VirtualDub video capture problem

[Helly]

So last week i got a magewell pro capture hdmi 4k plus LT, because i like recording my games and failures while playing them. Yes there are cheaper options, but i don't or rarely upload the video's to youtube and want 5.1 audio. No other solution can do this AFAIK, not at 4k anyway. So having stopped that discussion here's the problem.

 

I prefer to record with virtualdub cuz it's simple. But for some reason while even viewing the input from my PC, it can't maintain 60fps. There's an indicator in the bottom right corner showing the framerate its running at and it's all over the place. Going from low 30s up to the high 50's and on rare occasion hitting 60 for a second before dropping down again. I've been trying things and searching google for days without finding a solution. There's not a lot of info to be found on it.

Here's the kicker though, i also connected my ps4 pro to it. After changing a few settings it hit 60fps, and stayed there. Permanently. I recorded some short video's and it just kept sitting at 60. Until i switched back to my pc. Then it did the above once again. All the same settings, just switched cables.

 

Eventually i gave up and switched to OBS. But as mentioned i want 5.1 audio capture. Which OBS does do but i couldn't get out of the card. Days of messing around with it i got it to work as i want and yesterday was able to capture a video just fine from my PC. stable 60 fps, all good. But OBS is somewhat limited with the encoding codec options. Yes i know about the advanced stuff, it's what i'm using now but that is all ffd and i prefer to using more lossless codecs like magicyuv. Yes that is in ffd now to but its a different implementation not done by the creator of the original magicyuv.

Another problem with VD is the audio, which i haven't really been trying to solve cuz of the video problems but if you know how to, saves me the time to figure it out. The audio either slowly goes further and further out of sync or it seems to be playing at a higher speed. I'm thinking its an issue with the sampling rate but i'm not sure.

 

So the question is then, is there anyone who's had these kinds of problems with VD and knows how to solve them? Is there some settings i'm missing? Would appreciate the help

[mariushm]

Play with the Capture > Timing ... options

 

I suggest sticking to 48 kHz, 96 kHz 16/24 bit and if these two don't work well, fall back to 44.1 kHz

Ideally, use the same as configured in Windows or the same sampling rate the Magewell capture card is configured at, so there's no resampling made by the magewell drivers or whatever.

 

May also want to play with Capture > Disk I/O ... see if it works better with bigger amount of chunks and bigger size chunks (try 4 MB or 8 MB chunks)

 

Also ... Options > Performance ... raise those sliders if you have high bitrate 4k ...

 

Also ... maybe take advantage of the card's hardware color format conversion and configure it to output YCbCr 4:2:2 (YUY2) and match that with Virtualdub's color format and the lossless codec's format.

When making Youtube rendering, you'll further degrade this to YCbCr 4:2:0 (YV12)

Unless you capture some pixel art games or vintage stuff, there's no need to capture at Full RGB or YCbCr 4:4:4 , as Youtube reconverts everything to YV12 (YCbCr 4:2:0)

 

[Helly]

21 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Play with the Capture > Timing ... options

 

I suggest sticking to 48 kHz, 96 kHz 16/24 bit and if these two don't work well, fall back to 44.1 kHz

Ideally, use the same as configured in Windows or the same sampling rate the Magewell capture card is configured at, so there's no resampling made by the magewell drivers or whatever.

 

May also want to play with Capture > Disk I/O ... see if it works better with bigger amount of chunks and bigger size chunks (try 4 MB or 8 MB chunks)

 

Also ... Options > Performance ... raise those sliders if you have high bitrate 4k ...

 

Also ... maybe take advantage of the card's hardware color format conversion and configure it to output YCbCr 4:2:2 (YUY2) and match that with Virtualdub's color format and the lossless codec's format.

When making Youtube rendering, you'll further degrade this to YCbCr 4:2:0 (YV12)

Unless you capture some pixel art games or vintage stuff, there's no need to capture at Full RGB or YCbCr 4:4:4 , as Youtube reconverts everything to YV12 (YCbCr 4:2:0)

Well this is awkward.... of course now that i've asked for help, the damn thing just works immediately without changing anything. Anyway, in case it stops working, it's nice to have options.

 

Not sure i get the timing options, the ones you show in the screenshot are the defaults, so they're they same as i have them. Also slight communication error on my part, im using VD2. Which is a little different then the original.

 

As for the capture > Disk I/O, i assume that's for actual capture. Which i'm not even doing when it shows the FPS going all over the place. But i've changed it to 4MB chunks for now.

 

Options > performance, i cant find this. I'm assuming here, you're mentioning this from memory so might need a double check on that :P

 

As for the audio, that's a weird one. The PC is outputting 48KHz, which VD2 is also capturing. Can't really find any options to change this inside VD2 either. Perhaps with compression, but i'm capturing the audio without it. Don't have a good codec to capture it the way i want it :P.

However for the card i can only find 1 device in the sound control panel in windows. This shows a max support of 2 channels. This same device i can see in VD2 as well. And there to it shows only 2 channels. To capture 6 or 8 channels i have to pick the WDM device. Which i can't change any settings for in windows itself. If you can tell me how to get VD to capture 96Khz/24bit, that would be awesome. I can get the 96Khz to work, just not the 24bit, can't find the option for that.

 

The video is more of a "why not?" scenario. I put it on p210 and for compression i put it on magivyuv 4:2:2 10 bit. The incoming signal is 10bit, so why not see if i can get some HDR going. Still, it's windows, so no high expectations for the HDR quality. As long as the framerate is fixed at 60, this should be fine.

[mariushm]

See video attached

 

It's pointless to capture 10 bit as Youtube and everything will bring it down to 8 bits and YV12 (YCbCr 4:2:0) .. .reduce bitrate and disk space .

 

Note it's first time using Virtualdub2 but video is short enough at 2 minutes

 

[Helly]

4 minutes ago, mariushm said:

See video attached

 

It's pointless to capture 10 bit as Youtube and everything will bring it down to 8 bits and YV12 (YCbCr 4:2:0) .. .reduce bitrate and disk space .

 

Note it's first time using Virtualdub2 but video is short enough at 2 minutes

As i've mentioned, i rarely upload my video's to youtube. It's more recording for later to re-experience the glory days :P. I've been doing that for over 15 years now. I have video's of me playing UT99. It's just fun to see myself playing when i was good at a game and had fun doing it.

 

10 bit is useful for me as i will be encoding it to x265-10bit with hdr. I've already got a video with it, looks fine for now, not perfect, but windows hdr is far from perfect so its ok.

 

As for the video, thanks, i was only thinking of options when you're already in the capture mode, so the options menu was gone XD.

I just tried a few more test recordings, at first i had a lot of dropped frames (had that before to, didn't even think to mention that.), but all the problems (including the audio) seem to have magically resolved themselves. I don't get it, probably never understand it, but i'll take the win.

 

Thanks for all the help, i really appreciate it. Should i run into any more problems, ill post em, hoping to get your help again.