I have a Pyro A/V Link capture card (API-557-EFS) that I use to capture video games with component signal. When I use it with my Studio 11, I don't get a Color Saturation option for my capture stage like the one available for my Dazzle card (DVC170). Is there a way to capture a DV source and increase the saturation prior to the editing stage like when using a Dazzle? I find that tweaking the colors after hand seems artificial, and my captures alone don't look vivid enough. Any suggestions?

How about capturing with your Pyro with Windows Movie Maker and then import it to Studio 11 afterwards.

Windows Movie Maker doesn't have a capture option on Vista. I have tried capturing with several other software and none seemed to offer a direct control over the capture's contents. Studio seems to have that ability, but only for their own hardware.

Can you adjust the saturation in the games console itself? (even if it only offers some pre-set choices of brightness/contrast/saturation such as "normal", "bright", "vivid" etc. you might find a setting that is better suited to capturing (even if it looks too bright/saturated on a TV connected to the games console).

Regards,
Richard

I think saturation can be adjusted on the console settings. Try playing around with the video settings.

Thank you for your replies. Unfortunately the only option available in the game's setting is brightness adjustment, which doesn't really help with color intensity. If anything, any brightness changes make the video look washed out. I was hoping there would be a way to take advantage of some of the Studio features available for their Dazzle hardware, but I'm beginning to realize this might not be the case.

I'm sure there's something in Studio that can adjust the color to your liking. Tell us how you try to change intensity in Studio?

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I had to dig out my Dazzle in order to take some screenshots. When I hook up my Dazzle card there are buttons I can click to get the capture properties tweaked:

[click to view image]

When the button is clicked you can see the different settings that are available: Brightness, Contrast, Hue and Color Saturation:

 [click to view image]

When I plug in my  Pyro A/V Link it is recognized as an AVC Compliant DV Device (not sure what AVC stands for):

[click to view image]

The main capture window is now missing the buttons that were available for the Dazzle card and none of the video properties can be tweaked prior to post-capture stage:

[click to view image]

Is there anything I'm missing here? Do you think it might have to do with capture device detection? I still don't quite understand why the video input properties aren't available for any type of input. Thanks again for any info/suggestions.

IMHO these settings/options do change and they are not the same with each other (USB/Firewire), the Dazzle captures analog and to make up for the conversion loss, these settings are available to make pre adjustments before the actual capture as it is being processed in the capture device. The Firewire device (Pyro) is a digital-digital capture device which makes an almost exact copy of the image with the least conversion loss so it may not need these pre-adjustment settings. Thats how I see it at least.

What you say does make sense. However, while my Pyro may produce high-quality footage which looks rather crisp, it unfortunately does not hold the same color qualities my TV outputs, as the captures look washed out and a bit colorless in comparison. That is exactly why I was hoping there would be a way to make those pre-adjustments regardless of the hardware being used (not to mention the Pyro has analog input/outputs as well). While I understand the need for visual compensation with analog captures, I think it's a shame Studio isn't a bit more flexible to allow these slight yet important corrections to be applied with all types of capture cards.

Those controls are not available to all devices. These controls also vary on what Dazzle or DVC is connected.  Others may allow audio to be changed, but yours may not.

As what Marc P. has said, Studio does not provide extra video controls for Firewire capture. Does your device have video output settings you can change?

 

 

Unfortunately the only output present is firewire.

After capturing your video, bring it into the time line. Select the clip, select Studio Plus RTFX and select 'color correction'. You have available here all the adjustments for hue, saturation, brightness, contrast, color painting and more. You can then either make a file or a dvd from there.

Don