Capture card or dvd recorder for extreme motion capturing

[dimtim]

Hi guys I am looking for a capture card for one purpose and that is to capture tennis matches, cut out commercials, and put them on dvd. The other option is a dvd recorder I guess, but I would really like to be able to edit out commericals. I really hate first party software that has limited options, so it would be great if it was a card that either had a lot of options or you could use freeware software to capture. Also, tennis has high motion and so I would like a card that can handle that. I wouldn't like to spend that much (less than 100) and I don't really care whether it captures in avi or mpeg as long as it is good enough quality to handle high-motion, long tennis matches.

Thanks a ton
Tim

[edDV]

Hi guys I am looking for a capture card for one purpose and that is to capture tennis matches, cut out commercials, and put them on dvd.

...

Thanks a ton
Tim

Key phrase "put them on dvd"

Do you mean "put them on dvd" and play them on a DVD player? Or will you sacrafice that for motion accuracy and computer playback only.

For DVD player playback you are limited by MPeg compression. Capture uncompressed or DV and author at the highest bitrate (1hr mode) to preserve motion accuracy.

If DVD player playback is less important, capture uncompressed or DV and save to DVDR as huffyuv or DV. That gives maximum motion resolution from a TV broadcast but at the cost of ~15-20min capacity (after edit) per DVDR.

[vhelp]

I would go with the dvd recorder.

But word of warning or advice follows..

First -
What is your source medium ?
If it is anything "digital" ie, Satellite, or digital Cable, then you
will have mostly pixelation in sports materials. Add to that, sports
are shot at 29.970 fps (or result in a final 29.970 fps source)

If your source medium is Analog Cable, then you have a much better chance
at producing quality images. IMHO, and especially for sports, you always
want your source to be in Analog format. Digital sounds great, and may
be so, but so far, in todays programing, bitrate is starved, and the end
result is almost always pixelation. And because of this, and if your
end choice is a dvd recorder, you have lesser chance at obtaining quality
images. Better for you (in this case) to go with an Analog Capture device
for these type situations. Then, note my Second points below.


Second -
This is sports. All sports are Interlace. And because of this, you will
have more problems maintaining quality throughout the game on account of
this. Plus, you can't reduce frame rate because this would destroy most
motion fluidness. No IVTC tricks here. Sports is always 29.970 fps.
Thus, interlace sources material just requires more bitrate in order to
reproduce much quality images.

-vhelp 3792

[edDV]

I would go with the dvd recorder.

But word of warning or advice follows..

First -
What is your source medium ?
If it is anything "digital" ie, Satellite, or digital Cable, then you
will have mostly pixelation in sports materials. Add to that, sports
are shot at 29.970 fps (or result in a final 29.970 fps source)

If your source medium is Analog Cable, then you have a much better chance
at producing quality images. IMHO, and especially for sports, you always
want your source to be in Analog format. Digital sounds great, and may
be so, but so far, in todays programing, bitrate is starved, and the end
result is almost always pixelation. And because of this, and if your
end choice is a dvd recorder, you have lesser chance at obtaining quality
images. Better for you (in this case) to go with an Analog Capture device
for these type situations. Then, note my Second points below.

Agree in general that cable/sat "digital" sources make for poor motion resolution but MPeg can be interlaced (ie. 59.94 fields per second) and ESPN usually is sent as interlaced MPeg2 over satellite but local cable companies may screw it up.

ESPN HD (also ABC and FOX sports HD) send 720p at 59.94 frames per second which rules for sports.

Second -
This is sports. All sports are Interlace. And because of this, you will
have more problems maintaining quality throughout the game on account of
this. Plus, you can't reduce frame rate because this would destroy most
motion fluidness. No IVTC tricks here. Sports is always 29.970 fps.
Thus, interlace sources material just requires more bitrate in order to
reproduce much quality images.

All sports are, and should be 59.94 fields per second interlace unless they are 59.94 frames per second progressive which is better.

In general, 29.97 frame (59.94 field) interlace is better at SD for motion resolution and HD 720p 54.94 frame rates put 1080i 29.97 frame rates to shame for high action sports.

In the SD world, interlace gives better motion resolution and better overall perceived resolution at a given bandwidth. The tradeoff is perceived vertical resolution and deinterlacing difficulty when motion is present.

This concept maps to HD as well and is the reason 1080i is used for low motion and 720p is used for sports. During the transition to resolution, ABC, ESPN and Fox haven't given up much in resolution tradeoff for dominance in sports motion precision.

If you ask me, 1280x720p 59.94 progressive refresh movies aren't bad either. This is exactly what 720x480 progressive DVD is all about.

[dimtim]

Hey thanks for the advice. I do want to play them in a dvd player (mostly so I don't have to store movies on my hard drive). I should have clarified it this, but I have analog cable, so you're suggesting that a capture card would be better for an analog cable source? Do I want to capture uncompressed avi or MPEG? I really do want to edit commericals out though, so I would like to be able to re-encode.

Thanks a ton
Tim

[edDV]

Hey thanks for the advice. I do want to play them in a dvd player (mostly so I don't have to store movies on my hard drive). I should have clarified it this, but I have analog cable, so you're suggesting that a capture card would be better for an analog cable source? Do I want to capture uncompressed avi or MPEG? I really do want to edit commericals out though, so I would like to be able to re-encode.

Thanks a ton
Tim

Uncompressed capture would be the cheapest way to go, then edit, then encode to interlaced DVD MPeg2 using the least amount of motion compression. I'm assuming you want best stop-field performance.

If you want to use a DVD recorder or MPeg capture card, use interlaced DVD MPeg2 with the least amount of motion compression (1hr mode). Edit with a simple MPeg chopper like MPEG-VCR.

[Barnabas]

You want to capture uncompressed, then you can use non real-time mpeg 2, 2 pass (or higher) encoding for the best possible quality.

[gadgetguy]

If you don't mind an occasional blip, editing commercials out doesn't require re-encoding. Some editors will allow for frame accurate editing and only re-encode what's necessary. If that's all you want to do, then go ahead and capture to MPEG. If you want to do things like filter out logos, you're better off capturing to lightly compressed avi (Huffy or DV).

[handyguy]

With a dvd recorder with a HD you can edit out commercials & write to a dvd pretty easily.