Terratec DIVX RECORDING User Manual

A quick introduction to DivX recording

(c) 2003 Terratec Electronic GmbH, M.Dreese

Introduction

This tutorial is meant to give a short introduction to the DivX Codec and the environment
necessary to make a recording with your TerraTec TV card.

Please keep in mind that you use this document at your own risk, TerraTec can’t be held
responsible for any damage or errors that may occur from using this information.

Hardware and Software requirements

To have a smile on your face when you finish reading this tutorial, you will need:

- A computer (really?) with at least 128MB RAM, a large amount of defragmented
hard disc space (=>2GB), a CPU with at least 800MHz clock rate and a stable
Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP installation.

- A TerraTV+/TerraTValue/Cinergy card with the official TerraTec WDM software

- A soundcard (i.e. Aureon/DMX6fire/EWS)

- The DivX codec (available for free under http://www.divx.com)

- The Fraunhofer MP3 codec (should have been bundled with your Windows,

otherwise it can easily be downloaded) or an alternative MP3 codec (like Lame).

Of course your TV card must be properly installed, and the same applies for the
soundcard as well as the rest of the system.
To ensure that your system is properly configured for managing large data streams, it is
advisable to read the Audio Tweaks tutorial available on the TerraTec Website.

Recording Tutorial

Let’s get started: After these few easy steps you will have a pretty nice DivX AVI file on
your computer:

Step 1: Installing DivX and the codecs

This is done by downloading the latest DivX codec
pack and executing it. Same is done with the audio
codecs if necessary. If you want to check which
codecs are installed on your computer, click
“Audiocodecs / “Videocodecs” in the “Audio, Video,
Game Controllers” section of the Device Manager.

Step 2: Launch your TerraTV / Cinergy software and
select the source.

Feels just like watching TV: Launch TerraTV and choose
the source you wish to record from.

Step 3: Set up your soundcard for recording from the input the TV card is connected to.

This is done in the Audio tab of the TerraTV software - usually the input port is calle d “Line
In”.

Step 4: Recording setup

Click on the gear or wrench on the upper left side of the TerraTV Software to open the
configuration menu. Choose the “Record” tab and adjust the settings as shown below.
Set the file destination to a partition with enough recently defragmented and
uncompressed free space.

If you are running Windows NT/2000/XP, you should use a NTFS partition for recording, as
FAT partitions can only handle file sizes up to 4GB. Under Windows 95/98/98SE/ME you

are limited to 2GB (FAT16) or 4GB (FAT32) per file- please keep this in mind.

Tip: If you use the Cinergy card, you can also choose the Cinergy Audio Recording
Device instead of your soundcard. This is very useful to avoid audio/video de-sync
which usually occurs in connection with a bad soundcard setup.

If possible, you should choose YUV under Video Color Format (instead of RGB555), as
this is the color format the codec actually works with.

When you have finished this part of the setup it is time to consult the codec configuration
submenus, marked in the image above with 1 and 2. First configure the DivX codec itself.
We will look into the most important options of the codec now:

Bitrate Control

Tab 1 : Bitrate Control

Tab 2 : General Parameters