My VirtualDub Capture Mode Settings

Below are the VirtualDub settings that I use in VirtualDub for all my TV captures (my XVid settings can be found in my earlier post).

My captures are encoded in XVid (for video) and MP3 (for audio).

I have been using these settings for over a year now. I do get audio and video synchronization problems for all my TV captures with VirtualDub when captures are more than 20 minutes in length. There are no parameters that I can tweak in the "Capture timing options" dialog box to fix this problem - none that I know of anyway. To keep audio and video in sync, I use the steps that are outlined in VirtualDub Post Capturing: Keeping Audio And Video In Sync. This is not a problem for me as I need to do some post processing to the captured AVI file anyway.

My capture resolution is set at 720x576 with a frame rate of 25 frames per second. As I am using a Philips based capture device, I have set my display mode to "Overlay" (set via Video -> Overlay).

Brightness, contrast, hue and saturation are configured using the instructions that were given in Lukes Video Guide "Video Tuning". "Extend luma black point" (set via Video -> Extend luma black point) and "Extend luma white point" (set via Video -> Extend luma white point) are enabled as I find that my captures are more pleasing to my eyes with these options enabled. To display the histogram that is mentioned in Lukes Video Guide, from the pulldown menu, select "Video -> Preview" and then "Video -> Histogram...". Just remember to reset the display mode back to "Overlay" once you are done. Below is an example of a histogram for my setup. During playbacks on my TV, I find the colours to be natural and I believe it is how it is supposed to look.

Other than the above mentioned, I leave the other settings at their defaults.

For TV channels with poor reception, I always enable the "Dynamic Noise Reduction" filter - a noise reduction filter by Steve Don and Avery Lee which you can download from http://www.shdon.com/vid/dnr - so that I can get a better video quality and video compression rate. Otherwise, I will enable the "Sharpen" filter, set at level 17, as I find that the video quality of my playbacks to be better.

I would love to enable the "Sharpen" filter when using the "Dynamic Noise Reduction" filter but unfortunately I do not have enough CPU capacity. I get a lot of inserted frames when I use both filters together at the same time.