Please help me decide fast - canopus ADVC-100 or AIW

[BV2001]

My tasks:

Mainly try to encode to VCD/SVCD only

What will be better quality?? Ati AIW or Canopus ADVC-100??

Can the canopus capture DV @352x480 resolution???
thanks

[yg1968]

DV is set at 720x480. You have no other choice but that resolution. But you can convert to 352x480 mpeg, after capturing.

I am biased towards DV. So I would say the Canopus ADVC-100 is better.

[BV2001]

when you say convert, does it mean re-encode to 352x480???

[The village idiot]

Not re-encode, but encode in the first place. Dv should be much easier, with fewer problems than the AIW. But the AIW might let encode while you capture to (s)VCD. I would go with the Canopus myself, but I am biased towards DV too.

[Kool_Aid]

Canopus!

[BV2001]

Canopus!

Do you mean resize ?? Like you have a 5MegaPixel picture and resize in photoshop???
and do you know how long it would take to resize let say 1 min file?
thanks

[FulciLives]

The ATI cards can capture direct to MPEG-2 which means you can go straight to DVD after the capture session.

With the CANOPUS ADVC-100 you capture in DV format which then must be converted to MPEG-2 using a software program. This can take a LONG time.

It all depends on how FAST your computer is. But consider this ... even a fast computer with do software MPEG-2 at MUCH LESS than real time.

So if you want fast then go with the ATI AIW although you may find that using the CANOPUS ADVC-100 may be easier and may produce better quality BUT at the expense of the DV to MPEG-2 conversion.

Also please note that DV is very easy to edit. MPEG-2 is a BITCH to edit unless you are using MPEG2VCR but bear in mind that that program is a little over $100 USD

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[RayS]

Been there - Done both.
When I built up my computer about 2-3 years ago, I did it with Video capture in mind. Not knowing the ins and outs of the various standards, I went with what seemed to be a very fast processor at the time - an Athlon 1.2Gig Thunderbird with 512M DDR memory. For capture, the Radeon AIW 32G DDR seemed to be the way to go. I was wrong.
Although the AIW did a respectable job at VCD and SVCD, it only was able to do so after about a year when ATI finally wised up and offered VCD and SVCD capture parameters in their own TV recording software. The ULEAD Video Studio version 5.0 S/W that came bundled with the AIW at the time was CRA_ IMHO. I could never get it to work very well. Interestingly, the VCD captures were horrible - which didn't make sense because they should have been less demanding on my processor, whereas the DVD 720 x 480 captures had many many dropped frames albeit with decent conversion quality. What I now believe having read many comments on these boards and talking to friends is that there is a threshold for Processor speed somewhere in the vicinity of 1.8GHz depending on your configuration - below which many people seem to have capture problems when attempting direct MPEG2 conversion on the fly and above which people seem to be generally satisfied. My 1.2 Gig machine couldn't cut it because the AIW is relying on software and my Processor to convert on the fly.

The Canopus ADVC-100 box ( be careful with other models - esp. PCI based cards) is a wonderful thing. Using the same 1.2Gig machine and a fire wire card, I can flawlessly capture hours of DV video (at about 15 Gig of hard drive space per hour). It captures in DV format that is less compressed than MPEG and places much less demand on the Processor. No dropped frames! The only downsides are the huge fixed 720 x 480 AVI files it creates and the time it takes later to transcode them into MPEG2. Since I'm now mainly into DVD's the 720 x 480 is a good thing. A small caution if your running Win98SE, WinMe or older, you also need to make certain your capture S/W will automatically roll over at the 2G or 4.2Gig file size limit of those particular OS'.

Price wise I paid about the same for the AIW as I did for the ADVC-100. That said, I have a friend at work that has a Hauppauge TV capture card that he paid $30 for after rebate and swears it does a great job on his 2.4 Gig machine. I still vote Canopus.

[BV2001]

wow.
Look like everyone go for the canopus

I captured from old VHS tape. I personally done capture with AIW ( I capture it 352x480 MPEG2 and then re-encode it to VCD ) using TMPGEnc.
To make it looks good, I have to enable the noise filter hence it increased the encoding time 2x. If the noise filter is not enable , it will be faster than real time.

I try to capture an AVI 720x480 and re-encode to VCD without enabling the noise filter, it is faster or equal realtime, if not, it is 3x or 4x slower.

My question is : Is the canopus capture cleanly??? ie. I don't have to enabling the noise filter??

My system is very good.

P4 2.53Ghz overclock running at 3.45Ghz
1Gb of PC3500 RAM