EasyCap Problems Solved! Step by Step Guide on Capturing Video
22nd January 2012 - Posted in Articles By Sam
easycap - console video capture
Following on from my EasyCap review, I thought I'd go into more detail on exactly how I got my EasyCap working.
In 3 days of faffing around with this thing (and getting quite frustrated!) I eventually managed to overcome the driver problems, software issues, and audio quality problems I was facing.
For reference purposes, I'm running Windows 7 (64-bit) on an Intel core Duo 2.20Ghz, 4GB RAM, Dell laptop.
First things first. If you've already installed Ulead VideoStudio, you can uninstall it right away. This software is old and crappy!
All you need from the EasyCap CD are the drivers for the device itself. After you've installed them, you're done with it.
Now, download and install VirtualDub. It's a very light-weight piece of free open-source software which will work much better than Ulead VideoStudio.
Once installed, open up VirtualDub and click File > Capture AVI... Now you will have to change two initial settings. Click on Device > USB2.0 Grabber.
Also, click on Video > Preview.
You should see some output right away from your EasyCap (assuming you've got whatever you're recording from, turned on, and plugged into the EasyCap). It might look a bit like this:
Next, I noticed the audio quality was terrible. I'm not sure why this was, it could be something to do with capturing audio into the USB port on my laptop. But anyway, to solve this problem you can bypass the EasyCap audio altogether.
For this, I needed some more cables. Since I already had a 3.5mm jack-to-jack sitting around, I just used that, but you could also get an audio phono/phono to jack and bypass the TV.
Just plug one end into the headphone plug on your TV, and the other end into your MIC plug on your laptop.
This might be starting to sound complicated, so since a picture paints a thousand words and all, here's a diagram of my setup:
If you want to do it this way and capture your audio via a separate jack cable (bypassing the EasyCap) and view the TV at the same time as recording, you'll need a splitter and another phono to phono (to split the yellow video cable). You'll also need to change the audio device in VirtualDub. Select High-Def External Mic, or which ever one works for you:
One final change, and you should be about ready to start capturing. Select Video > Capture pin, and change the frame rate to 25fps. Also make sure YUY2 Compression is selected, and the maximum output size (720 x 576):
Now you are good to go. Select File > Set Capture File to the place you want to save your video, and hit Capture > Capture Video.
Since the EasyCap uses YUY2 compression, you'll need to deinterlace the video after you've captured it.
VirtualDub comes in handy for this. Load up your captured AVI file in Virtual Dub (you can close the capture window now). Select Video > Filters > Add > deinterlace > leave on default settings. This will remove the horizontal lines you get from displaying an interlaced picture on a computer monitor. If you're interested in learning more, read this article on how to deinterlace properly.
Hopefully this works for you! If you need any more help please feel free to comment below.
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