Suggestions on the Best Quality TV Tuner/Capture Card??

[strep]

I want to record TV episodes to 20-30minute VCDs. I am operating a P4 1.4, 256Mb. I have looked at so many different TV tuner cards and there are pluses and minuses to all of them. I really don't care about the software which comes with them. Software can be obtained separately. I just want a TV tuner that will capture crystal video and a software solution that will enable me to burn to VCD. From what I've read, it seems like real-time encoding may NOT be the way to go. I'd appreciate any suggestions...Especially on the TV Tuner/capture. Thanks a million!!

-Strep

[Betamax]

Best buy is capture cards with onboard Codec's (hardware compression). So you'll keep the best quality at highest levels.
If your system does have AGP, then best buy would be "ATI All-in-Wonder RADEON" with 32/64 DDR (DDR = video memory).
You will have to remove your current VGA-card (because this ATI card is one too), but you'll get a lot in return of it.

Otherwise, take for instance a DV-500 card of Pinacle (which has onboard codec too but no VGA-card). This card is PCI.

If you're 'rich', then the best buy would be Matrox's RT-2000, which consists of 2 cards (1xAGP and 1xPCI). Last price I knew was around £ 2,000.00 (UKPounds), but this is almost a professional capture card...

[seinman]

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"ATI All-in-Wonder RADEON" with 32/64 DDR (DDR = video memory).
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actually, DDR stands for Double Data Rate, which is just standard memory that is faster. it can be used for standard memory, not only video memory, and it is much better then standard memory (from what i've heard) perfomance wise, which is why most high end video boards use it, and is also why people relate DDR with video ram, when indeed it's not.

also, yesterday i bought an ATI all in wonder 128 16mb pci card....but i'm on vacation so i can't try it out till friday....does anyone else here have this board? how does it work? i only bought it because my 2 year old wintv GO pci board bit the dust, and the ATI one was drastically marked down in price.

[Bizarro]

I have the ATW 16meg and it works great the highest capture I'm able to obtain is 480x480 without dropping frames @ 2.02 megs a sec .
..................................Bizarro

[heyerolla]

I have the all-in-wonder card and while the tv tuner is very viewable, the capturing leaves little to be desired. When I press record, the prompt says unable to draw to this format. This always happens when I try to record as mpeg. When I record as avi, the playback looks crappy. Any suggestions? Anyone?

[Quan-Time]

heyerolla: yer, what capture program you using?? use vdub and turn overlay and preview off. you wont see what your recording, its just a common problem with some cards..
then you can record in any format.. i do 384x576 then reduce it 2:1 so its 384x288 and it looks sweet as.. if you cant figgure out what i mean,., e-mail me and i will talk you thru it.. or read:
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~quantime/divx/divx_guide.htm
its for recording/streaming into divx, but will work with other codecs.. its just some basics..

[SHS]

ATI useing soft captureing it DO NOT have Real Hardware.
You went see real power
http://shs-tv.m0ss.com/images/real_power.jpg
You ATI user should real look at CPU usage

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SHS on 2001-07-21 20:30:56 ]</font>