camcorder to PC. firewire or capture card?

[PJGS]

I've done some reading regarding this issue and some doubts have crossed my mind.
I'd really apreciate it if you could cast some light on this.

1. Using a firewire connection yields high quality video but what about disc space?. Does it takes too much space?. For instance, how much space I'd need to capture a one-hour footage and compress it into a dvd?

2. Is the quality of a capture card much worse?. I'm talking about those cards that can compress the video.

I tought that if the capture card gives good results I'd could have one. I'd have the extra benefit of being able to watch tv on the pc.
Otherwise I'll buy a firewire card and a bigger HD.

[pchan]

@ PJPS,
For firewire transfer to computer, it's 13gig per hour of video. Once convert to MPEG2, 1 hour of video is about 2.6gig at 6,000 kbits per second. If you do TV recording often, then it's best you get a DVD recorder with hard disk. Occasional recording, a TV card is good enough e.g. Hauppauge WinTV PVR card.

[mikiem]

FWIW agree about a DVR being perhaps the best choice.

That said, what you want depends on what you want to do. You can rig a firewire set-up to watch TV on your PC, but if that's all you want to do, it's expensive. DV is not the best format if all you want to do is watch the recording on your PC, but it can be if you want to edit and get really good quality encoding and burning to DVD.

A cheap TV card will let you watch TV and do some recording, but if you want a quality DVD, you'll have to invest more money in a better card or ati aiw etc...

Anyway, my only advice is to decide as best possible what you want to be able to do, & how much time and money you want to spend -- then you can make a choice you'll be happy with, hopefully for quite some time.

[SingSing]

I was using ATI AIW for quite a well before I swithed to firewire, because I bought a miniDV cam afew years ago.

ack them most of the capture card cannot capture and convert to DVD mpeg2. Is there a card can do a good job on capture video to DVD mpeg2 now ?

[PJGS]

Sry, I failed to mention I want to capture from a camcorder.
A friend just told me that firewire is the way to go as a capture card won't be very good for that.
Btw, he told me that firewire cards with via chips can cause some headaches. Do you confirm that?.

[Snakebyte1]

If you are transferring from a camcorder, firewire is the right choice. Firewire is a data transfer, so there is no loss in video quality. The resultant AVI file is the same quality as what you have on the tape. The catch is that it will be a large file, so you need sufficient storage space.

Connecting a camcorder to a PC via Firewire has other benefits, such as if you use Adobe Premiere, you can control the camera from the application. (Ie use software to mark the start/endof the clips you want and then let Premiere do a batch import - no manual FF and REW needed). I'm sure other editing application do this as well.

A capture card will result in some quality loss, although how much depends on the card. With this process you take yor digital information on the tape, the camera puts it into analog, then then the capture card has to convert the analog back to digital.

Look for a Firewire card with a TI chip.

D.

[Cornucopia]

Firewire is PREFERRED for quality, if your camcorder is DIGITAL. It's possible you have a (S)VHS/(Hi)8mm camcorder, in which case you could either get a pass-through converter box--such as Canopus ADVC-100 etc (sic)--and firewire card, or you could just get a capture card. Capture cards can be:

1. Uncompressed
2. MPEG compressed
3. MJPEG compressed
4. Proprietarily compressed (like ATI)
5. Compression selectable
6. Some or all of the above.

Some cards have hardware assisted compression (e.g. ATI cards and some MPEG cards), which usually improves quality and lowers load on CPU.

What's the percentage of expected footage from camcorder vs. from TV/Sat/Cable feed?


Scott

[PJGS]

My camcorder is new. I bought it 2 weeks ago.
The outputs are:
USB
A 3.5 mm jack hole for audio and video ( a 3.5 mm jack-RCA cable was included)
A s-video
DV (4-pin firewire)

I talked about a capture card just because mine just said goodbye a couple of months ago so I thought I could buy a new one and use the RCA or s-video inputs to capture from the camcorder.
Since this method gives unsatisfactory results I guess I'll stick to the firewire option and continue to use my good old video recorder to record tv programs that are broadcast when I'm not at home.

Sry if I'm making things seem more difficult than they actually are but I'm new to the camcorder -> PC experience.

[mikiem]

"4. Proprietarily compressed (like ATI) "

If you meant besides the other options as #6, cool. If not, then just a correction.

[Richard_G]

Not only will you get best quality using Firewire to transfer from camcorder to PC, Firewire cards are dirt cheap! If you want to be able to watch TV on your computer, TV cards are dirt cheap too. If you want something decent to do both, the cost will be far greater.

For a Firewire card see item 5051, for a TV card see item 4058 http://www.svp.co.uk/products-list.php?pg=3

This company is in the UK but will price in Euros and supply to Europe.

[Cornucopia]

Not only will you get best quality using Firewire to transfer from camcorder to PC, Firewire cards are dirt cheap! If you want to be able to watch TV on your computer, TV cards are dirt cheap too. If you want something decent to do both, the cost will be far greater.

For a Firewire card see item 5051, for a TV card see item 4058 http://www.svp.co.uk/products-list.php?pg=3

This company is in the UK but will price in Euros and supply to Europe.

If you've got the card slots, you may want to get 1 FW and 1 TV card--it's probably still cheaper than a single card that does both...

@mikiem: I meant as one of a number of options, don't know where you're going with the "correction".

Scott

[pchan]

Sry, I failed to mention I want to capture from a camcorder.
A friend just told me that firewire is the way to go as a capture card won't be very good for that.
Btw, he told me that firewire cards with via chips can cause some headaches. Do you confirm that?.

Your friend is correct on both count. Transfer from Camcorder to PC in DV format through firewire is the best way. No loss in video quality and DV format is much easier to edit. From personal experience, stay away from VIA chipset firewire card. NEC or TI chip is fine.

[zlebronjames]

I think Canopus ADVC 50 is cheap and quite good!

[kschang]

You need an empty 100 GB HD to even THINK about editing video any way.

[mikiem]

"@mikiem: I meant as one of a number of options, don't know where you're going with the "correction". "

Teasing really :P

Don't mind folks praising or slamming the aiw's as a rule, but read your post as *maybe* saying they only capture proprietary. If that was the case, and I admit to wording poorly , I wanted to say something on the order of: "Thhhppppppppssss", but didn't want to wipe the spray off my monitor. :P

[Cornucopia]

I don't have one myself, but I assumed that they (ATI AIW cards) allowed other non-hardware-assisted codec choices, whereas the use of the ATI codec would be hardware-assisted. Am I correct?

It's all good! I think the OP is on the right track now...

Scott

[PJGS]

You need an empty 100 GB HD to even THINK about editing video any way.

Are you serious?

Cutting some parts from a 1-hour footage, make some basic effects and burn it into a dvd-r can swallow all that precious space?.

[Cornucopia]

Assuming you do only 1 project at a time, and you don't frameserve, this is probably what you'll need...

1 Hour of captured footage (DV = 25Mbps): ~13GB +
1 Hour of effects/rendered footage: ~13GB +
1 Hour of Encoded MPEG2 video & AC3 Audio (Highest DVD bitrate 9.8Mbps) = ~4.37GB +
1 Compiled DVD DiscImage/Video_TS = ~4.37GB +
10% extra space, just in case...

Equals 38 1/4 GB, so a 40GB HD will just about do it.

However, these days even a 120GB HD is <$100US if you shop well. That's nothing!

Scott

[PJGS]

Well, I have no choice then. I'll have to cough up some extra 78 euro (95 usd) for a 160GB hitachi and get rid of one of my good old seagate.