at all -- otherwise please forgive. I've seen this with playback with some mpg2 files, usually m2v (video only) in my case -- the wrong duration is shown in WMPlayer, but correctly in PowerDVD & some other programs. Wmplayer uses whatever DS filters to show mpg2 video -- which ones are determined by what's installed, what priority individual filters have etc. A lot of players do the same thing, while others try to be completely self contained, making other decoding software largely irrelevant. My thinking was/is that if a self-contained player worked, then maybe the file was OK and the problem wasn't the card, drivers, or the capture software, but some other software problem. And if that was the case, nothing done with the card or Roxio software would cure it.

Of course maybe the file is bad, maybe it didn't finish getting written to hdd.(?) If it was determined that everything basically worked (by doing several short captures), don't know if it'd be faster to re-capture or try to fix the file. To try and save it, if it helps, I've had bad mpg2 files, and ones that are written in a way that some software mis-interprets, and it showed the wrong duration no matter where I tried it. Re-writing the file, but not re-encoding it, changing or correcting the headers sometimes has been a quick & relatively painless cure. With a tape, where you have access to the source any time you want, not sure if it would be worth it.