VLC as a recording option for HDMI/USB3 capture devices.. but file capture encoded format..?

[Stephen Mann]

Personally, I would use AVI as it’s only lightly compressed. MPEG and MJPEG are heavily compressed and really a pain to edit.
I’ve never used VLC as a recorder – let us know how well it works.
I am not sure of your workflow – does the Magewell dongle just write a file to your HDD? Video in and USB3 out almost says that it wants to make a file, so I don’t see where VLC fits in the equation.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Jean-pierre Desrochers]

Ok,
Just watch this video about The Magewell dongle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OT0GoALSLM

When plugged to a suitable USB3 port
This dongle is shown as a directshow device in the
PC video and audio devices. No drivers required to work.

Now I used VLC to use the dongle incoming video.
So inside VLC I select:
– Media/Open a capture device
– Select both XI100DUSB-HDMI for video
and XI100DUSB-HDMI(audio device) for audio
– I then select read (preview) or convert to save the incoming video
to a file.
The ‘convert’ option brings a wide variety of encoding option
for tha saved file.. That’s there that I get confused..

I don’t know what the best settings should be used
to get the final captured file importable to Vegas Pro..

Hope this is much understandable.

What are your file format/settings suggestions for Vegas Pro ?
J-Pierre

J-P Desrochers
Quebec, Canada

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[Jean-pierre Desrochers]

And I forgot to mention:
You stated:
>Personally, I would use AVI as it’s only lightly compressed. MPEG and MJPEG >are heavily compressed and really a pain to edit.
You are right on that.
That’s the file type I’d like best.
But since AVI is only a container I still can’t figure
what to put inside as encoding..
On other forums some users say they are using
MPEG-2 or M-JPEG for Vegas compatibility,
other say MP4 is the way to go for import in Vegas.
Very confusing !!!
But again the container’s inside parameters are
always unknown.

My video parameters to encode are
video: 1920x1080i 60fps
audio: stereo PCM 48khz

JP

J-P Desrochers
Quebec, Canada

[Stephen Mann]

That’s quite a device. And reasonably priced, too.
So your only encoder options are MPEG and variations of MPEG?

Well, since MPEG2 is a delivery format for DVD and MPEG4 is a delivery format for online, that would seem to point to M-JPEG. But I know really little about M-JPEG.

Have you tried looking at the output file using MediaInfo?

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Jean-pierre Desrochers]

Steve,
Here are the summaries of 2 captures (4:3 then 16:9) I’ve done
and read using mediainfo:

**************************************************************
– 10 sec capture on 4:3 Canopus ADVC(firewire)
capturing to DV AVI using Vegas Pro 13

General
Complete name : D:\Dossiers video\Capture general\(Unknown) – Clip 001.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Commercial name : DV
File size : 38.3 MiB
Duration : 10s 544ms
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 30.5 Mbps
TAPE : (Unknown)
TCOD : 512877365000
TCDO : 512982803667
VMAJ : 4
VMIN : 0
STAT : 316 0 3.433988 1
DTIM : 0 0

Video
ID : 0
Format : DV
Codec ID : dvsd
Codec ID/Hint : Sony
Duration : 10s 544ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Encoded bit rate : 28.8 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:1:1
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Time code of first frame : 14:14:47;23
Time code source : Subcode time code
Stream size : 36.2 MiB (94%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 10s 544ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 1.93 MiB (5%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 264 ms (7.90 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration : 266 ms

**************************************************************

– 10 sec capture on 16:9 Magewell HDMI dongle (USB3)
capturing to MPG2 using VidBlaster demo

General
Complete name : D:\Dossiers video\Capture general\Test Magewell\VidBlaster test Magewell 10 secondes 1920×1080 60fps.mpg
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 6.46 MiB
Duration : 10s 633ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 5 093 Kbps

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Duration : 10s 633ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 4 671 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 8 000 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.075
Time code of first frame : 00:00:00:00
Time code source : Group of pictures header
Stream size : 5.92 MiB (92%)

Audio
ID : 192 (0xC0)
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Duration : 10s 560ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 320 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -10ms
Stream size : 413 KiB (6%)

***********************************************************

Comparing both infos can you tell if the MPG2 is too much
compressed to be used for editing in Vegas Pro 13
compared to the standard DV AVI capture format Vegas
uses when capturing ?

J-Pierre

J-P Desrochers
Quebec, Canada

[Jean-pierre Desrochers]

Steve,
I just found a program called VMix that seems to do exactly
what I’m looking for..
– Recognise the Magewell USB3 dongle device,
– Capture and save to many possible ‘not too compressed’
encoding formats.
The best capture/encoding I found so far would be the following:
(MediaInfo text dump of a 60sec 1920x1080i 50Mbps bit rate, 48khz PCM audio)

****************************************************
General
Complete name : D:\Dossiers video\Capture general\Test Magewell\vmix capture – 23 février 2015 – 01-38-34 AVI-1920×1080 NTSC_2997p MJPEG Encoder DMO 90% compression.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 347 MiB
Duration : 1mn 0s
Overall bit rate : 47.8 Mbps

Video
ID : 0
Format : JPEG
Codec ID : MJPG
Duration : 1mn 0s
Bit rate : 46.2 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.744
Stream size : 335 MiB (97%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 1mn 0s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 11.1 MiB (3%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 20 ms (0.60 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 80 ms

****************************************************
Other encoding options in Vmix are
AVI(AVI or MKV)
MPEG-2 (Adjustable bit rate from 1 to 75mbps)
WMV
MP4

Do you think these above AVI settings are a good compromise
to save my captured files to be afterward edited in Vegas Pro ?
Or could they be more compressed and still keep a good quality
to edit ?
JP

J-P Desrochers
Quebec, Canada

[Jean-pierre Desrochers]

Steve, did you check my 2 last posts (one year old..)?
Your reply would be very useful..

Thanks.
JP

J-P Desrochers
Quebec, Canada

[Andrew Losurdo]

I buy a Seetec HDMI to USB3.0 capture from Alibaba Trade Assurance.
I think it is a really nice tool.So I would like to share it here.

-No drivers to install and works with most software on PC and Mac. 
-Allowing live video streaming, webcasting or video conferencing to Skype, Facebook Live, Youtube Live,etc. 
-Can capture various HD video sources with resolutions up to 1920x1200p @ 60fps. 
-Get power from the PC directly. 
-USB3.0, 300-350MB/s throughput and it is compatible with USB 2.0 40MB/s. 

Input Formats: 
Resolutions: 640×480/720×480/720×576/768×576/800×600/1024×768/1280×720/1280×800/1280×960/1280×1024/1368×768/1440×900/1600×1200/1680×1050/1920×1080/1920×1200/640×360/856×480/960×540/1024×576 
Frame Rate: 25/29.97/30/50/59.94/60 fps 

Output Formats: 
640×480/720×480/720×576/768×576/800×600/1024×768/1280×720/1280×800/1280×960/1280×1024/1368×768/1440×900/1600×1200/1680×1050/1920×1080/1920×1200/640×360/856×480/960×540/1024×576

The Support of OS
Windows 7 
Windows 8
Windows 10 
Windows Server 2008 R2
Linux (Kernel version 2.6.38 and above)
OS X (10.8 and above)
Android

You can check it on the Alibaba link: 
https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product-detail/reliable-and-flexible-solutions-multi-source_60483196617.html

Hope this will help you. 

Andrew