This is my first attempt to capture and publish on Youtubbe.

PC is a Pentium MMX 233, Voodoo 5500 PCI DVI, Roland Rap-10, AWE 64 Gold
Captured with a USB3HDCAP, @ 640x400@70hz and upscaled and converted to 1440x1080 4:3 for display on youtube.

https://youtu.be/NKIhIbJ6k30

I'm pretty happy with the video quality, audio mix is a little off I think.

edit, just noticed it didn't upload as 1080p (same as source), I'll look into that.

Huh! So the USB3HDCAP and XCapture1 actually work for DOS capture.

lvader wrote:

This is my first attempt to capture and publish on Youtubbe. […]
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This is my first attempt to capture and publish on Youtubbe.

PC is a Pentium MMX 233, Voodoo 5500 PCI DVI, Roland Rap-10, AWE 64 Gold
Captured with a USB3HDCAP, @ 640x400@70hz and upscaled and converted to 1440x1080 4:3 for display on youtube.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqce34yai80&feature=youtu.be

I'm pretty happy with the video quality, audio mix is a little off I think.

edit, just noticed it didn't upload as 1080p (same as source), I'll look into that.

For reference, the same scene captured with a $30 visionrgb-pro through a voodoo 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoCzuW6Suz0. Rescaled 4x to 1600p and uploaded to youtube, where it should land as 1440p.

If the game runs at 320x200, the video aspect ratio should be 1.6, no, or is there some reason to deviate? Not sure how you did the color balance; I did it by hand with a few test colors and ours seem pretty similar save for saturation. Wouldn't call my color calibration reference, but maybe it's not too far off then.

It's been a while since I discussed non square pixels, DOTT and games of that era were 'designed' to run full scteen on a 4:3 CRT display. Although I wanted to capture pixels 1:1 I then took a view that in order for it to be seen in its original aspect ratio I needed to convert for square pixels on modern displays.

You'd duplicate the design, but a modern display doesn't duplicate a crt, so you end up adapting. This implies aesthetics, which implies mutability. The dott remake keeps the 4:3 proportions but hides the pixels - pixels aren't the focus on a crt, they aren't the focus in the remake, and the design had to change to convey this fundament. Pixels are the focus in the video, though, and barring a change in that, it seems those pixels should aim to be aesthetically correct more than historically so. For nostalgia, I guess blurrier videos? (Well, depending on whether that's nostalgia for entertainment or for education.)

probably a carry over from my other hobbie movies, where there are smilar issues around pixel definition and film that is analogue and has no pixels. Original aspect ratio or in this case orginal intended aspect ratio is something that I don''t compromise on. Hoagie is fat enough in 4:3, no need to make him look fatter.

lvader wrote:

PC is a Pentium MMX 233, Voodoo 5500 PCI DVI, Roland Rap-10, AWE 64 Gold Captured with a USB3HDCAP, @ 640x400@70hz and upscaled […]
Show full quote

PC is a Pentium MMX 233, Voodoo 5500 PCI DVI, Roland Rap-10, AWE 64 Gold
Captured with a USB3HDCAP, @ 640x400@70hz and upscaled and converted to 1440x1080 4:3 for display on youtube.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqce34yai80&feature=youtu.be

I'm pretty happy with the video quality, audio mix is a little off I think.

edit, just noticed it didn't upload as 1080p (same as source), I'll look into that.

Did you capture the video from the VGA or the DVI port of the Voodoo 5 5500 "MAC" PCI? If the latter, then you could have made a digital capture instead of an analog capture.

It is unfortunate that youtube does not support 1200p. otherwise you could have upscaled it to 1600x1200 (after downscaling to 320x200) for a perfect 4:3 aspect ratio.

It was captured digitally over DVI.

lvader wrote:

probably a carry over from my other hobbie movies, where there are smilar issues around pixel definition and film that is analogue and has no pixels. Original aspect ratio or in this case orginal intended aspect ratio is something that I don''t compromise on. Hoagie is fat enough in 4:3, no need to make him look fatter.

There seems to be one known and one less known in what you say (ignoring hoagie, who'd remain obese in a relative way). The original aspect ratio, 320 / 200, is known. The original intended aspect ratio is less known. Of dott specifically, it's more known than of some other games, but across games, this is neither a constant nor consistently a known. In other words, a fair position if you're serious about its integrity - I often see it misused.

All the displays at the time where 4:3, and I dont't recall latterboxing the display settings to be 16:10 being a thing. In this case its possible to deduct the intended aspect ratio from the Lucas arts logo at the beginning.

lvader wrote:

All the displays at the time where 4:3, and I dont't recall latterboxing the display settings to be 16:10 being a thing. In this case its possible to deduct the intended aspect ratio from the Lucas arts logo at the beginning.

I likewise recall people settling for good enough when it came to image fidelity. But whatever the case, there are more reliable and probably advisable ways to probe intent, and you gave one at the end there. The more accurate you want it, the less you can generalize, and the more you generalize, the more you can't apply the strong truth statement 'reproduced as intended' without simply misusing it. Of course, if you meant that you want the aspect ratio that people would generally have had, then it's better to generalize.

Thank you Tree Wyrm for answering to my question! I'm sorry that I haven't been online for sometime.

I have a question to you... How do you record your Dos computer?

Can I use usb3hdcap to record ms-dos straight or do I need to have a scaler with it?

I just spent a good deal of today trying to figure out how to capture VGA-standard video signals (320 x 200) with my USB3HDCAP. What I found out so far: without other equipment, the USB3HDCAP will receive a signal, though the resolution of that signal as reported by the capture device is not accurate and changes radically below SVGA. I did a stream while playing around with it if you think it will help at all (I'm still trying to figure out a easy means of reliably capturing 320 x 200 footage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EgiXJ22CB0

Hi! Thanks for the info and link for your video, I will watch it! 😀

I don't have yet dos pc, but I'm going to buy it sometime in the future when I can.

Just early asking how to record it, because I haven't found such good information of recording dos, but then I found this forum and I thought this would be a good place to ask of it.

That capture device looks very promising to me for now.

I'm looking into that if you can get it to work good! 😀

Wouldn't a simple VGA to Composite converter be the simplest way to record 320x200 video? I'd think 640x480 and above are more complicated as they are beyond what an SD PAL signal can carry; you would need VGA to Component or something of the kind I would guess?

Speaking of which, why not just use VGA to Component converter and a device that can capture SD/HD over component?

The big thing is the 70Hz refresh rate. I believe that alone would make transcoding to component impossible.

@bushmac Now that makes me wonder if the PEXHDCAP60L / SC512N1-DVI/L would have the same issue. Especially regarding games that switched to that tweaked 60Hz ModeX variant.

Good VGA stuff to test is
https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1444
https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=2880
or productions where the graphics mode switches, like in Death Rally between menu and gameplay.

Epic Pinball and Jazz Jackrabbit are also good ones to test.

Got the PEXHDCAP2 for capturing+streaming consoles. Seems pretty bulletproof for 240p sources.

As expected, doesn't work for 70Hz DOS modes. (Though looks like it's trying very hard to! Might be a hack that can get it going?)