Hauppauge USB video capture device doesn't like my NTSC Atari VCS

[Andromeda Stardust]

Sprybug recently requested that I capture some video footage of a homebrew he was working on, Super Mario Bros 2600, to verify that it worked properly on real hardware. I have a video capture device for my PC that is capable of capturing analog composite or S-Video. I sometimes use it to capture gameplay footage directly from the console. Because my Atari doesn't output composite video, it is necessary to use an old VCR as a middle man. The VCR I am using is busted (in other words, it chews up VHS tapes and spits them back out) but the audio/video portions of it work fine. So, I proceed to connect the coax cable from the Atari to the VCR, and from the VCR to the TV. Next, I connect the A/V cables from the VCR to the capture device. It is a Hauppauge brand USB dongle which supports analog NTSC and PAL video formats, both S-Video and Composite. I set up the game and begin recording in standard NTSC definition 720x480i. Here is the result:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF25v7LL5m8

The video feed is roach quality and almost entirely grayscale. I have used this capture device to record from both retro and modern consoles like NES and GameCube, and the colors always display flawlessly. At first I thought that the composite video (yellow cable) was to blame, so I turned the system back on, and switched the TV set to "game" (A/V) mode, disconnect the RCA cable from the capture device and plug it into the TV set. Once again, the colors were crystal clear and vibrant on the TV, ruling out the possibility of a bad cable.

 

Why does the Hauppauge capture device work with all of my other consoles but not Atari?

Edited August 25, 2012 by stardust4ever

[Pioneer4x4]

I just re-installed my hauppauge PVR 150. I will try it out on my Atari soon and let you know what I get. I used to do a LOT of recording with it, and used it as a PVR, and remember having several utilities that you could alter the video format. I need to see if I still have them.

The site I got a lot from years ago was

http://www.shspvr.com/

[potatohead]

It has to do with the VCS signal not really being "in spec"

 

Over the years, I've had a lot of trouble capturing VCS images. Some devices will do better than others. Running the signal through a VCR can help.

 

Back when the VCS was designed, TVs were fairly simple, analog things that would trigger off most anything even close to the right kind of signal. This gave the engineers some leeway in how they did things. Many home computer signals were simplified variations on a standard NTSC signal. These deviations were done for a lot of reasons.

 

One is color stability, as in no dot crawl due to color phase changes, like an NES or C64 would show on a composite signal. That also has a lot to do with "the Atari look" too. On Apple computers, it allowed artifacting to be the sole means of generating color signals.

 

Another is simply frame rate on moving things. A VCS doesn't do an interlaced signal, unless it's programmed to like we know how to do these days. That's 50 or 60Hz, nice and stable. Again, more fully developed signals will have motion blur and dot crawl on them, which can be less than ideal for fast computer graphics and or text.

 

Now we've mostly digital devices, and they sometimes have trouble with the older signals.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I didn't read your post until after I hit reply. Here is a direct link to the device I bought:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16815116048

 

Well, I just don't see any simple workaround. I don't know why, but my capture card really doesn't like the Atari, and I have ruled out the possibility that the VCR is at fault. I imagine if I had a working VCR and recorded the Atari video feed onto VHS, since it's an analog recording medium, it would most likely be spitting out the same off-specification signal that went into it, only with more signal degradation.

 

Screenshot with cell phone camera:

 

Demodulated composite screen capture:

 

And to prove that it's not the VCR causing the problems, I wired my NES RF adapter into the VCR input, and captured a screenshot. The resulting modulated-and-then-demodulated screenshot, while not as clear as a direct A/V hookup, has normal-looking colors:

 

I really don't understand why my CRT television displays the signal perfectly, as well the HDTV in the living room which also displays a perfect signal, but not my capture card. I'm aware that every other scanline should be 262 and 263 lines, and that most Atari games output 262 lines every frame, but does that one miniscule scanline really make that much difference? NES, SNES, and Genesis are also technically 240p as well, unlike later consoles which output conventional 480i signals, and they record just fine.

