Fellow ATI AIW 128 Pro user, I notices that when I capture avi or mpeg with the ATI player, there will always be a thin black line on the bottom of the captured file. Is there a way to get rid of the line? Does Matrox Marvel G400 or any other have this line also?

-- Herbert (hyong@vcdjapan.com), July 23, 2000

Answers

What your seeing is the video scanlines that are normally outside the TV viewing area. This is quite normal, and even more noticeable if you are capturing from a VCR tape. There are several ways of dealing with it, but if the video is destined for VCD playback on a TV, you can just leave it. You will not see it on the TV because it will be outside the viewable area. Some capture programs like Virtual Dub, will allow you to clip these lines out when capturing, but your final resolution will be whatever you set it at for capture *minus* the number of lines at the top and bottom you have clipped. Be sure to take this in to account if you need a 352X240 final resolution. Also, some MPEG encoders, like Tmpgenc, will allow you to mask which will just make the lines black and doesn't affect the final resolution. Actually you sound lucky if it is just a thin black line. On many capture cards, the bottom 3 scan lines will be very wavy when capturing from VHS.

-- EG Marshall (4me@schoolmail.com), July 23, 2000.