Cheapest Capture Device

[Zombie6422]

I am looking for the cheapest thing possible to capture vhs tapes to the computer. Would the answer be one of the ATI All-In-Wonders?

[lordsmurf]

It's not cheapest, but its one of the best.

[vh5150]

You can pick up an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 for under $70 US on ebay. Plus if you get a 3rd party tweaker like aTuner (free and works for both nvidia and ati cards) your games will look even prettier.

[feeras]

Hi,

You might be able to get away with the Leadtek range of TV (Capture) cards. They are also pretty cheap too. You do however need a pretty decent system to capture using them - but i think most of the cheap ones all need this.

Cheers,
feeras

[redwudz]

Take a look at this thread for another option:https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=188628

[Zombie6422]

Ok, my system is a 1ghz athlon thunderbird. I have a 40gb hard drive and 256mb ram.

What would be the best and cheapest choice for my system?

[Sam Ontario]

When I was a newbie, spent at least 5 weeks to read thru those guides on the left and plus 2 weeks practcie, I still cannot master them. I am an average computer user know something about operation platforms and I started from Apple 6502 machines in those early days.

If you have plenty of time to spend, the cheapest is to buy a cheapest capture card. If your time is valuable, my advice is, buy a DVD recorder from Panasonic.

[winifreid]

Look at Newegg.com
I have a Leadtek 2000 XP Deluxe. I have 98 and a 1.6 gig Athlon and I can capture pretty much anything without a problem. I can't use VDub to capture because of the driver limitations ( I can not use btwincap becasue I don't have SE or later). I paid only $42 delivered. I like the software that it comes with.

[elmotheteapot]

Stay away from the hauppage cards, i have one of their chepaer ones around GBP60 and its features are nothing in comaprison to Ati's All in wonder. just buy the all in wonder card (ie the one without the graphics card).

[Metaluna]

The cheapest capture card I've seen (among name brands) is the Leadtek VC100 which is just a Bt878 decoder chip connected to a composite input. No s-video, no tuner, etc. I think I've seen them for around $30 at places like Newegg. They should capture as well as any other Bt8x8 board, like the TV Wonder or Winfast 2000XP Deluxe, assuming you don't need s-video input or a tuner.

[Zombie6422]

So would this one be good? http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=14-122-132

I was looking at the other model you suggested for $31 and it doesn't say that it works with windows 98.

[Bob W]

So would this one be good? http://secure.newegg.com/app/specification.asp?item=14-122-132

I was looking at the other model you suggested for $31 and it doesn't say that it works with windows 98.

I believe that if you are going to do any capturing with resulting files over 4GB you are going to need an operating system that supports formatting your hard drive to NTFS.

[winifreid]

I suspect that both will work with 98, but you will not be able to use btwincap unless you have SE. The deluxe has the added feature of TV and FM tuning capabilities. You cn overcome the 4 gig limit by splitting files. I do it and it works fine.

[Zombie6422]

How many minutes is 4gb?

[winifreid]

It depends on the compression you use. But as I said, you can use file spanning with the programs that come with the card.

[Zombie6422]

Well, just give me an estimate on perfect quality. How much would 4gb be in minutes or hours?

[Sulik]

If you define good quality as 8Mbps, that would be a bit over an hour.

[racerxnet]

Unfortunately everyone forgot to tell you that if you are capturing from VHS to the PC with the ATI card you will have to hack the drivers. This is in regards to the macrvision protection and the AGC on the RAGE THEATER chipset and drivers. Any tape with the macrovision encoded in the tape will not be worth your while until the issue is addressed. One can go about it 2 ways, get a box in between the PC and the VHS or modify the driver set from ATI.

MAK

[Zombie6422]

So, what? Just stick with one of the leadtek's?

[lordsmurf]

Unfortunately everyone forgot to tell you that if you are capturing from VHS to the PC with the ATI card you will have to hack the drivers. This is in regards to the macrvision protection and the AGC on the RAGE THEATER chipset and drivers. Any tape with the macrovision encoded in the tape will not be worth your while until the issue is addressed. One can go about it 2 ways, get a box in between the PC and the VHS or modify the driver set from ATI. MAK

You do not need to hack any drivers. You can easily get a $40 Sima Copy Master that removes Macrovision on copyrighted/protected tapes.

That does not affect homemade tapes or unprotected tapes (of which there are many).