 

I would like to do some "Let's play" style videos on youtube with real hardware, and since quality is paramount, a direct video feed is almost always better than the lazy "let's just point a webcam at the TV screen" method because it really looks like crap when people do that. I even bought a cheap stereo audio mixer so I can mix in voiceover / commentary in real time using a microphone. Of course, I could always point my camera at the HDTV to avoid scanline contrast issues, but still, to get the best quality picture, with overscan, you need to do a direct capture, and my USB capture device really doesn't like my Atari.

 

I guess I'll have to try my combo DVD recorder/VCR next.

Edited August 27, 2012 by stardust4ever

[Sprybug]

I didn't read your post until after I hit reply. Here is a direct link to the device I bought:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16815116048

 

Well, I just don't see any simple workaround. I don't know why, but my capture card really doesn't like the Atari, and I have ruled out the possibility that the VCR is at fault. I imagine if I had a working VCR and recorded the Atari video feed onto VHS, since it's an analog recording medium, it would most likely be spitting out the same off-specification signal that went into it, only with more signal degradation.

 

Screenshot with cell phone camera:

 

Demodulated composite screen capture:

 

And to prove that it's not the VCR causing the problems, I wired my NES RF adapter into the VCR input, and captured a screenshot. The resulting modulated-and-then-demodulated screenshot, while not as clear as a direct A/V hookup, has normal-looking colors:

 

I really don't understand why my CRT television displays the signal perfectly, as well the HDTV in the living room which also displays a perfect signal, but not my capture card. I'm aware that every other scanline should be 262 and 263 lines, and that most Atari games output 262 lines every frame, but does that one miniscule scanline really make that much difference? NES, SNES, and Genesis are also technically 240p as well, unlike later consoles which output conventional 480i signals, and they record just fine.

 

I would like to do some "Let's play" style videos on youtube with real hardware, and since quality is paramount, a direct video feed is almost always better than the lazy "let's just point a webcam at the TV screen" method because it really looks like crap when people do that. I even bought a cheap stereo audio mixer so I can mix in voiceover / commentary in real time using a microphone. Of course, I could always point my camera at the HDTV to avoid scanline contrast issues, but still, to get the best quality picture, with overscan, you need to do a direct capture, and my USB capture device really doesn't like my Atari.

 

I guess I'll have to try my combo DVD recorder/VCR next.

 

Have a soldering Iron handy? I've converted my Atari 2600 to output a composite video signal using some plans I found on the internet. I've also sold some of these converted units on ebay too. I've never tried to use a capture device on it, but it shows nice and clear on my television.

[potatohead]

I've had much better luck with a composite converted one. I did the simple Ben Heck mod, and it works on most titles, though some Atari games do not display well. Since I'm using newer home brew stuff, not a worry. The RF is still there, if needed.

 

Some devices work well, some just don't. I have two captures that do. One is fairly expensive, and it's an ADS HDTV USB 384. There is a newer one, and I don't know if that one works the same. It gives the best picture, and it's an HD capture card. Renders darn near anything well. Probably $40-$80 bucks though.

 

The other one I have can be found cheap on e-bay regularly. It's something called "EZ-CAP", and it works reasonably well. I've had pro grade captures fail on a VCS. Older Indy SGI computers would do it, but newer ones would not. A lot depends on what parts of the signal the capture device keys off of.

 

You know, the other device that might help, if you can find on, is an older Archer Time Base Corrector, or Signal Enhancer. I used to have one of those things, and they correct signals and process them. Excellent, but hard to find.

 

The differences between the analog TV and any capture card are significant! Lots of reasons why it wouldn't work, all coming down to subtle timing issues the capture device might need and the TV really doesn't. Older analog TV's will display pretty much anything. Some captures are good too, but not all of them. The two I just named are pretty tolerant, displaying pretty much anything the TV would, and then some. I've sent really crappy signals in while writing video code on the Propeller chip. Thought I had things good, and the TV would actually fail where the capture didn't.

