Can't capture your video because of PAL 60? Then read on...

My recent frustrating experiences in trying to 'capture' video from my Xbox 360 has prompted this article in the hope that it helps others who are struggling with the same issues. This applies not only to the Xbox360 but to the use and fairly poor results I received with the bundled software package that came with the Dazzle capture device.

Basically it boils down to the Xbox 360 outputting in PAL 60 format when playing many of the major games i.e HALO Reach, Dead Space, COD etc, etc. As the majority of mid and low priced capture devices will only 'see' PAL 50 or NTSC/SECAM it results in either no signal being detected or a very poor Black and White display.

There are few methods of getting around the problems and this article discusses my experiences and the eventual solution that worked for me and the capture device I was using.

From the start I was pretty ignorant of the issues and had no experience of using video capture so it was a leap in the dark. I had done no research and had simply began shopping around for something that 'looked' like it would do the job at a reasonable price.

I plumped for a DAZZLE Creative Platinum and from the advertising blurb it appeared to do everything I wanted and the price was at the low end of the market. I made my purchase and arrived back home, quite looking forward to hooking up to the Xbox and capturing my latest campaign in glorious colour.

Hmmmmm.....

The DAZZLE had come bundled with the Pinnacle Studio 11 software package and I installed this with no problems on my PC - as advised it was required to have this installed prior to connecting the device.

The connection setup for the DAZZLE was simplistic. Simply plug in the USB connector to the PC. I had also purchased a AV/S cable that used the Xbox connection and terminated in the AV (Yellow - Red - White) phono connectors and an S-Video connector which were both used by the DAZZLE. I had also purchased a splitter box to allow me to connect the Xbox to capture its output and play on the TV at the same time.

The first problem I encountered was connecting the AV/S cable to the DAZZLE. The S-Video plug wouldn't fit into the socket on the DAZZLE. I ended up trimming off about 4mm of the shroud on the plug so I could insert it into the socket. Now, I believe these things follow some industry standards so that all S-Video plugs fit into all S-Video sockets and the dimensions of each should be agreed between manufacturers. So in this case one of them has got it wrong!

Anyway, that problem surmounted I had everything connected, software was running and I started up the Xbox and kicked off the 'Capture' in the Pinnacle software and a prompt panel appeared telling me 'A valid input signal has not been detected - Please check your cables'. The TV signal was there and in colour but there was a problem with the DAZZLE so I knew it wasn't the output of the Xbox that had failed in some way.

So I knew the Xbox was sending a signal out and all the cables appeared to be connected properly and the cables themselves were brand new so there shouldn't be any problems with this.

My first thought was to check the settings in the Pinnacle software and sure enough there were three different input options available for 'TV Standard' - NTSC, PAL and SECAM, although at this point I had no idea what the difference was.

OK - lets try NTSC I thought, and lo and behold a Black and White picture appeared in the preview screen on the PC but at the same time a I had a repeat of the prompt panel telling me there was no valid input signal. Odd this I thought....

OK - lets try SECAM I thought. The preview picture disappeared but there was no prompt about input signals. Odder still I thought.

So here I was where I could see the input with NTSC, albeit in B&W but the software still complained about lack of input.

Time for a bit of research.. Now I knew that NTSC was an American TV standard and it appeared I was getting some kind of input using this option. So I thought it was perhaps the Xbox that was transmitting in an odd way. Then I remembered the Xbox setup had prompted me for the TV standard I would be using and at the time I had input PAL 50 which is the normal UK tv standard.

I googled and found that many, many people were having the same issues and I began to dig a bit deeper. Then it showed up the HALO Reach was output in PAL 60 and this was in issue. Now at this point I had the HALO Reach disk in the Xbox and had been playing for some time. I went through the Xbox configurations screens and found it was set to output in PAL 60 and although I could reset back to PAL 50 whenever I tried to play HLO Reach it refused and promted me that the tv standard needed to be PAL 60.

I removed the disk and reset the Xbox so I could reselect the tv standard back to PAL 50. Then I tried reconnecting to the DAZZLE and success! I had a colour signal from the Xbox using the PAL 50 option. I even had a colour signal using NTSC and the SECAM option now resulted in a B&W image in the preview.

We're getting somewhere I thought...

OK - let's try the HALO disk again.... This time a prompt appeared on the Xbox telling me this game had to use PAL 60 - doh!

So at this point to play HALO and capture it on the DAZZLE was going to be a non starter because of this PAL 60 input and this completely defeated the reason I had bought the DAZZLE in the first place.

Next step - let's do some research on the Pinnacle software and see how they got round this issue - time for a trip to the Pinnacle user forums.

