Pinnacle Studio AV/DV capture card with TMPGEnc the best?

[jaredean]

i have a version of Pinnacle Studio AV/DV Version 9 that comes with a capture card...I am planning on buying TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress and TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6 for the last 2 steps of my project, but want to know if there is a better way to capture than using Pinnacle Studio...i'm a bit affraid of Pinnacle because i want the best capture quality possible and don't think of quality when i think of Pinnacle...maybe i can get a good capture, i don't know...

Is there just a way to use the capture card that came with the software and grab the stream raw right into windows? Or does someone have experience with the AV/DV capture card from Pinnacle?

jared

[reboot]

Canopus Procoder instead of tmpgenc xpress, and DVDLab instead of TDA.

[daamon]

Hi jaredean

If you're "capturing" from a DV cam into DV AVI, use WinDV. There are others, but this is very good, small and free.

[jaredean]

sorry, i forgot to mention that i'm capturing Hi8 videos and not DV videos...i have to go through the capture card...any other capturing ideas with my setup?

Canopus Procoder instead of tmpgenc xpress, and DVDLab instead of TDA.

i realize everyone has their preference and for good reason...i thought i'd researched things pretty well when i decided i was going to buy the TMPG stuff, but am more than willing (since i haven't purchased anything yet) to look at other options...

Why Canopus/DVDLab over the 2 TMPG products? One thing i love about TDA is the motion menu's...but i'm not married to them if there are better resources out there...

[reboot]

Canopus seems to be much better quality at a faster rate than tmpgenc. I much prefer it for encodes I want at very HQ, but this only applies to avi captures. It works extremely well with DV sources (IMHO).
DVDLab Pro to author, simply because it can do so much more than TDA. DVDLab makes motion menus very easily, with more accuracy, and it's got a ton more stuff you can play with, right down to the "innards" of the language that DVD speaks.
With TDA, one would have to author, then use a 3rd party app to change anything in the structure, and it may not work.

[jaredean]

with DVDLab Pro being almost 3 times as expensive as TDA it makes it hard for me to justify (and hit the wife up for more money) that it is 3 times better...it looks sweet though...the other version of DVDLab is only $30 more - will it still be better than TDA?

Also, for encoding - DVDLab has TMPGEnc as a bundle, which seems to me that they encourage the 2 to work together...using Canopus w/DVDLab will work as well in your opinion?

jared

[reboot]

Yes, even the standard version is better than TDA in my opinion.
DLP comes with a dvd making version of tmpgenc, similar to tmpgenc xpress 3. It does work, and is just a deal that Oscar (the brains behind DVDLab) made with Pegasys (the tmpgenc people).
If quality is your main objective, when working wtih DV captures, Canopus is the best encoder.
Once encoded, you can use any authoring program you want. I just happen to prefer the capabilities of DVDLab over other applications that don't do as much.
Try the 30 day demo, check out my tutorials, and make a couple of disks with DVDLab.
Download the TDA demo, make a couple of disks, buy whichever you feel works the best for you.
The same applies to tmpgenc. It does work, but it's not the fastest, nor the best quality, nor the cheapest. Canopus (or even Mainconcept Mpeg Encoder, and CCE) are better (and faster), QuEnc is free (with a couple of different GUI's for it), but tediously slow.
If you're into a steep learning curve, get CCE with Avisynth. Avisynth is free, however CCE will run you almost $2000.
Canopus Procoder Express is only $59, and has the same encoder engine as their more expensive PRO version (AFAIK).

On quick downloaded files, and TV caps, that are not the greatest quality, I use CCE basic or Mainconcept to encode, then just make an autoplay disk in ReJig.
On my captures (other than TV), I use Canopus Procoder and DVDLab Pro.
If it's got the original quality, it's worth taking the time to make a quality DVD from it.

[DaveS]

procoder has a very good reputation for interlaced video, which yours should be .. procoder express doesn't have the filters (or mastering quality setting) but you could use vdub for free filters (extra step but is free & good) and you'd be fine w/o the mastering quality...you'd be very happy w/ the quality I think (but unfortunately no demo vers. is avail)

[reboot]

Procoder also does wonderful PAL <-> NTSC comversions that no other encoder seems to do well

[jaredean]

thanks for the input on the encoding and mastering...

so do you feel like i'm OK to capture with Pinnacle to AVI and then take it with those programs from there? that would be the best for me since i don't want to have to buy another program/capture card...

jared

[reboot]

You can capture with Pinnacle to avi, providing you do it with as little compression as possible.
Uncompressed avi (to maintain the best quality) will be huge! You need plenty of hard drive space.
There's a possible loss of quality going from avi to mpeg-2, depending on your process. This is why I recommend Canopus.
The built in software suite that comes with that Pinnacle package allows (prefers) to capture directly into mpeg-2 DVD spec, format.
If you have the computer power, I would suggest you do that.
You don't need to go out and buy tmpgenc, Canopus or anything. That package comes with everything needed.
Read the specs for that package. You definitely need some serious computing power to use it properly, including a DX9 video card, Windows XP, etc. Their recommended minimum system would barely do anything.
So before you purchase anything else, try the bundled software. (I didn't realize at first that it included so much nice stuff ).