 

Truth is, yeah that scan line might matter, but I suspect the vertical sync signal is the more likely culprit. The output from the VCS just isn't well formed in places, and was designed in a time when that stuff didn't matter much at all for home use, though pro gear at the time may well have choked on it too.

 

You will find similar problems with the newer digital LCD TV's too. Same things in play.

 

FWIW I've never liked the Happauge devices much. My luck on various things was never good. If your machine can handle it, the newer USB type devices are cheaper and often much better.

[Andromeda Stardust]

If it's the one that involves lifting up certain pins off the TIA chip and attaching a daughterboard, It's something I'm not comfortable doing. And I've biult a working NES controller schematic from off-the-shelf parts (it's a big 8x18x4 inch plywood controller with arcade parts). And it probably won't help, anyways, because something with the timings inside the TIA chip is at fault. I've already modded my Atari by stripping out the RCA cable and installing a 1ft coax TV cable inside, and drilled a 3/8 inch hole in the backside of the console for an RF coupler. So now, you plug a TV cable into the back of the unit just like you would a VCR or cable box. It gives a crystal clear picture on both our CRT and HDTVs. I keep it set on channel 2. I also replaced the power regulator and green "chicklet" capacitor which corrected some display issues my Atari had, and even soldered in a power LED into the traces between the power switch and 5V regulator, and replaced so I can tell when it's turned on.

 

Basically, the composite cable out the back of the VCR looked clean on my CRT TV, but that same signal, when plugged into my capture device, sent totally roached out colors to my computer. My guess is that the NTSC timings are off, and just doing a composite mod by bypassing the RF modulaor probably won't change that. Could it be that the Atari is sending a bad NTSC sub-carrier frequency? That may explain the tiny vertical lines seen in the captured screenshots. There also appear to be at least two adjustment knobs on the board; one of them appears to be either a pot or variable cap on the mainboard; the other appears to be a variable inductor underneath the shielding. I'm afraid if I fiddle with them, I'll mess the system up. Did the Atari use a crystal oscillator, or a hand-tuned signal? Either way, it seems my capture card is a lot less fault-tolerant than the HDTV set in my living room. The VCR is not to blame, as it sends a perfect blue screen to the capture card when nothing is connected to it, and the capture card works with all my other consoles.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Sorry for the double post, but editing posts on a 3DS is a b!tch. I'm afraid my VCR/DVD combo unit is out of the question as it doesn't have a TV tuner built in. Even if the old Panasonic VCR wasn't "busted", I believe recording a bad analog signal onto a VHS tape would probably play back the same malformed signal.

 

I just remembered I have a Cowon A3 media player which can record video, so I'll give that a whack at the recording the Atari's demodulated composite signal. Only problem with using the A3 media player to record is the bit-rate of the resultant video file is low. Is there any way to fine tune the NTSC carrier frequency on the Atari? What does that variable inductor underneath the metal shielding do? Mine is the four-switcher wood-grained model, btw.

Edited August 28, 2012 by stardust4ever

[Pioneer4x4]

OK, I made progress. I haven't used this thing in years and need to relearn all the tricks.

1 - I need to get "Live Preview" mode working so I can actually play on the computer monitor in the capture window without delay of 2 seconds...

2 - I had the exact same picture, and ended up installing WINTV2000 OLD version of 4.7.x

I putzed around and went into the channel editor, and turned off "AFT" and found that if I set my channel (2) to +20 I got a stable color picture.

The quality blows, but it is at least color, and I will go from there.

 

This is from a heavy 6 via the standard RF Coax into the PVR 150 card.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ownWIZWREF8&feature=youtu.be

[AtariLeaf]

I have a Hauppauge PVR 350 that I got from a user here actually but for the life of me I can't get it running on Win 7 or XP. Tried the drivers that came with it as well as the upgraded drivers. No go - I can't get a signal from a test VCR of some old home movies (and the VCR does work fine). I may end up getting one of those Dazzle devices. I've got so many home movies, especially of my daughters birth that I want to save digitally before the tapes go, not to mention I'm getting a real hankering for making some gaming reviews for youtube

[Pioneer4x4]

I have Windows 7 32 bit and it works fine. The channel setup is not very straightforward with them. They capture and hardware encode directly as mpg, typically DVD compliant. You define channels, that are not necessarily TV channels. Currently mine is

Channel 1=Composite jacks

Channel 2=Air Channel2

but any channel int the software can be any input source.

