Need New Card > Canopus ADVC-100 Or Hauppauge PVR-350

basically, right now i have a hauppauge wintv fm stereo (PCI) card. i mainly use it to cap from digital sat. and old vhs tapes, encode to standard SVCD and burn to disc.

ive had the card for about 9 months now and i think its time i upgraded the card...

basically, ive narrowed my choices down to two...

Canopus ADVC-100 or Hauppauge PVR-350

the pvr-350 is approx £130 in the uk, while the canopus is approx £230+.

i would prefer a card that has realtime encoding (in that case the PVR-350), though the reviews on the canopus seems to make it second to none.

is the realtime encoding with the PVR-350 good (no blockiness, clean picture) or would i just end up capping in AVI with 3rd party apps and encoding with tmpgenc ?

^^ any PVR-350 realtime-encoded clips someone could send me would be helpful :)

is the canopus worth paying another £100 for or would the PVR be sufficient ?

which card would best suit what i would be using it for OR is there another card that would be more suitable (within the same sort of price range) ?
*prefer a PCI card as im happy with my agp gfx card

any suggestions/replies would be much appreciated

ice_2003

^ ^ ^ ^

anyone ? :|

You could download some clip from shspvr.com and see for you self look under review under 250 just click on Testing link.

yea, thanks SHS, i checked them out, the quality on the SVCD and DVD looks nice.

some of the clips dont have much movement, can the card cope with movement, so that you dont get blocky images.

just a couple of questions...

is the chipset different from the one used for the WinTV cards ?

is it possible to set the settings so that you can cap realtime mpeg-2 to SVCD 2520kbs w/ 192 kps audio or other custom settings.

does the card (PVR 350) have any trouble working with 3rd party applications should i want to use them.

^^^
are the raw (or huffyuv) AVI caps better than the Wintv raw (or huffyuv) AVI caps or are they both the same.

Another question, does the Canopus AVDC 100 work with PowerVCR II and similar applications?

i have considered an AGP graphics card/cap card, but im happy with my Gainward GF4 Ti 4200 (didnt get the golden sample version at the time :-x )

if i were to get one of the cards below, im sure that they would be nice capture cards, but would the cards be better than the AGP card for gaming and performance.

Hercules 3D Prophet AIW 9000PRO 64MB
AGP, ATI All in Wonder 9000PRO, Retail

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=29881&t=&l=&AvdID=1&CatID=&GrpID=&s=sr

Sapphire Radeon 9000 PRO 64MB AIW
AGP, ATI All in Wonder 9000PRO, Retail

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=29972&t=&l=&AvdID=1&CatID=&GrpID=&s=sr



any other replies would be much appreciated, im hoping to order one of these cards sometime this week (unless someone convinces me of a more sutible card) :)

ice_2003

Then take look at this note it 96MB download
http://www.shspvr.com/movie_other/nascar_truck_racing.mpg
I get back you on the rest of that stuff rigth now I'm very tired

Here's one thing you must not forget when considering the ADVC-100.

It disables Macrovision! I don't know of any other device that can pull that one off....but if you can't see any use for that then I guess it doesn't matter!

One note, the PVR cards can only capture mpeg, no AVI cap. I have a PVR-250 and like it. The software that comes with it is junk though, at least for recording TV shows. I use SageRecorder now and it works great.

is the chipset different from the one used for the WinTV cards ? Yes it's totally different

is it possible to set the settings so that you can cap realtime mpeg-2 to SVCD 2520kbs w/ 192 kps audio or other custom settings.
Yes, but I noticed problems capturing SVCD mpegs with audio rates lower than 192kbps, they may have fixed that with newer drivers though. You also have to re-multiplex svcd captures, cause the card doesn't write an svcd header to the file, before you can burn it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thayne

One note, the PVR cards can only capture mpeg, no AVI cap. I have a PVR-250 and like it.

