canopus advc 50 or hauppaugue wintv pvr250?

[v1p0n3]

hello
i don't know which card i should choose..
can anyone help me?
they are very diferent.. on is a hardware encoder the other don't.. that's why i'm not sure what to buy
can someone give me advices?
the hardware encoder of hauppaugue card is better than the software encoder of canopus? which one will give me the best resulsts? please help me cause i really don't know what to choose!
thanks

[rhegedus]

The Canopus will capture DV avi at 13GB an hour. The avi files are near perfect in quality (depends on your source) and are easy to edit. You just need a LOT of hard drive space.

Once you've got your captured avi, you can encode to whatever format you want at whatever bitrate - this is quite a good thing when working retrospectively.

[SHS]

v1p0n3 depant on what you want do with it.

[v1p0n3]

the canopus card need 13gb for 1 hour in which resolution? 352x288 or 720x576?

[v1p0n3]

v1p0n3 depant on what you want do with it.

i'll use the card to capture mainly from vhs or tv (i know that canopus don't have tv tunner but i can deal with that connecting the vcr to the card) but i also has a dv cam so the dv in sometimes is cool.
what i care more is about quality and stability.
i'll also edit a lot so i heard that the hauppauggue card even with hardware encoder will be needed to reencode the video(don't know if i'm right).
at the moment i have mirc pctv but i need something better. i do a lot of vcds but i want to start making dvd's and i'm not sure what to choose..

my computer is a p4 1700 256MB ddr
and i have a HD with 20gb only to capture.

[txpharoah]

Honestly, that exact Canopus card is a disappointing junky device. Canopus could have done better that that. I expected more from that company. If you are interested in editing AVI, grab that Canopus card (since money appears to be an obstacle).

The Hauppauge isn't much better, but it would be alright. As stated, it depends on what you want to do. The software isn't that great, and there are known issues with its MPEG2 output.

My suggestions for good cards are here:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=166083
They are expensive though, so I understand if that post isn't of use to you.

Look at getting an ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7500 or 8500. That fits in your price range, and you can grab either AVI or MPEG just fine. And the quality is great. I've been using ATI AIW cards since early 2001. Just be sure to always have the newest drivers and software from ati.com - don't just use what came on the CD-ROM.

[Michelle]

also has a dv cam

If your dv cam has passthrough then you may not need another capture device.
https://www.videohelp.com/dvanalog#why

[Ego_Shredder]

I'm currently looking into upgrading from my WinTV FM PCI card which is fantastic for the money and produces excellent results with M-JPEG avi captures at 720 x 576 or less.

Going by the comments of various people on this forum, I won't be buying the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250/350 due to it's compatibility issues etc. I have ruled out the Canopus ADVC 50/100 cards because they only do avi, so I am now looking at getting the Canopus MPEG Pro MVR card which came out last month for £400 / $499 and this only does realtime hardware MPEG capture but at very high quality apparently (uses Canopus' own codec as used in their ProCoder software).

Unless I happen to find a cheaper card that is as good or near, I will buy the Canopus MPEG Pro MVR. There is also a USB 2.0 version for the same price with the exact same spec/hardware inside.


Ego

[txpharoah]

the Canopus MPEG Pro MVR. There is also a USB 2.0 version for the same price with the exact same spec/hardware inside.

Actually it does USB 1.1 too! Only up to 6.0 MB/S at that USB level (full 15.0 with USB 2.0), but fine for me. Given that it is half the price, I'm slowly considering getting this myself, over the Matrox RTX100. Decisions, decisions.

Either way, I'm waiting until Christmas. Gift to myself. :P

[SHS]

So I take your after Tivo box like setup as well this where SageTV come in and also soon be custom ver SnapStream Personal Video Station 3 (But Not Ready) it also be supporting the WinTV-PVR 250/350 as well and there lot other option and lot tools that can be use with it oh and there even linux drivers to.