The 350 has some nice hardware features, (maybe FM receiver as well)

[AtariLeaf]

Apparently it works well with Ubuntu so I downloaded the latest version and I'll dual boot on my old Athlon XP system and see if it'll work on that.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Pioneer 4x4; I'm glad to see that you managed to get the colors to display. Mine was mostly gray scale with ugly vertical lines. I noticed you take a couple steps, then stop. Are you suffering fro extreme lag? My Hauppauge USB lags bad, which is why I run the signal separately to the TV set as well as the laptop. Worse case scenario, I'll just make videos by pointing the camera at the TV screen. It still won't look as good, but if you use an LCD TV and a good video camera with tripod, the artifacts are almost non-existent. My Nikon L110 takes fairly decent video. It does 640x480p x30fps SD and 1280x720p x30fps HD, and I still haven't tested my Cowon A3 media player with the demodulated composite yet. I just wish I didn't have to use a bulky VCR to demodulate the signal, and quite frankly such a ridiculous setup is hardly worth the effort when you can get a decent capture from an LCD TV with tripod-mounted camera. NES and Genesis output a flawless composite signal that doesn't upset the Hauppauge USB capture, and the SNES, GC, and N64 even do S-Video as well.

[potatohead]

Looks to me like the fine tuning can make a big difference. Not bad. Never thought to mention doing that. I'm always on composite.

 

I've got lag on the USB sticks I use too. It's about a second, depending on the machine I use it with. Some DVD authoring programs have a preview that's very close to real time. There are some apps, like dscaler that seem to get it done in a frame or two you might try as well.

[Pioneer4x4]

Pioneer 4x4; I'm glad to see that you managed to get the colors to display. Mine was mostly gray scale with ugly vertical lines. I noticed you take a couple steps, then stop. Are you suffering fro extreme lag? My Hauppauge USB lags bad, which is why I run the signal separately to the TV set as well as the laptop.

Yes, I had horrible lag, BUT that is intentionally part of the Hauppauge software. There is a setting to enable "LivePreview" that eliminates the lag, that I can't get to work, I am sure I will, I just need to find the right versions of software to run.

There is a TON of registry setting to control those cards and a lot of 3rd party apps to mange the extra settings.

[akator]

A few years ago I recorded a few hundred hours of video from many systems, including the 2600 and Genesis. Ever since I upgraded to Hauppauge's newer software I have the same problems as the OP. I wrote to them about the problems and their reply was to change the recording mode settings, which had absolutely no effect on fixing anything. They didn't reply to any of my further inquiries. Maybe I'll try installing the older software as well

Edited August 30, 2012 by akator

[Andromeda Stardust]

I've kind of given up the idea of direct recording Atari VCS from my Hauppauge capture device. Part of my requirements was that it has drivers that work both with XP and newer 64-bit OS, to future proof it. My laptop is 6 years old. Eventually, I'll get a new one, and it will be a 64-bit system. I'm getting rid of the busted VCR, as it's just too large and cumbersome to be useful to me, plus it eats tapes. Analog TV is pretty much gone now (the cable networks all have proprietary digital boxes), but analog tuners will probably still be included in new HDTVs for a while yet. Not to mention, if a said HD telivision set doesn't like the Atari RF signal, then demodulating it with a VCR probably won't help much. The Sanyo LCD in my living room doesn't lag much, and it accepts the Atari channel 2 signal just fine. An LDC TV will probably photo much better than CRT as well. All my consoles from NES to Game Cube and beyond output composite video natively (with appropriate connector), and will presumably work fine with the capture card.

Edited September 1, 2012 by stardust4ever