Which is the best capture device these days?

[fgtan]

Hello my friends.

I bought a studio pctv capture card 03 years ago. I´ve tryed for 02 years experimentals trying to get a decent good quality capture and never had success. So a year ago, I gave up!

All I always wanted is to capture video with the same quality as I see in my 29 inch sony wega tv set.

Example: I capture 03 minutes from a music video clip from MTV and at the same time I watch it in my TV. After I capture, I convert and burn as dvd. When I watch the dvd, the image has a really really below quality then when I watched straight from the cable (live) transmission.

I´ve never got at least the same quality.

I´ve tried several different types of capturing, avi, mpeg2, resolutions, and different softwares as virtual dub, dvd recorder, ulead dvd maker, etc etc.

So, something was really wrong!!! And I gave up!!

Today, I see several capture cards, usb capture systems, new capture softwares.

I want to get a solution that provides me at least the same quality on capture that I watch inmy tv. What do you guys suggest??

1- Can I still use my studio pctv card and may be a new capture software?
2-Should I buy some new capture device? Wich one would provide me such quality?
3-I´ve seen those USB dvd capture devices (at ebay). Do they work fine?

I have a 1.7 processor 512mb gforce video card 80gb hd.

I NEED QUALITY AT A REASONABLE INVESTMENT PRICE!


Thanxs guys!!!

[lordsmurf]

I believe your problem was settings, not the hardware. And beyond that, you're being very vague on exactly what caused the quality hits. Samples would help.

[fgtan]

I believe your problem was settings, not the hardware. And beyond that, you're being very vague on exactly what caused the quality hits. Samples would help.

Thank you my friend for the inf.

Sorry to be vague... The last trial I made, wich it was the best result I ever had, I captured from my "direct tv" set using a SVHS cable and my studio pctv card. The software I used was windvd recorder, so, from there, I directly burnt a dvd. I captured as DVD using the highest bitrate available.

And I did not have the same quality as watching the TV.

Thanxs

[thecoalman]

And I did not have the same quality as watching the TV.

Thanxs

You can't expect it to be an exact copy, you can expect it to be very close. As LS suggested most likely it was however you set the card up. You need to supply a little more info on what the capture setting are.

Let me ask you this, have you viewed it on a TV? You can't judge the final product by what your seeing on your computer monitor.

[normcar]

I use the Hauppage PVR USB2 (but the 150, 250, and 350 are very similar), and you can capture very high quality MPEG captures. They have on board MPEG processing, which takes processing off the the CPU. MPEGs are good if you do not want to do extensive editing other than removing commercials etc. Get an AVI capture card, and caputre using a non-lossy codec, if you need to capture for extensive video processing such as wedding videos.

[fgtan]

And I did not have the same quality as watching the TV.

Thanxs

You can't expect it to be an exact copy, you can expect it to be very close. As LS suggested most likely it was however you set the card up. You need to supply a little more info on what the capture setting are.

Let me ask you this, have you viewed it on a TV? You can't judge the final product by what your seeing on your computer monitor.

Thank you my friend!! Yes, this is exactly the problem.

All I want to do is capture live video and burn into dvds to watch them o my dvd player.
Everytime I do this, it provides me a very low quality result, comparing with what I watch directly on the TV.

Concerning the capture card settings, what could be done to provide a better result??? What type of setup informations from my card would help you guys to help me??

Thanxs

[normcar]

I would also check the capture resolution setting on your current card, and I also recommend Monster cables between components.

[normcar]

You should be able to find how many MB/Min or some equivalent settings.

[lordsmurf]

The software I used was windvd recorder,

This is the culprit. That software sucks. It forces a blended deinterlace and has blocks on scene changes. You likely had a ghosty/blocky mess that looked like crap. That sound about right?

[fgtan]

The software I used was windvd recorder,

This is the culprit. That software sucks. It forces a blended deinterlace and has blocks on scene changes. You likely had a ghosty/blocky mess that looked like crap. That sound about right?

It seems you´re right...when you talk about blocks you mean those small squares??? If this is what you meant, you´re right. I do not have a sharp image quality at all also.
Wich would be other capture software to give a try?

[normcar]

I thought you said on the first post, that you had tried Virtual Dub and other capture software. Have you actually tried any of the other capture software, and also checked guides for these software packages to try using the suggest settings?

[lordsmurf]

How does this work for you?
http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/avi/avi.htm#virtualdub

[fgtan]

I thought you said on the first post, that you had tried Virtual Dub and other capture software. Have you actually tried any of the other capture software, and also checked guides for these software packages to try using the suggest settings?

Normcar, thanks for the help.

Just clearing things up... I´ve tried several softwares before, always following the tutorials. I´ve captured in avi - with no codec (virtual dub), converted to mpeg2(tmpenc) and burnt the dvd
The most accetable result, was, capturing straight to mpg2, using windvd recorder and burning to the dvd.

When you guys say "card settings" you mean the settings of my card, such as color, luminance, bright, etc etc etc, or you mean the "capture" settings, such as resolution, codec, etc etc etc.

thanks guys

[fgtan]

How does this work for you?
http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/avi/avi.htm#virtualdub

I am not able to access this link...is it on???? Is there any other one with the inf.???

[lordsmurf]

Yes, the site is there.

[gshelley61]

Not to throw a monkey wrench into the discussion... but based on what you are trying to do, I think you would be very happy with a standalone DVD recorder. I was also frustrated by the results I was getting using capture cards and software DVD encoding. Then I tried a DVD recorder on a whim and was almost shocked by how much better the finished DVD's looked. And the speed... No more overnight encoding! DVD recorders work in real time.

I think you will find that most name brand DVD recorders do a better job of sampling, processing and encoding analog video sources than typical computer capture cards do. Not to say that there aren't any good computer capture cards out there... but think about it. JVC, Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic, etc. have all been in the professional broadcast and consumer audio/video business for decades, designing and building some of the best equipment in the world. They know what they're doing when it comes to video. Computer card manufacturers don't have this kind of background.

FWIW, YMMV

[LordVader]

My first TV card, was a bt848 that i bought at the end of 1996.

Since then, i've tried like 2356 tv cards, and i've wasted most of my money, buying cards that at some point of my life, i tough were going to give me the results and the 1:1 quality that i always wanted.

And maybe you won't beleive this, but after so many years of frustration, i never tought that something so simple, like just a bt8x8 would give me the results i always dreamed.

Anyway... the truth is, that the TV card i use right now, is the BT848 that i bought 8 years ago.

Check the Ripley's beleive it or not, and you'll see a picture of mine in the "video capture" section .

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All you got to do is the following:

1 - Download the famous btwincap Drivers,

http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/btwincap/btwdmdrvinstaller5.3.8.zip

2 - Go to "VirtualDub" or "AVI_IO"
3 - Set the resolution to 720x480, YUY2 Format
4 - Set the colors:

Ok this is tricky.
The easiest way to this, is taking a picture with powerDVD to any of the movies you have at home, save the picture to BMP, and then plug your standalone DVD player with the same movie at that FRAME.

Now open your BMP and try to match the colors in the picture. Then, set the Sharpness to "59", and when i say 59, it means 59, not 60 or 58.

5 - Use PicVIDEO JPEG compression codec at Quality 19 / 4-2-2

6 - Plug your DirecTV decoder using an S-VIDEO cable.

7 - Do your capture at 29.970 / 48.000 Khz Stereo.

8 - Encode your AVI file to MPEG-2 "Interlaced Mode" with "Top-A field first" ( also known ad Upper Field First).


That's it, nobody will tell you the difference bewteen direcTV and your captures.

Good Luck.


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