Capture card purchase, several choices

[aaronrus]

hey guys, basically I am on a budget here, but I have the opportuity to buy some of the higher end cards for a substantial discount, and i wanted to get everyone's opinions on them. Basically i want full freedom with my capture card. I will be transfering alot of both PAL and NTSC VHS and Laserdiscs to DVD, as well as editing DV footage. I want my capture card to capture in NTSC and PAL, to be able to handle both live hardware MPEG-2 encoding at the 1 hour dvd quality setting, and I want it to be able to capture huffYUV and MJPEG .AVIs. I don't plan on doing complicated editing, just basic DVD authoring, HOWEVER, QUALITY is my top concern. Here are the cards i'm looking at, i'd like the pros and cons that people know of, and weather or not they will do what I want them to, mentioned above:

(used) Matrox RT2500
(used) Pinnacle DC1000
(used) Pinnacle DC50
(new) Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350
(new) ATI AIW series card
(new) Canopus MPEG Pro MVR

I'd also very much liek for people to tell me their experiences with capture quality, especially in the hardware MPEG-2 encoding department.
Also, if there are any other capture cards I should consider getting, let me know. Thanks in advance for everyone's help

[reboot]

Get the Hauppauge. It's the standard by which all other hardware cards are measured.
Consider the 250 if you don't need FM radio.

[aaronrus]

Get the Hauppauge. It's the standard by which all other hardware cards are measured.
Consider the 250 if you don't need FM radio.

does the hauppauge support direct .AVI(huffYUV and MPJEG) capture? ive read some more debate on wether or not it does support it..

[iooi]

Get the Hauppauge. It's the standard by which all other hardware cards are measured.
Consider the 250 if you don't need FM radio.

does the hauppauge support direct .AVI(huffYUV and MPJEG) capture? ive read some more debate on wether or not it does support it..

Well the 250 wont capture as a AVI file.... So its odds on the 350 wont as well.
Having just bought a 250 a month ago, i can say its a good card... BUt and the biggest so far is a/v sync issues this i have solved but has added to the cost. Maybe Hauppauge should consider adding VideoReDo to the software bundle they supply..

[Fos]

I have had the dv500 (very similar to DC1000) , and the dc30 (very similar to dc50).
I have to say that the best of both is the dc30 but it captures the video at 768*576 in RGB mode(i think) , and it is a sick then when you are going to transfer to dvd!
I have had a lot of problems with the dv500 ( you can see threads in this forum about it).
Recently, i have ordered an Ati 9200 AIW.
I will tell here how it is for capture from my vhs.... But i think that it is better than the others , it is a TRUE and USEFUL one ...

[SatStorm]

Matrox has the reputation, but it is a "pain in the ass" overall card. So, I don't suggest it.

I never liked ATI cards myself, but the last couple of years models are far better the old ones. Many NTSC users like them, some PAL users too. A TBC help a lot those cards overall, so a wintel PC...

WinTV PVR-350 is a good card, but doesn't capture avi from what I know. I would say it is the mediocre solution that shines because of the zero issues it has! Third party software is needed with this card, as always with all the Hauppauge solutions.

IMO, wait to see what the New WinTV PVR 150 leads... If they fix that audio problem, it could be what you need and at a great price!

[mats.hogberg]

Another vote for Hauppage PVR. Got a 250 myself, only diff (AFAIK) is that 350 has FM tuner too. Sync issues? Never seen (or heard them). "Only" do mpeg captures, but - as my goal is to put it on DVD, there's no downside with that. The day I urge for a AVI version of my capture, that's easily handled with VirtualDubMod.
Only 3rd part soft I use in conjunction with my captures is Womble mpeg vcr, mostly because I find the bundled nanopeg mpeg editor somewhat lacking in the intuitivity department. And of course a real authoring app.

/Mats

[rhegedus]

I will be transfering alot of both PAL and NTSC VHS and Laserdiscs to DVD, as well as editing DV footage.

Find out what format your laserdisc player outputs - pure PAL, pure NTSC or a quasi format like PAL60 etc. Some capture cards might not be able to handle all of them.

I did some PAL capture from a NTSC VHS tape using a PAL60 format a year or so agu using a Pinnacle DC30 card - flawless.

Satstorm is the man to listen to though - he helped me out a lot with my original capture.

[FulciLives]

The ATI AIW cards can capture AVI as well as direct-to-MPEG so the ATI AIW card is most likely what you want.

However these cards seem to be overly sensitive when you have a "bad" video signal and they will not copy from a copy protected source that has MACROVISION copy protection. A simple yet somewhat expensive solution is to use a TBC device. I would not use an ATI AIW without having a TBC and a TBC can go for $200 to $300 US Dollars.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[ronnylov]

A cheap TV-card may be enough to make good quality avi capture. So you may buy two cards instead of one. One optimized for hardware MPEG-2 captures and the other one optimized for avi capture.

There may be issues having two capture cards in one computer. In one of my two computers I have an old ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon AGP card and a DVB-C PCI capture card. If I have done DVB-captures I must restart the computer if I want to use the ATI card (some overlay problem). I use the ATI card for quick analogue realtime MPEG-2 captures but the quality stinks compared to the cheap analogue capture card in my other computer, a Terratec Cinergy 400 TV-card, and the qulity from the DVB-C card is better than both of them when recording the better channels (but it can only capture digital TV streams). But the cinergy can't do realtime MPEG2-captures, it only does avi captures. The ATI card can do both huffyuv and mjpeg avi captures as well as MPEG-2.