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thanks for the reply

i just read the PVR-350 (not PVR-250) can support 3rd party apps, so does this mean it can cap to avi (raw or w/ codecs like picvideo mjpeg or huffyuv) ? :?

the more replies the better :)

ice_2003

The 350 is exactly the same as the 250, only it has TV out where the 250 don't. They even use the same drivers. There are 3rd party apps that work with it, but not avi capturing apps.

If you have enough PCI slots you can keep your current WinTV card for AVI caps, I used to do that, but now I only use the PVR :D

.
.

Quote:

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If you have enough PCI slots you can keep your current WinTV card for AVI caps, I used to do that, but now I only use the PVR

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Yes, definately..
If you have enough PCI left over, don't be afraid to keep your other card
in, for the .AVI stuff. It does work. LOL, I have 3 cards in my 2nd pc at
this moment..
* DC10+ ... (my die-hard card, and 3 years old)
* Osprey-210 ... a great new card I picked up some months ago.
* ADVC-100 ... well, it's firewire, but I have it in an PCI slot.

But, when I'm experimenting, I could have other cards, and USB too.
You just have to work out the I/O interupts out though. Anyways...

If I could, I'd probably have a re-look at the PVR cards out their. For real
quick loaners, this would be an alternative to the real thing (DVD)

My two cents worth.
-vhelp

Do you want a timer to capture TV shows? IF so forget about the Canopus ADVC-100. I have a dazzle 2 and love it if you want to look into it go to www.dazzlegeek.com to see if it will work with your mother board. http://www.shopharmony.com/ has the best price for the Dazzle 2 there are timer's for the Dazzle 2 just go to www.dazzlegeek.com to find them also ATI All IN WONDER is very good if you just need a capture card you can get one for $50.00 dollars at www.pricewatch.com if your a gamer then a newer ATI All In Wonder will cost you $300.00 or so. For capture's there the same get the cheep one.

Which would render better capture quality: an AIW Radeon or the PVR-x50?

Scenalyzer will do timed recordings with ADVC100. I have the DAC100 which is about $80 cheaper than the ADVC100 and Scenalyzer works great with it.

im kinda being put off by the hauppauge pvr right now.

if the quality is not "the best" and you cannot adjust the cropping of a video (which is annoying when watching a clip), and the sharpness is not adjustable...

i just aint too sure no more :? MPEG data is not the easiest to edit and i can see why people say that the PVR cards are best for capping TV programmes. Capturing at high MPEG settings with a PVR may just mean that you would have to re-encode to get nice quality SVCD.
That would kinda ruin the whole point of having a PVR card...

ive started to look at a few ATI Radeon 9000+ series cards as they seem to support both Realtime and raw captures, which would be ideal. The feedback from users seems to be positive, regarding the quality of the caps.

Could anyone reccommend a ATI radeon card with the VIVO features (under £200) (w/ UK site link if possible). Also see the links a few posts up ^^

Could anyone reccommend a UK site that sells the Canopus ADVC 100....the only one ive seen is £240 (which is almost $400US) :-x

any more suggestions/replies would be much appreciated :)

ice_2003

An alternative to the Canopus ADVC-100 would be to use a digital camcorder with a passthrough feature to capture through firewire. This isn't easy to find in the U.K. but I think that the Sony TRV-22 and TRV-33 are available in that country and, I believe that they have a passthrough feature. From the Sony UK website, I know for a fact that they have analog in and I am assuming that they also have a passthrough feature (given that this is the case in North America).

just having a look around at a few more cards ....

All In Wonder VE 64MB DDR PCI RP

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-info.asp?quicklinx=2GB0

http://mirror.ati.com/products/tvwonderve/index.html

i think its the same card on the ati website...

neways, i just wanted to know, can this card cap in realtime and raw avi?

and

is this card ne better than the WinTV fm i already have and is it up to the standard of the other Radeon AIW (all-in-wonder) cards ?
(from what i read card seems to be good, but the software isnt up to standard)

the more replies the bettter :wink:

ice_2003

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spiderman2k1

also ATI All IN WONDER is very good if you just need a capture card you can get one for $50.00 dollars at www.pricewatch.com if your a gamer then a newer ATI All In Wonder will cost you $300.00 or so. For capture's there the same get the cheep one.

