Weird Video Capture Problem

[Bull]

I purchased a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 a few months back. For the most part, I am very happy with it.

However, I notice that whenever I record anything with quality settings above MPEG1, I get some odd little artifact in the top right corner of the video. It happens consistently. It happens whether I am recording from TV or home video recordings from my 8mm video camera. It appears to say "nano cosmos." It's almost transparent, and it fades on and off. It's almost like those little transparent logos that the TV stations superimpose over their broadcasts. I can't be sure if it's been doing this since I got the card, because I might miss something like this and I haven't played with the card that much. But now that I do notice it, I can't tear my eyes away from it. It only appears on recorded material. I can watch TV on my PC and not see it. But if I record an episode of anything, there it is. What's really annoying is it appears in home video I've captured to my PC at bit rates greater than mpeg1.

What is this? More importantly, how can I record video at settings higher than MPEG1 without getting this ugly artifact?

[Bull]

Here is a capture of what I'm talking about. It's just fading out, so I added the red arrow.

http://home.comcast.net/~bargeba/nanocosmos.JPG

[steve]

That's the MPEG2 CODEC maker's "branding." If you use a different CODEC, it'd probably go away. If it was included with the software, it may be a special version that has the logo, and buying the "full" version might remove it.

(DivX now includes its own little "DivX" thing that comes up when you create video. Evil marketing branding crap.)

And for the love of God, what the hell are you recording there?

[Bull]

Ah, thanks steve. That makes sense.

Is there a way to use a differnet codec independent of the TV tuner software? I mean, is this something I can do in Windows? Because I don't really see an option to manipulate the codec being used in the capture software that comes with the board.

Ah, yeah, that little fairy dude does look odd. It's just a comercial from something that was on Bravo the other night when I was fooling around with capture.

[Matthew Gallant]

Fairy dudes on Bravo? I'm incredulous.

[Bull]

You know, now that I think of it I downloaded and installed an "upgraded" version of the video editor that came with the board. This editor has nano in its name. I bet I have to roll back to the version that came with the board to make the little damn logo go away.

[Bull]

Well, steve was right on the money.

Apparently the new version of the editor I put on used a codec that was intentionally modified to put the little logo in the corner. Now that I rolled back to the editor that came with capture card, all is well.

[XPav]

You can probably use the codec from the old version with the new version. Just find the file its using, save it, upgrade, and overwrite it again.

[Bull]

You can probably use the codec from the old version with the new version. Just find the file its using, save it, upgrade, and overwrite it again.

You dont' think they use the codec itself to write the little logo into the video output?