VHS can be pain there no getting around that more so if tape was rec in LP or EP mode or if tape was has bad spot in them this why make device know TBC to help fix thoses problem even a reg AVI capture can run in to this problem so the Canopus would be the choess.
I capture min VHS tape with my WinTV-PVR 250 and min more for some freind mine which been very happy with quality I even got few bad tape to.
I capture min TV show episodes like Stargate SG-1, Babylon5 and yes lot of other movie.
Yes you can edit the MPEG files but you need frame-accurate MPEG editor like Womble MPEG2VCR it best of the best and very fast there no reencode the video with it.

What compatibility issues Ego_Shredder you ref to.
Canopus MPEG Pro MVR is base on Canopus MVR1000
As for diff 200 less and few more features and built-in TBC that all to bad it don't do what Faroudja FLI2300 DCDi chip dose then I folk $500 in a heart beat.

As see Ego_Shredder said he can captures at 720x576 but you may not get as lucky as him very few people get this lucky.
But like all thing it depend on broadcast and input source min broadcast channel have error in them and there nothing you can do about this, this what cause frame drop at high rez.

[Ego_Shredder]

SHS

One of the bad points I read about the WinTV 250 PVR was that the motion encoding quality was bad on high motion scenes. Have you found this to be true and how would it compare with the quality from the Canopus card? At the moment my video encoding to MPEG-2 takes a huge amount of time, because I have to make sure the motion quality is the best possible to make it bearable to watch. I've seen a few sample clips made with the WinTV 250 PVR but they contained no fast motion, so I couldn't really form a opinion of the cards capabilities.

I also use the Womble MPEG-VCR program and I rate it highly. I only discovered it last month and now it is my MPEG editor of choice, along with Virtual Dub for avi.


Ego

[SHS]

Well Ego_Shredder depent on channel I record from some channel I do get the bad high motion scenes problem where other channel I don't but if I where do from Home DVD Player I don't have any thoses problem being I getting soild signel rigth from get go same is also going apply with canopus hardware mpeg encoder card.
Being you said you can captures at 720x576 with no problem Ego_Shredder that mean you got really good soild signel come in I see no reson why the PVR 250 or for that matter any other full hardware mpeg encoder other then Cirrus Logic CS92210 clone better know as the StreamMachine chip which not full blow encoder.
Oh I also like point out been I recoding from DishNetwork Satellite which is stream at SVCD quality.

[rhegedus]

Just checked the stats on the Canopus MPEGpro. It is bundled with Ulead DVD Workshop.......... Things are going wrong already!

Looks nice though. The one thing I can't work out is how do you know in advance of capture what bit-rate to use to fit it onto a DVDR. Supposing you're over the capacity limit - what dod you do?

[SHS]

rhegedus what wrong with Ulead DVD Workshop? Also rhegedus it eazy fig out the bit rate need.
NoN editing base on my avg
MPEG2 720x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
1 Hour: BR 8000MB to PBR 9500MB VBR MPEG2 720x480 with BR384 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
1 Hour 30min: BR 7000MB to PBR 8500MB VBR MPEG2 720x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
2 Hour: BR 4500MB to PBR 6000MB VBR MPEG2 720x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
4 hour: BR 2500MB to PBR 3000MB VBR 352x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio

Edit clip can this depend on channel some have less ads where have more ads but base on avg there about 17min per hour of ads.
Some eles to take count 4x3 vs 16x9 video recording uselee 16x9 are going be tab bit smaller then if where editing 4x3 clip

If do go over there alway DVD shrink some tool like it.

But like all thing you need just seat down and fig it out.

[Amontillado]

SHS

One of the bad points I read about the WinTV 250 PVR was that the motion encoding quality was bad on high motion scenes. Have you found this to be true and how would it compare with the quality from the Canopus card? At the moment my video encoding to MPEG-2 takes a huge amount of time, because I have to make sure the motion quality is the best possible to make it bearable to watch. I've seen a few sample clips made with the WinTV 250 PVR but they contained no fast motion, so I couldn't really form a opinion of the cards capabilities.
..

