Best Solution for TV Capture and burn to DVD?

[booyah]

I have just built an Athlon system with an Abit NF7-S, Barton 2500 and a Gig of ddr ram for the purposes of a video editing system. The board has onboard firewire.

I am also interested in capturing Cable TV and was interested in forum opinions specific to my needs.

I am not interested in any AIW series cards as I plan to use a Radeon 9700 as my principal video card with a dual monitor setup. I also would prefer to use the easiest possible method to Capture the Cable signal and burn to DVD - quality is not that important. So I guess a card that can capture direct to mpeg2 format would be recommended?

I have read good reviews about the Canopus ADVC-100. Does this unit have a TV tuner or would I have to feed the tv signal into it by way of a VCR? Alternatively would a PCI TV tuner card with MPEG2 encoding be a better option?

Also would the burnt DVD playback on a standalone DVD unit look normal if the footage was captured on the PC.

All advice is appreciated.

[Sykes]

I copy stuff off cable with excellent results. BUT I use my DV camera (VX2000) or Sony mini-DV recorder (both have analog input). From there I go through the normal DVD production steps.
The problem with capturing straight from the TV is the PC has a 2G file size limit. 2G is only 9mins, so unless you go for a device which encodes mpg as you go (such as the TV card) it is impossible to import direct.
Sorry don´t know much about TV cards
Hope this helps, but a camera option is not cheap but it is excellent quality.
See ya

[lchiu7]

If you run NTFS then you are not really limited by 2G. I regularly capture video through a WinTV PCI card either through the tuner or via s-video using only Huffyuv compression and end up with 20G/hour files. That way I can do the mpeg compression not in realtime so you can do two pass and other nice quality stuff

[reubenray]

I have the DAC100 which is very similiar to the ADVC100. Neither one of these have tuners. I am running a s-video feed from my satallite receiver to it. So you would have to do it like a VCR.

[SHS]

Take look at WinTV-PVR 250/350 for REALtime Hardware MPEG2 Encoding and take look at 3rdparty Tivo like software package SageTV (The Best) and SnapStream Personal Video Station 3 (2nd Best).
Oh and really want go crazy SageTV support Multiple Tuner and can be Home Video and Music Server.

This what I use cap from my DishNetwork Satallite Receiver
WinTV-PVR 250
SageTV
Ulead DVD MovieFactory
Womble Multimedia MPEG2VCR

Note that some Cable feed you need to use your cable box in order to rev thoses channel that usely much higher then 125 or there in custom format which can't be read the Tuner.
If that the case you will need a (Sage & SS) Actisys ACT IR-200L to change channel and (SageTV) there also going to support for the USB-UIRT to change channel as well.

[spiderman2k1]

you can get ATI AIW or Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 or Dazzle 2 to see if Dazzle 2 will work on your mother board go to www.dazzlegeek.com. If your doing cable TV I would ge the ATI AIW as it has filter to remove noise from the picture if you want to record from satellite Dazzle 2 or Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. All card are good but some are better at one thing then the other. You can buy Dazzle 2 here http://www.shopharmony.com/ for ATI AIW www.pricewatch.com

[dominic01]

Let me tell you about my Cheap but really good card. WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe. I got it for $51.00 shipped from newegg.com. It comes with Ulead Video Studio and I am capturing from TV to MPEG2 format and burn it into a DVD.

Hope this helps.
Dominic

[hkmiller]

I second the Leadtek WinFast card. The XP2000 Deluxe is a great card and for $51.00 w/ free shipping it is even better.

[booyah]

So the WinFast TV2000 XP can capture direct from TV to MPEG2. This sounds like a viable option. What exactly has to be done to burn it to DVD after the capture - is this all done in the included Ulead Video Studio software?

I assume that the WinTV PVR-250 would be faster as it has realtime Mpeg2 encoding. Is SageTV just an interface like Dscaler which improves the pic on the tv? What else can this software do?

I do have a DV Camcorder a JVC DVL-9500 but I have checked and it does not have analog inputs.

Thanks for all recommendations.

[SHS]

Go to http://www.shspvr.com/ and see the review I did and check out http://www.freytechnologies.com/ if want more info ask Q on the forum booyah.
I hope you have fast system you need it with Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP when doing ture DVD resolutions 720x480 with VBR mode on oh you can't do any thing eles while it capture that if you can get it to cap 720x480 in most case I secan it only do 720x240, 640x240, 352x240.

[jdizzy40]

As previously mentioned in an above post, the WIN PVR does MPEG-2 decoding using its chip on the card. Combined with Snap Stream 3.1 you have a TIVO setup without the fees. I built a dedicated box for this purpose and the quality is better than the live TV my Tv puts out. Th einterface is similar to a satellite schedule. EPG (Electronic Program Guide) is updated using your internet connection.

[dominic01]

So the WinFast TV2000 XP can capture direct from TV to MPEG2. This sounds like a viable option. What exactly has to be done to burn it to DVD after the capture - is this all done in the included Ulead Video Studio software?

If you are not going to edit your video, there is an option in WinFast TV2000 XP capture software (WinFast PVR). "Direct Burn to DVD NTSC or PAL". Just select it and it will burn DVD for you.

If you want to capture and edit, you can use Ulead Video Studio. This software comes with the card.

Regards
Dominic