Now I find that this issue has been around for a long time and I see forum posts reaching back to before 2008 but without resolution. In fact I don't even see a Pinnacle representative giving a definitive answer on how to resolve the problem.

What I do see is other users trying to help each other with snippets here and there describing their attempts at a resolution, but again nothing definitive. I find the Pinnacle support where I can download the latest drivers for the DAZZLE device (DVC100) and I install these but to no avail.

I do find a reference to a small utility called AMCAP which may help to 'fool' the DAZZLE into accepting the PAL 60 input. I also find a number of YouTube videos from users showing the setup they have tried but only one appears to be of any use and this again recommends the AMCAP utility. So I go and find this AMCAP download and install it on my PC.

This video is one I found that tried to explain using the AMCAP with the DAZZLE device....

It works - initally - I have the Pinnacle setup for NTSC (B&W image in preview), the Xbox is outputting in PAL 60 with HALO loaded and I then start the AMCAP utility and set it to SECAM and the preview image changes to colour. So far so good. Then I start 'Capture' with the Pinnacle and it immediately reverts to B&W. Damn it!

At this point I decide its time to look for some other software as the Pinnacle just doesn't seem to hack it and the lack of help on the forums has discouraged me.

I already had a couple of other packages on my PC. I had the Adobe CS4 Premier Pro package and as this is probably an industry standard in image software with packages such as PhotoShop etc I thought if any thing can do this it will be the Adobe.

Well, humff! Not a peep, nada. Very limited input options with only NTSC or PAL but nothing detailed about them. No online help finding the device and altogether a complete failure.

So I have Windows Movie Maker on the PC and give this try. I find that with some real messing around I can start WMM in its default mode and it picks up the signal as NTSC and then start the AMCAP utility and force the signal to SECAM at which point I have a colour preview and can record in colour with WMM. But I am talking real messing about and it is not at all reliable. Every time I try it I have multiple attempts before I can get it to work.

However so far this is the only method I have found that will give me a colour input and by which I can record the PAL 60 from the Xbox. So I persevere with this and actually produced a not too bad video. The only trouble with WMM is its lack of functionality so I find I can record with WMM and startup Pinnacle to do some serious editing work on the material. But the whole setup is too flaky and unreliable and I'm having to use multiple software packages to produce anything like a reasonable video and its all just taking too long - I still need something better...

I go off and do some more hunting for software that may work and come across a package called Camtasia Studio which looks promising. A little bit pricey but if it works with the Xbox then I will pay the price. there's a demo donwload available for a thirty day trial so off I go and get this and install this on the PC. Fingers crossed!

But alas no luck. It looks promising to start with. Camtasia detects the DAZZLE alright using NTSC and I'm able to modify this in the settings to SECAM and the preview shows a colour input using PAL 60. However, when I kickoff the record function the preview blacks out and although the program continues to record the finished result is unusable and the program complains the capture is corrupted.

Back to the drawing board I'm afraid.

Then I find another package called AVS Video Editor supplied by AVS4YOU and again its available as a trial version so its costing me nothing to give it a try. I download and install and immediately I'm impressed with the package and the functionality.

I hook up the DAZZLE and set it to NTSC 433 initially then using 'Advanced Settings' (which look suspiciously like the AMCAP utility) and I force it into SECAM mode and lo and behold there I have a colour picture in the preview and when I record it works seamlessly.

At last a bit of success!

Now all told this has taken me the best part of a week to get a software package that will work with the DAZZLE and give a good quality record and has all the functionality that I require built in, without having to swap packages to do any real editing work.

Its been an arduous journey and to be honest I'm still not happy with with the end result. It should have worked straight out of the box with the supplied Pinnacle software.

I know that there is nothing specific in the DAZZLE advertising blurb about using the device with an Xbox and specifically with the PAL 60 standard that the Xbox has used for a major selection of games.

But it is a general use that many people will put it to and considering the amount of requests for support on the Pinnacle website I would have thought the issues would be addressed and resolved by now.

There is no problem with the DAZZLE using a standard PAL 50 input and for the majority of uses it would be a useful little device with adequate software supplied. However the PAL 60 compatibility is sorely lacking and should have been sorted by now.

My conclusions? Spend the money on something better that will accept PAL 60 straight out of the box and has a decent software bundle. I guess you get what you pay for and the DAZZLE is adequate for the purposes and standards it is suited to. For anything to do with Xbox or probably the Wii or PS3 I think the DAZZLE is simply incompatible without having to dodge around with software.

I'm going to stick with this setup - DAZZLE DVC100 and the AVS4YOU Unlimited Subscription because its working and gives very acceptable results. If I hadn't spent the money I think I would buy in at a higher level and get a much higher quality capture card and undoubtdely have paid a much higher price.