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The newer 9000-series All-in-wonders (i.e. AIW 9000, 9700, 9800) have a new capture/display chip (the Theatre 200) which is supposed to be significantly improved over the old one and I think may even have some hardware MPEG2 encoding support. Might be worth looking in to before going for one of the clearance-priced older AIWs.

but is a ATI Radeon 9000 series VIVO card (like the ones i posted earlier) gonna be a downgrade (in terms of card ability for gaming) than my current Gainward GF4 TI4200 650 TV-Out/DV

if not, then the radeon 9000 is in my price range and would seriously consider getting one.
the 9800, is approx £300, and therefore about £100 over my "limit".

any links to products anyone could reccomend would be helpful :)

ice_2003

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ice_2003

Could anyone reccommend a UK site that sells the Canopus ADVC 100....the only one ive seen is £240 (which is almost $400US) :-x[/b]

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Check out my thread, "Where can I buy the Canopus ADVC-100 in the UK?".

The prices listed will be a couple of months out of date, but the site links are there, so you can go have a look around. 240GBP is a good price provided it includes VAT and maybe delivery.

I hope this helps.

Ian.

Can you get the Datavideo DAC100 in the UK? If so it is about $80 (US) cheaper and you do not have to hold a button down to disable macrovision. I bought mine from Ebay.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ice_2003

but is a ATI Radeon 9000 series VIVO card (like the ones i posted earlier) gonna be a downgrade (in terms of card ability for gaming) than my current Gainward GF4 TI4200 650 TV-Out/DV

if not, then the radeon 9000 is in my price range and would seriously consider getting one.
the 9800, is approx £300, and therefore about £100 over my "limit".

any links to products anyone could reccomend would be helpful :)

ice_2003

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My guess is that a 9000 would be about in the ballpark of a GF4 but probably a little slower. The next step up would be the AIW 9700 non-Pro, which should be significantly faster than a GF4 4200ti. Around here the AIW 9700 non-Pro sells for about $300USD ...I'm not sure what they cost in your neck of the woods, but for reference an AIW 9800 Pro costs $400USD, and the Canopus is around $275-300. So the AIW 9700 non-Pro should be about the same price as the Canopus ADVC-100.

Metaluna

i see what u mean, the radeon 9700, 9800 series are a step up in quality and price. i guess you get what you pay for...

it would make sense if i could get the radeon 9700 for £260 and sell my GF4 Ti 4200 for like £80-100. Then i get a better GFX card and a nice Cap card all in one.

really, its jus the hassle of doing all that and i only bought my card 1 year ago...decisions...decisions :?

to be honest, i would prefer to get the best PCI cap card i can get for under £200.

are any of the PCI ATI cap cards ne good ? OR another card someone could reccommend?

thanks for all the replies so far, keep em coming

ice_2003

^ ^ ^ ^

just browsing and saw the

Asus TV Tuner Card

http://usa.asus.com/products/vga/tvtuner/overview.htm

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=34165&t=&l=&AvdID=1&CatID=&GrpID=&s=sr

i have a hauppauge wintv fm as i said before. from the user feedback this card seems great. my current card does not work with powervcrII as i use 3rd party drivers. the asus card seems to support all res's with the standard drivers, able to capture via virtual dub, iuvcr,etc and used with powervcr to create realtime mpeg files...

its the 3rd best overall rated card in the capture cards section....

- is this card really that good?
- would it be an improvement on my current card?

ice_2003

Just my 2 cents worth...

I have the ADVC-100 and have not been disappointed with it. In the 8 months I have been using it, I think I have only had about 10 dropped frames and they were from some pretty crappy VHS tapes.

