D-Link DUB-AV300 - can you use any AVI codec for capturing?

[Chaoji3791]

I want to archive my VHS and SVHS home videos to DVD, so I'm looking around at USB2 analogue capture devices. There are plenty of them out there, but most of them seem to capture to MPEG-2, which I don't want. I'd rather capture to Huffyuv for max picture quality.

From what I can gather, the D-Link DUB-AV300 looks like it will capture to any AVI codec you choose. Can anyone confim this?

C h a o j i

[redwudz]

From our Capture Card page: https://www.videohelp.com/capturecards.php?CaptureCardRead=598

It says 'MPEG4 hardware' capture, so I doubt Huffy would work. I take that to mean Xvid or Divx. But I can't say for sure.

It would be more expensive, but you could get a external DV converter. DV is very easy to edit and keep in sync and the size would not be much different than Huffy.

And it would also depend on the quality of MPEG the box creates. Sometimes VHS video isn't that great of quality to start with, and you may not see that much difference.

If you really want to use Huffy, a video card capture might be the better choice. But I like DV myself. I use a ADVC-100 box.

[Chaoji3791]

Yes, the promotional material for the DUB-AV300 is a bit vague. It says the device supports AVI, but I'm not sure whether that means it can actually capture AVIs or just import them for editing. I emailed D-Link to ask them to clarify the capture formats, but they just sent a message back informing me cheerily that I could output my finished videos to VCD, SVCD or DVD, obviously failing to understand that I was asking about the capture format, not the output format. I'll keep trying to get a straight answer out of them ...

[Chaoji3791]

Finally got a clear answer from D-Link: this product CANNOT capture to AVI, only MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. The promotional material is ambiguous - it mentions AVI, but fails to clarify that you can only import AVI files for editing, not capture them. So, no Huffy or MJPEG capture with this product, unfortunately.

I've decided to go with the ADS Tech VideoXpress instead. Its literature clearly states that you can capture to compressed or uncompressed AVI if you so choose. Every other analogue capture card manufacturer out there seems to think that capturing to MPEG-2, a distribution format, is a swell idea. No thanks.

C h a o j i

[redwudz]

I suspected that's what they meant. Hardware capture is nice, but if you like to do extensive editing, MPEG may not be the best format. Huffy takes a lot of hard drive space, though the quality should be excellent with the proper settings.