I hope this article has been of some assistance if you are struggling with your Xbox 360 video capture and PAL 60 and if you succeed using a different arrangement then please feel free to add your comments below and let me (and others) know.

Below is a breakdown of what PAL 50, PAL 60, SECAM and NTSC standards are all about.

I wanted to find out just what exactly PAL 60 is and why it was being used, hoping this would get me some answers on how to use the settings that appear in the video capture software that accompanie the video capture device. Although I found an explanation of the differences it didn't help me resolve the problems directly with the DAZZLE. However it is still worth a read to help in understanding the whole so called 'standards' in use. The text below is extracted from the Wikipedia website where there is a lot more detailed information available.

PAL, short for Phase Alternate Line, is an analogue television encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are SECAM and NTSC. This page primarily discusses the colour encoding system. See the articles on broadcast television systems and analogue television for additional discussion of frame rates, image resolution and audio modulation

NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system used in most of North America, most of South America (except Brazil and Argentina), Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories. NTSC is also the name of the U.S. standardization body that developed the broadcast standard. The first NTSC standard was developed in 1941 and had no provision for color television.

In 1953 a second modified version of the NTSC standard was adopted, which allowed color broadcasting compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers. NTSC was the first widely adopted broadcast color system. After over a half-century of use, the vast majority of over-the-air NTSC transmissions in the United States were replaced with ATSC on June 12, 2009, and will be, by August 31, 2011, in Canada.

The high definition television standards defined by the ATSC produce wide screen 16:9 images up to 1920×1080 pixels in size — more than six times the display resolution of the earlier standard. However, many different image sizes are also supported. The reduced bandwidth requirements of lower-resolution images allow up to six standard-definition "subchannels" to be broadcast on a single 6 MHz TV channel.

SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire , French for "Sequential Color with Memory"), is an analog color television system first used in France. A team led by Henri de France working at Compagnie Française de Télévision (later bought by Thomson, now Technicolor) invented SECAM. It is, historically, the first European color television standard.

In the 1950s, the Western European countries commenced planning to introduce colour television in their countries, and were faced with the problem that the NTSC standard demonstrated several weaknesses, including colour tone shifting under poor transmission conditions. To overcome NTSC's shortcomings, alternative standards were devised, resulting in the development of the PAL and SECAM standards. The goal was to provide a colour TV standard for the European picture frequency of 50 fields per second (50 hertz), and finding a way to eliminate the problems with NTSC.

The term PAL is often used informally to refer to a 625-line/50 Hz (576i), television system, and to differentiate from a 525-line/60 Hz (480i) NTSC system. Accordingly, DVDs are labelled as either PAL or NTSC (referring informally to the line count and frame rate) even though technically the discs do not have either PAL or NTSC composite colour. The line count and frame rate are defined as EIA 525/60 or CCIR 625/50. PAL and NTSC are only the method of the colour transmission used.

PAL broadcast systems

This table illustrates the differences:

Multisystem PAL support and "PAL 60"

Recently manufactured PAL television receivers can typically decode all of these systems except, in some cases, PAL-M and PAL-N. Many of receivers can also receive Eastern European and Middle Eastern SECAM, though rarely French-broadcast SECAM (because France uses the unique positive video modulation) unless they are manufactured for the French market. They will correctly display plain CVBS or S-video SECAM signals. Many can also accept baseband NTSC-M, such as from a VCR or game console, and RF modulated NTSC with a PAL standard audio subcarrier (i.e. from a modulator), though not usually broadcast NTSC (as its 4.5 MHz audio subcarrier is not supported). Many sets also support NTSC with a 4.43 MHz subcarrier.

Many 1990s onwards VCR players sold in Europe can play back NTSC tapes/discs. When operating in this mode most of them do not output a true (625/25) PAL signal but rather a hybrid consisting of the original NTSC line standard (525/30) but with colour converted to PAL 4.43 MHz - this is known as "PAL 60" (also "quasi-PAL" or "pseudo PAL") with "60" standing for 60 Hz (for 525/30), instead of 50 Hz (for 625/25). Some video game consoles also output a signal in this mode. Most newer television sets can display such a signal correctly but some will only do so (if at all) in black and white and/or with flickering/foldover at the bottom of the picture, or picture rolling (however, many old TV sets can display the picture properly by means of adjusting the V-Hold and V-Height knobs — assuming they have them). Some TV tuner cards or video capture cards will support this mode (although software/driver modification can be required and the manufacturers' specs may be unclear). A "PAL 60" signal is similar to an NTSC (525/30) signal but with the usual PAL chrominance subcarrier at 4.43 MHz (instead of 3.58 as with NTSC and South American PAL variants) and with the PAL-specific phase alternation of the red colour difference signal between the lines.