Although no SHS, i thought I had to comment.
I have personaly never experienced any real problems with high motion scenes. I record about 3-4 hours a day at 3000vbr (peak 4500) and it looks great.
I can't say anything about it being a problem if you have a bad signal, it could be, but since I have a very good signal I don't have a problem with that.

Personaly i think that a lot of the reports of people who claim to experience problems with high motion scenes are probably related to the deinterlacing that is done by the software. If you watch a high motion scene on the pc monitor with wintv2k you will notice some artifacts but those are caused by the deinterlacing of the intervideo codec. These aren't part of the files themself. If you watch the recorded shows with a dvd player on tv set they will look perfect.

If you do plan on watching them on the pc monitor you can always use sageTV wich will allow you to use different codecs, including the dscaler deinterlace filter. Also in my case, playing recorded files back with powerdvd xp with hardware accelartion enabled gives perfect result.
If you plan on watching the shows on a tv-set using a the tv-out of your graphics card you can set the intervideo codec to use weave wich gives you great results.

[Ego_Shredder]

SHS

I only get the DVD quality captures when capturing from my TV aerial source (via a wireless transmitter too!). I only use 480 x 576 M-JPEG when VHS is my source and if the source is really bad, I usually revert to using WinVCR MPEG-1 VCD setting.

I have also heard that the WinTV 250 PVR doesn't make compliant MPEG-2 SVCD/DVD streams and that you have to remultiplex and/or re-encode afterwards. This is totally unacceptable to me because I am hoping to eliminate the offline encoding process altogether, hence why I am trying to decide between the WinTV 250/350 PVR and the Canopus MPEG Pro MVR. I need some good reassurance d00ds!


Ego

[rhegedus]

rhegedus what wrong with Ulead DVD Workshop? Also rhegedus it eazy fig out the bit rate need.
NoN editing base on my avg
MPEG2 720x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
1 Hour: BR 8000MB to PBR 9500MB VBR MPEG2 720x480 with BR384 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
1 Hour 30min: BR 7000MB to PBR 8500MB VBR MPEG2 720x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
2 Hour: BR 4500MB to PBR 6000MB VBR MPEG2 720x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio
4 hour: BR 2500MB to PBR 3000MB VBR 352x480 with BR224 MPEG1 Layer2 Audio

Edit clip can this depend on channel some have less ads where have more ads but base on avg there about 17min per hour of ads.
Some eles to take count 4x3 vs 16x9 video recording uselee 16x9 are going be tab bit smaller then if where editing 4x3 clip

If do go over there alway DVD shrink some tool like it.

But like all thing you need just seat down and fig it out.

w.r.t. Ulead - it's a long story, but we've not got alon since my discs got burned out of sync.

w.r.t. bitrate - you've just demonstarted what I mean. I like to fill a disk to the max limit to get the best possible bit-rate. Capture as avi and let TMPGEnc wizard work out the bit rate to encose as. When you capture direct to mpeg, you have to guess: your bit rates have about 25% variance. What do you do if your captured file is a few hundred MB too big even after editing?

[Ego_Shredder]

Personaly i think that a lot of the reports of people who claim to experience problems with high motion scenes are probably related to the deinterlacing that is done by the software. If you watch a high motion scene on the pc monitor with wintv2k you will notice some artifacts but those are caused by the deinterlacing of the intervideo codec. These aren't part of the files themself. If you watch the recorded shows with a dvd player on tv set they will look perfect.

Yeah I know what you mean but I am experienced at video capture and encoding and with most of the pitfalls etc.

So can you manually tweak the WinTV 250 PVR software or hardware settings to achieve the best possible motion quality? Also do you edit out commercials and then burn straight to VCD/SVCD without remuxing or re-encoding etc?

If anyone can reassure me that the WinTV 250/350 PVR can do the above to an acceptable standard, I will be very happy because I will have saved a lot of money!


Ego

[Amontillado]

So can you manually tweak the WinTV 250 PVR software or hardware settings to achieve the best possible motion quality? Also do you edit out commercials and then burn straight to VCD/SVCD without remuxing or re-encoding etc?

