Here's the situation:
I'm using MMC 8.1 and the preset SVCD settings to capture from digital cable.
When I capture from a channel that is non-digital (Ch2 - Ch80), I can put it in Nero and there is no problem.
But, if I capture from a channel that is digital, then Nero complains that it has a invailid video stream.

Both captures are done through the digital terminal with a S-Video cable.

Anyone else experience this?
Is this because the digital signal is already compressed?

thanks,
gammer

Is that copy protection related? I tried to capture a videoclip prom a DVD using the analog output of a standalone player, I could watch it using MMC, but as I tried to capture audio was ok but I got a menu screen. I used Freerip to solve my problem.

Yeah, its not "macrovision".

The capture plays fine and the picture is normal. If I turn off the "compliance" in Nero, it will burn and play ok in my stand alone DVD player.

It just bugs me that Nero reports it not being compliant.

I have a feeling, that its somthing to do with the signal being digital and not analog? But I dont know what?

It may have something to do with the video levels. I imagine that digital video has a higher chroma response or something. I am not sure what the difference is, but it could be the cause. If it plays, screw the Nero compatiblity check, it is wrong in most cases anyway.

how good does it look? Should look pretty sweet.

The end result is a little better then analog.
The one big difference is that the analog channel on coax is not as clear; has a bit more noise. But the same analog channel though the digital receiver is 'clear as bells'; no noise lines. I guess the digital receiver has filters that clean up the picture??

So far the best source I have use for the best result, is copying directly from a stand-alone DVD player. Its WAY clearer then capturing from a tv signal...analog coax or digital cable.
If you can find a way to get around the Macrovision copy protection, then its the way to go.

Here is somthing else I have noticed:
Lets say you capture 1 hour of a movie from cable tv and then you capture the exact same hour from a stand-alone DVD player, the file size is different. That is to say, the DVD capture is larger. I guess the VBR is higher when capturing from a DVD source. You would think it would be opposite because it doesnt have to work as hard to get a clear pic.

Just stuff I have noticed...

gammer

You can disable the Macrovision on ATI Cards By useing a Little Utility that seems to work fine for me, I have captured Many Macrovision Protected VHS Tapes and DVD"s without a Problem, If you e-mail me I"ll send it to you if you want to try it..And to get Nero to accept your Captured Files as svcd compliant just run the file through Tmpgenc"s "Merge & Cut" useing the SVCD setting from the Dropdown Menu, this will Repacketize the stream and add the correct SVCD Header to the File...

Yep, the merge & cut from tmpgenc worked. However, I did notice that sometimes the Video and Audio times were off by .01 sec. To fix this, I added that 5 sec black screen to the start and end of the mpeg and then the Vid and Audio were exact.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I am still puzzled why the video stream would be off when capturing from a digital cable channel.

thanks again
gammer

Just as a sidenote, there is capture cards that can capture the digital mpeg2 streams from digital cable TV, satellite TV or terrestial digital TV directly to the PC hard drive. I have a Hauppage DVB-C card (digital cable) and with software like ProgDVB I can capture in a file format called PVA. Then demux to mpv and mpa with a program called PVAStrumento and make DVD out of it, or reencode it to SVCD/XSVCD. The quality is about the same as commersial DVD's on the best digital channels. The worst channels are SVCD-like in quality (on comhem cable TV in Sweden).

If you have a DVD-ROM in your PC there is no reason to capture from a standalone DVD player. Just use the DVD-ripping methods and copy your DVD in digital form directly. Try avoiding the unnecessary digital to analogue to digital converions if possible.

Gammer ,Most sync Problems when captureing from any source don"t have much to do with the source but to do with the Fact that when captureing the Time Clock in the sound card and the Capture card are slightly Different so over the Period of a 2 Hour movie the sync can go out by a Few seconds..I captured a Movie off of VHS Tame last night and the Sound was off By 6 seconds by the end of the capture, But it is easy enough to fix, I just used Vegas Video to stretch the audio to the same length as the Video then the sync was Perfect, Usually the better the Quality the sound card and capture card the better the sync will usually be...

Luisifer,

Yeah, its strange that the audio was off. I have never had audio sync problems, unless I use TMPGEnc to mux.

When I capture with any MMC template, the audio sync is perfect; playback is in sync.

If I mux it with tmpgenc, it reports that audio is out by a bit and you can notice its out of sync when its played back.

I am using a Creative Labs CT4810 sound card and MMC reports that clock stability is better then +/- 0.2%

When I capture with MMC the Audio is in Sync But if I mux the file it goes out of sync ,I think that is because the Packet length gets changed when muxing which causes the De-Sync..I think MMC augments the Mpeg Packet length to keep the audio in sync and when you Mux the File the Packet length gets changed to Mpeg Standards which causes the De-Sync..I use a Creative Sound card and MMC says that it is with in it"s Limits But when I use a Different Program to capture especially to AVI then the Audio can be out by a Few seconds..I"ve been on a Mission to find the Best Mpeg2 capture Program cuz I"m not totally satisfied with the Quality of MMC, even at 15,000KBS with the Motion search on 100% and Useing Video Soap to clean it up, I"ve found that WinDVR has produced better Quality But I drop some Frames here and there with WinDVR But I Tried a program last night called "CyberLink Power Producer" that I got off of one of my software suppliers ,it has No Custom Capture settings just a Few different templates Like DVD High and Low Quality and SVCD and VCD and MiniDVD, so I tried the High Quality DVD Template it has a Bitrate of 8000KBS I think but anyways the Movie I captured Of VHS was Blade 2 and the Quality was the Best out of all of the Mpeg capture programs that I have tried so Far and I have a Whole Bunch cuz I have a small retail Software Buisiness, it was crystal Clear with No Blockyness in the Action scenes I was very Impressed, so if anyone is looking for a Good Mpeg capture Program this one is Pretty Damn good, I was extremely impressed with it..Well See ya...Cheers

A few random comments on this topic...

Nero's compliance check is not worth crap. I can feed SVCD files into that it will pass that are definitely NOT compliant. I use Nero a lot, but it is not perfect. The designers took a lot of shortcuts, which is why many DVD players can not FF/REW and time search SVCD, why DVD burning in some versions only produces coasters, and so on. I would not let Nero's complaints stop me. Try burning your "non-compliant" SVCD and I would not be surprised if your DVD player has no problems with it. Please do not get hung up on the compliance check.

As far as MMC goes, I have never upgraded beyond 7.5 personally as I got tired of MMC's problems and ATI's (at the time) disinterest in fixing them. I hoped that newer MMCs do not pad the streams like Lusifer says. I know the old versions definitely did, which is why, as he says if you mux (or edit) it will often go out of sync. I record digital TV signals all the time with my Dazzle DVC II and it works fine for me, except sometimes my cable company sends me a crap feed on some of the channels I record. It looks terrific when they send a clear signal though. I have to run the output of the cable box through a VCR and run the S-Video output to my Dazzle, but it's a workable solution. I have recorded programs where the cable program itself will drop frames from what it sends, and that screws up my sync big time. This doesn't happen often, but it does happen.