This is the package? http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=1883&Langue_ID=7

[SteelDog]

Glad I saw this thread. Back on topic though I also recently purchased Pnnacle Studio AV/DV Version 9. I have not opened it yet. I also want to know if anybody has experiene with this capture card? Is it decent?

I didn't want to spend more the $100 bucks on one so I picked this one up. So any opinion on this card would be appreciated.

[jaredean]

This is the package? http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=1883&Langue_ID=7

No, this is the package:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=2050&Langue_ID=7

No breakout box, just a capture card and it isn't the plus version of studio...

I don't mind using this product to capture, but don't know if it will be the best possible one to use for encoding (quality wise)...

I have the hardware needed (Athlon 64 3200+ with 1 gig ram and 150 gig hard drive / Radeon 9600 card w/128 MB memory)

and i'm not really worried about the time it takes to do or the size of file - i just want the best looking copy i can make (taking into account i'm going from an analog source to a digital one)...

jared

[reboot]

Excellent choice. Not quite the full featured software bundle of the other one, but I still think a great beginner to advanced package.
You should be easily able to capture full D1 mpeg-2, edit, author, and burn, all with the enclosed software.
Don't even think about avi.
You definitely have the hardware for it

Notice #1 allows mpeg capture instead of avi.
Notice #2 hopefully has some settings, so you can adjust framesize, bitrate, framerate, etc.

[jaredean]

nice...i'll give that a go with those settings...

I did try when i first bought it to do a burn, but it errored out and the error code was terrible ("burn failed") - that was it...no other reason or anything...

so, i was going to just use it to capture and then use other software choices for the rest of it...but i'll give it a shot again with the options you've pointed out...

jared

[reboot]

I just played around with the trial of Pinnacle Studio 9.3
On my XP2500+, I can capture to a separate hard drive at full D1, 29.97fps mpeg-2, @4000kbps, with NO dropped frames. (I just did a TV capture using the built in tuner).
It's got a VERY nice editor, built in, as well as a decent encoder, and if you get the Dolby AC3 bit, it will automatically encode audio during capture. Ready to burn.
What a slick piece of software! Leaps and bounds ahead of Pinnacle 8!!!
Save your money and use this. You won't need Canopus or tmpgenc.

[jaredean]

excellent...thank you so much for doing that...i know that Pinnacle is pretty mainstream and in the past they haven't been the best in terms of quality, so when i bought it i was looking to get a capture card and something to capture with and then take it from there (using a separate encoder/burn option)...but i trust your opinion and will stick with it...

I would like to use something like DVDLab to make the final menu/burn - or do you think that that would also be unecessary?

jared

[piano632]

I have Pinnacle Studio 8 with the AV/DV card. I think the quality is pretty good. I don't know if anything's changed between the quality of Studio 8 and 9, but my card has an LSI chip. My card tends to oversaturate colors a bit (but you can easily fix that by turning down the saturation level during capture).

Capture/recording devices I've used and my rating for each:
Hauppauge PVR-250 card ****
Pinnacle AV/DV [w/ Studio 8] card ****
Sharp DV-RW2 DVD recorder ****
JVC DR-M10 DVD recorder ***** (my current favorite)

[reboot]

I know Studio 8 was buggy, bad, horrible even.
Studio 9 seems to be much more stable (although there's a new post about it in Newbie forum).
I have no complaints, but will have to play with it for another week, before I decide to spend money on it or not.
It's Menu creation/authoring system should give you most of what you'll need. Try it and see. Download the trial, and play with some material. See if you like it's interface enough to spend the money.
I still author everything in DVDLab Pro, but I'm a little biased here

As posted above, the Hauppauge PVR-250 is an outstanding card, combined with the right software (Pinnacle 9) to do your editing, and then author in DVDLab would be the way I would do it.
At the price though, the package seems almost too good to be true, however, the software works well with MY capture card...

[unclebud]

For capturing DV or AV with the Pinnacle card you can use Scenalyzer Live.
http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html

It also has timers for recording if you want to capture like a VCR. Captures only to DV avi files though, which is great for editing before rendering for DVD.