If it is correct that newer ATI cards are of better quality than the older ones then maybe the ATI card would be a good compromise if you want only one capture card.Otherwise I suggest buying the Hauppage WinT PVR-350 for hardware MPEG-2 captures and another solution for avi captures (if you think you need it after trying the PVR-350).

[reboot]

There should be no issues with 2 (or more) capture cards in a computer. If there is, it's a fault of the chipset or operating system.
I have now 3 cards in mine, with no troubles.
Grab a 250 for quality mpeg-2 caps, and a $20 BT878 based card for your avi's...although, other than filesize, I see no reason to use avi for much of anything now.

[Fos]

I have an Avermedia DVD ezmaker b8t78A card and..........
Is there any way to capture?!!!! From vhs , the quality was terrible ... and from the tv acepetable...
The apps that coming with him are complety useless, and the quality of the audio sucks complety ( i dont know but I have the sensation that the audio was 16 hz insead of 48 hz that use a dvd , it is a program bug)

[SatStorm]

@Fos: Use the btwincap drivers for your card and virtualVCR to capture. Use picvideo codec or huffyuv
An alternative is to use mainconcept 1.4.2

[Fos]

that was a history........
I bought that card about one year ago. When i realized that existed those drivers me I downloaded it and I proved them in 4 S.O, in the only one that it went was in Windows 98. In the others ,driver did not get to settle and the computer was reboot continuously. Windows did not begin and left one blue screen and i was annoying about that on 3 months. Tired of everything, i contacted with the creator of drivers and he said to me that it was a problem that it had with some cards. It sent drivers to me, modified , now it worked but the capture quality continued being terrible. So I kept it in his box.......
The other day I put it in my computer and when capturing I had left the blocked mouse... what can be happening?

[FulciLives]

The Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI is not a BT based card but instead it uses the Philips chipset. That means you cannot use the BTwincap drivers.

You should get crisp AVI captures with this card. I suggest using the HuffyUV codec and capture in 16-bit 48k PCM Stereo WAV audio format.

NTSC is 704x480 at 29.970fps with this card.

PAL is 702x576 at 25fps (I think it is 702 but not 100% positive on that).

Capture with iuVCR or VirtualVCR.

Do not use the supplied software other than the drivers.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[BrainStorm69]

The Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI is not a BT based card but instead it uses the Philips chipset. That means you cannot use the BTwincap drivers.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Fulci, this is not absolutely correct. Early versions of the DVD EZMaker actually used the BT878 chipset. Later versions (like mine) use the Philips chipset. But one can easily determine which is on the card by looking at it.

[lordsmurf]

What do you want to do?

A high quality MPEG-only card (Hauppauge),
high quality MPEG -or- AVI (ATI AIW),
and realtime/NLE card (Matrox RT2500)

will all accomplish DIFFERENT tasks.

Do you need realtime/NLE? If not, nix the Matrox.
Do you need AVI too? If so, nix the Hauppauge and Canopus
Do you want a new graphics cards too? If so, get ATI. If not, nix ATI.

If you're concerned about high quality MPEG capture, have you considered a DVD recorder? Either the JVC or the Pioneer.

And if you get a DVD recorder for MPEG, how about any run-of-the-mill cheap AVI capture card? Maybe Philips chipset? Or a used ATI AIW? Not BT8x8 or CX8x8, however.

Lots of options that are being overlooked.

Good luck. Sharp smart.

[FulciLives]

The Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI is not a BT based card but instead it uses the Philips chipset. That means you cannot use the BTwincap drivers.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Fulci, this is not absolutely correct. Early versions of the DVD EZMaker actually used the BT878 chipset. Later versions (like mine) use the Philips chipset. But one can easily determine which is on the card by looking at it.

oops

Me bad !!!

I thought it was always the Philips chipset. The one I have is a Philips chipset. Not that I could get it to work but your captures look so darn good (as did mine ... problem was dropped frames). Seems as though I only ever found one other post about install problems so I assume it is just one of those "mystery" instances where my set-up (computer specs) just didn't like the card. One of these days I will try it again ... my new computer (bought December 2004) already has like spyware and adware and all kinds of crap on it ... time soon to re-set to factory settings (re-install) and I will try the Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI again.

However my lowly BT based capture card (AverTV Stereo PCI) still works on my new computer and I'm happy enough with the image quality. I recently posted some pics of a LaserDisc capture on another thread (CLICK HERE)

Anyways it sounds to me (based on the original post in this thread) that the person wants AVI and MPEG capture so that would seem to be an ATI AIW to me ... no?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SatStorm]

That should be Hauppauge wintv PVR 150, if they fix the audio issue some users experience....
(I read latest pre-rease drivers fix that issue, but have other troubles...)

[BrainStorm69]

Anyways it sounds to me (based on the original post in this thread) that the person wants AVI and MPEG capture so that would seem to be an ATI AIW to me ... no?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Actually, with his computer setup (which is fairly high end), he could probably use the DVD EZMaker to capture mpeg also, if there is any decent software available (i.e., that has a good encoder and gives control over bitrates).

But I agree with you re the AIW as long as he gets a TBC or a decent Macrovision removal device.

[aaronrus]

I will be transfering alot of both PAL and NTSC VHS and Laserdiscs to DVD, as well as editing DV footage.

Find out what format your laserdisc player outputs - pure PAL, pure NTSC or a quasi format like PAL60 etc. Some capture cards might not be able to handle all of them.

I did some PAL capture from a NTSC VHS tape using a PAL60 format a year or so agu using a Pinnacle DC30 card - flawless.

Satstorm is the man to listen to though - he helped me out a lot with my original capture.

i have one regular PAL laserdisc player, and one NTSC player.

[rhegedus]

Most capture cards will handle both pure PAL or pure NTSC, you'll just have to switch players when needed.