I don't tweak anything specific for high motion scenes since it doesn't seem to cause any problems. But you can tweak a lot of, especially wenn recording with Wintvcap. The usual stuff like contrast, hue, brightness but also lost of differnt noise filterening options are availiable.
I do burn straigth to DVD/SVCD, I also use Womble to edit, after that I burn, never had a sync problem yet (although some others have less luck it seems).

[thayne]

I have a PVR-250 and like it for what it's meant for, capuring TV shows. The software is a bit flaky, but works and you can set the output mpegs to just about anything you want. I record mine at half DV (DVD compliant 352X480) so that I can burn them right to DVD without re-encoding. The quality isn't great, but it's not bad when watching on a regular TV.

The encoder chip on the card gets really hot, so make sure you have plenty of ventilation

If you capture for SVCD (480X480) you have to re-multiplex the video before you can burn it because it doesn't include the SVCD headers. I used to do that before switching to DVD and used TMPGEnc mpeg tools. My custom SVCD setting's to make 1 hour of video fit on a single 700MB cd were:

Output Stream: Program
Data Rate: Variable 1525 Min 2200 Max
Audio: Mpeg layer 2 44.1Khz, 224 kbps

[SHS]

Ego_Shredder as for (I have also heard that the WinTV 250 PVR doesn't make compliant MPEG-2 SVCD/DVD streams) that not ture now that they have enable SVCD compliant streams mode in firmware which now support it as for DVD compliant streams this has all ready be been support but MPEG editor don't like at all so it best to user Program streams which really make no diff to really good DVD Authoring Software like UleadDVDMF, DVDLab, etc, etc which going to remultiplex any way in to a vob format any how.
What min people fail to unstand is that DVD compliant streams was ment for doing it in one take as in record and write to DVD disk and a final authoring at end all in REALtime that what DVD compliant streams is use for how ever getting the 3rdparty apps to make use of this is a diff story Ulead DVD MovieFactory on other hand is going to support with in app it self petty cool I thing for RW disk.
It uselee take me less then 30min to do one disk ready to be play depend on what carp I add for menu etc, etc, etc by the way half that time is for burn at 4x speed 2.4x take a bit longer as we know slower men more time it take get thing done I WANT 8X now 14min is way to long but at lease it better then 2.4x which take 26min hehe.
Oh and really depand one magor thing number of mpeg files being use lot of them take longer to do.

[SHS]

rhegedus (What do you do if your captured file is a few hundred MB too big even after editing) that what DVD shrink is for which dosen't take to do about 20min at most as one man said If there will there a way hehe.

[txpharoah]

What min people fail to unstand is that DVD compliant streams was ment for doing it in one take as in record and write to DVD disk and a final authoring at end all in REALtime that what DVD compliant streams is use for

No. Not at all.

[rhegedus]

So you're encoding twice: once during capture and once to make it fit.

I was under the impression that it's best to encode only once, otherwise strange things happen.

Ho hum.

[thayne]

No, I have never re-encoded the mpeg. I just played with the settings so that the output is within the size I want it. Even variable rate is never more than +- 10MB for 1 hour of video. I think what he is saying is if for some reason you go over your file size limit you can use DVDShrik to quickly fix the problem.

[rhegedus]

How can you do VBR on a live stream input? How far ahead and behind the current frame does it compare?

[thayne]

You mean watching it while you are recording??? If so there is about a 2-3 second delay.

If you mean how does it do the actual encoding, I don't know. It has a hardware mpeg-2 encoder. I guess it buffers the stream in memory

[rhegedus]

So it's VBR over 2-3 sec chunks rather than over the whole duration of the capture - is there any real difference between than and CBR?

[thayne]

Hmmm, never really thought about it, but probably not. maybe that's why there is not much variance in the final output size.

[rhegedus]

CBR and VBR should produce the same output size since they both should have the same average bit-rate. VBR just uses up the spare bit-rate from still or slow scenes for for the faster ones, giving a better overall quality (especially at lower average bit-rates).