Troubleshoot

Play the captured file to check the quality. Adjust your video settings and /or input levels and re-record if necessary. It's likely that you'll need to capture more than once to get the best possible results. The following tips can help correct specific problems including:

No Video

1. Make sure the playback device is turned on and connected to the video capture card, and has a tape in it.
   
   
2. Make sure that the capture software is set to pick up input from the same input that the device is connected to. To test, go to Options | Video Capture Settings | Source and try switching to Composite or SVideo.
   
   
3. Make sure Signal is NTSC-M.

Video is too dark or low contrast, window is wrong size or has noise around the edge

1. Experiment with the slider bars under Options | Video Capture Settings | Video Settings | Source to adjust brightness and contrast.
   
   
2. Remove noise by setting crop settings under Options | Crop settings.
   
   
3. Change window size in Options | Video Capture Settings | Video Format. We recommend that you select a size no larger than 320 x 240.
   
4. Use a smaller color palette. Some older systems can only accommodate 256 colors. If you've captured video with thousands or even millions (true) color, the file will not necessarily look good on these systems.

Video Out of Sync, Pixelated, or Jerky

Data rate too high or video capture card is incompatible with video capture software. A related problem is that your system is able to accommodate the high data rate you select, but the resulting file is too data-intensive to play back well on other systems, particularly older ones, or to be easily delivered over a slow internet connection. Again, reduce the data rate at the time you capture the video. Use fewer frames per second or a smaller capture window size, or check with the vendor of your capture card to make sure your software is compatible.

Video normally runs at 30 (actually 29.97) frames per second, and film at 24 fps. When capturing and/or delivering digital video, you may not want to use that frame rate in order to keep the data rate down and file size reasonable. For best results, you should use a frame rate that is evenly divisible into the original. For example, 30 fps can be reduced to 15, and 24 fps can be reduced to 12. It's not a good idea to reduce 30 fps to 20 or 25.

If your original source was at a slower frame rate, such as 15 fps, if you capture it at 30 fps you will not see an increase in quality. Instead, frames will be duplicated to fill up the additional space.