Another thing to consider is that the ADVC-100 bridges in both directions. You can input from analog to digital or you can output from digital to analog.

There is plenty of software out there that plays well with the ADVC-100.

But wait, there's more...
Macrovision removal
Firewire, so your friends can borrow it
3 year warranty

^^^^

any views on the

Asus TV Tuner Card ?

(read above)

im still not 100% sure which card to go for :(

ice_2003

I think your initial throughs were correct. The best card would be the Canopus. The less hassle would be the PVR-350. If you intend to do a lot of editing, I would stick to DV with the Canopus or a digital camcorder with a passthrough feature.

I have had problems with dropped frames and out of sync issues with analog cards. So I prefer to get a card that does a hardware conversion to DV (i.e. Canopus) or mpeg (pvr-250 or 350).

yg1968

thanks for the reply

i think i will be going for the canopus advc 100, just looking for the best price (in the UK).

i will probably be using the card primarily for TV captures, then VCR / camcorder...
whats the advc100 like with TV captures ? (via s-video/rca cables) ?

"The ADVC-100 did produce some moiré effects and jaggies on scenes with a lot of linear detail, but this is as much a PAL artefact as a fault with the unit."

http://www.camuser.co.uk/reviews/frame.html?http://www.camuser.co.uk/reviews/VideoEdit...ADVC-100.shtml

couple of questions

^ is that talking about the blockiness you can get w/ pal caps ?

does the canopus advc-100 uses its own codec, so no codecs such as huffy are neccessary ?

just looking at the capture card section...
whats the difference between the ADVC-100 and the ADVC-50 ?

ice_2003

The ADVC-50 is internal. Most people recommend the external one (i.e. the ADVC-100) as it can also export DV back to analog devices. The ADVC-100 uses a hardware codec. But once that you transfer it, you have to choose between different DV codecs to play it back. I mainly use the default microsoft codec (type 1 DV avi) but some people will use a different codec (Panasonic, Sony, Canopus, Mainconcept) with type 2 DV avi.

If you decide to use type 1 DV avi, you don't need to install a DV codec. The artifacts are probably just DV artifacts. But most compression codecs have small artifacts. But they are hard to notice unless you are really looking for them. Mpeg also has artifacts. Almost all codec will have some artifacts of some kind.

I actually don't own the Canopus ADVC-100. I own a digital camcorder with a passthrough feature (the Sony TRV-25). But the Canopus essentially does the same thing as a passthrough feature, it converts analog video to DV. The DV is transfered via firewire to your computer. Your computer thinks that the ADVC-100 is a digital camcorder. The ADVC-100 allows you to export the DV from your computer back to an analog device (if you ever wish to do so). The pasthrough feature of a camcorder also allows you to do this.

yg1968

see pm

I have been thinking lately that maybe capturing to your computer and then messing around converting or editing the video is not the best answer. When you add up the expense of the hardware and software you need plus all the time you will be spending perhaps a DVD recorder is the better solution. Now that the recorders are getting cheap I may just go for one like this Sharp model for $350.
http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=137370&options=T

what kinda software does the ADVC-100 include with it ?

the Canopus ADVC1394 seems to include Vegas Video LE 3.0 and WinProducer 3 DVD which enables realtime (software) mpeg-2 vids.

though i will mainly be capping to avi, does this card support applications like powervcr II, etc ?

i know everyone reckons this is the best method of converting vhs>dvd/svcd/vcd, but i just wanted to know bit about what comes with the product. :)

ice_2003


btw

Bob W
nice idea bout the DVD recorder, but that would be too advanced :wink:

