need advise choosing video carpture card

[3390]

i'm looking for a video capture card to transfer my home videos from the camcorder (and some from vhs tape) to dvd. in the past, i tried using this external device by dazzle, but the quality was really poor and the audio doesn't sync with the video. there were just too many problems using that dazzle device, such as: audio/video doesn't sync, color contrast was really poor, video quality was very poor (lots of pixels), etc..

i'm thinking of getting an internal capture card to replace my current agp video card so i can hook-up my camcorder/vcr to capture using s-video/composite/component connection. i also need to edit the videos to cut out unwanted scenes from various spots thruout the video (beginning, in between, and at the end) and merge them together. also, i need to make menu and burn on dvd.

can someone give me some suggestions? i was looking at an ati 9600se card. any suggestions? i think somewhere around $100 is ok. thanks!

[jameshgross]

Hauppauge Computer Works makes excellent products check out their web site. www.hauppauge.com

[anitract]

I'm in the ATI All-in-Wonder crowd. You can get a used card for a great price.

[SingSing]

DVD recorders now cost down to US$79.00.

The most effictive approach for VHS/8mm to DVD, have to be record to DVD+R/W then edit at your lesure later, or straight to DVD-R.

I went thru ATI-AIW, DV-cam passthru, and many other methods.

None of them work better than DVD recorder.

[redwudz]

Those are all good options. One more would be a unit like a Canopus ADVC-100, but they are a lot more than $100US. But you might find a similar unit or a used one on EBay.

It's too bad your camcorder doesn't have DV and passthrough, as that works the same as the ADVC unit. You would only need an inexpensive Firewire card then.

[3390]

i have a pioneer standalone dvd recorder, but i'm not able to edit out the scenes i don't want since i use dvd-r so i prefer a video capture card. besides, those standalone recorders doesn't have many menu templates and inputting text is such a hazzle. and i'm not able to input foreign characters.

it doesn't have to be within $100. it's ok if it's a little more. mine camcorder does have dv and i do have firewire card, but some of the videos have already been transferred from the camcorder to vhs tape, so i would still have to transfer those to dvd thru vhs.

btw, i don't want any external device. that's why i'm opting for a internal card this time.

[redwudz]

Understood. I just like the ADVC solution as it has locked audio/video sync. That has been my biggest problem with VHS captures, especially if I need to edit. DV is easy to edit, as every frame is a keyframe and frame accurate edits are simple.

If you are looking for a internal solution, maybe a ADVC 50. I've had capture cards and I like DV a lot better. No dropped frames, no sync problems and easy to edit. I use VirtualDub Mod most of the time for rough editing. I then frameserve the edited video directly to TMPGEnc for encoding. This saves on hard drive space and time. I have a lot of old VHS tapes and this has made the conversion easier for me.

But if you are interested in capture cards, you might want to visit lordsmurf's site. http://digitalfaq.com/

His site is down at the moment, but should be up and running again shortly.

In the interim, visit our 'Capture Cards' page to the left for some information on what's available.

[jman98]

I have the Hauppauge PVR-350 and it is the best capture card I have ever owned. Dazzle used to make really good PCI cards such as the old DVC II, which was a great card in its day, but they now have gone to USB based cards and many are not happy with that decision. I'm not a big fan of ATI cards. Hauppauge uses a hardware chip on the card to encode, which I consider a superior option to ATI's reliance on on-the-fly software encoding. The quality you get with ATI cards is very system dependent and I prefer to use cards with hardware encoding because it takes the reliance off the system and puts it on the card, where I think it should be. All do not agree with me on this. If you have a pretty recent PC, ATI is probably OK for you, but it's not the best choice for older PCs.

[BrainStorm69]

i have a pioneer standalone dvd recorder, but i'm not able to edit out the scenes i don't want since i use dvd-r so i prefer a video capture card. besides, those standalone recorders doesn't have many menu templates and inputting text is such a hazzle. and i'm not able to input foreign characters.

Have you considered just recording to dvd-rw on the Pioneer, and then ripping to your computer? You can then edit and re-author to your heart's content, as well as re-use the dvd-rw for your next capture.