Either the Canopus ADVC-100 or the Canopus ADVC-50 do a superb job of capturing video. They will only capture to DV files, and you cannot use VirtualDub with 'em. Those are the only drawbacks of hte Canopus ADVC units.
I use a Canopus ADVC-100 myself. However, you might want to consider a third alternative -- a cheaper but equally high quality firewire outboard capture device, the Datavideo DAC-100. Essentially the same thing as the Canopus ADVC-100 wit hteh same hardware sync so that audio never drifts out of sync with video...but the Datavideo DAC-100 costs only $180 US as opposed to the $300 for the Canopus ADVC-100.
Wish I'd known that before I bought my Canopus...
For the best possible quality of DVDs, I would strongly reocmmend capturing to DV and only then converting to MPEG-2 vai TMPG. In my expensive, capturing MPEG-2 in real time never produces as high quality video n DVD as capturing to DV and converting to MPEG-2 outside real time with TMPG.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spectroelectro

Either the Canopus ADVC-100 or the Canopus ADVC-50 do a superb job of capturing video. They will only capture to DV files, and you cannot use VirtualDub with 'em. Those are the only drawbacks of hte Canopus ADVC units.

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I've been quite satisfied with my ADVC-100, with one exception -- it won't allow me to capture commercially-produced VCR tapes! For example, I have the Special Edition Star Wars Trillogy, and was excited with the idea of converting them to DVD so they'd be easier for me and my nephews to watch (they never get tired of watching them over and over). But when I actually tried to capture them, the Canopus prevented it. <sigh>

I had upgraded from a Dazzle Hollywood Bridge to the ADVC-100, but I wish I'd held on to the old Dazzle unit just for this situation alone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spectroelectro

Either the Canopus ADVC-100 or the Canopus ADVC-50 do a superb job of capturing video. They will only capture to DV files, and you cannot use VirtualDub with 'em. Those are the only drawbacks of hte Canopus ADVC units.

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You can't use VirtualDub to capture, but you can use it to edit if you have a compatible DV codec. Capturing from one of these boxes is trivial. There are at least three freeware/shareware apps that will do it.

After that you can use VirtualDub all you want, as long as you have a DV codec installed that is VfW compatible, e.g. the Mainconcept codec. At least in my case, the Canopus DV codec doesn't seem to like VDub.

isnt the canopus ADVC1394 basically the EXACT same thing as the ADVC-100, except it's internal?

I say this because the advc-100 uses a nec codec chip, which is clearly visiable on the advc1394.

I hope this is the case because I just purchased a advc1394 and assumed that the advc1394 was using hardware encoding for the capture.

I was under the impression that the ADVC-100 and ADVC-50 used Canopus' own custom codec chip, whereas the ADVC-1394 was something different. The 100 and the 50 are definitely very closely related, but I'm not sure about the 1394.

Ice_2000, here is my recommendation:

If you plan to do any significant editing to the captured video (more than just cut and trim), go with a DV-format solution like Canopus ADVC product or Datavideo DAC-100.

On the other hand, if the only editing you plan to do is cut and trim, and your final target format for long-term storage is DVD-quality MPEG2, then this points to the Hauppauge PVR as perhaps a better solution. The Hauppauge PVR captures directly to MPEG2 which will save you time and hassle.

Essentially, if your primary use will be capturing from TV, I would recommend the Hauppauge PVR. If your primary use will be capturing analog home movies with the intention of editing the video to create a finished product, then I would go with a DV-format solution.

Keep in mind that DV-format eats up 13GB per hour of catured video, so you will likely end up converting the finished video to MPEG2 for long-term storage.

rholler,
is it Macrovision protection that is preventing you from copying from commercial VCR tapes? Not sure if you are aware of this, but it is possible to disable Macrovision protection on the ADVC-100. There are lots of posts on how to do this - just do a forum search on the words ADVD-100 and Macrovision and disable .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fourthquark

rholler,
is it Macrovision protection that is preventing you from copying from commercial VCR tapes? Not sure if you are aware of this, but it is possible to disable Macrovision protection on the ADVC-100. There are lots of posts on how to do this - just do a forum search on the words ADVD-100 and Macrovision and disable .

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Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I did indeed find the messages regarding how to disable Macrovision protection (just hold the Select button for 30 seconds). Thanks!!