Now... talk me out of the DV500 Plus card...

[kitty]

Thanks to all who replied on the Snazzi III - with something I read about problems I will wait on that one.

The ADS Instant DVD sound great (wish it was VBR on USB2 to get 10Mbs)....

I am now fixed on the Pinnacle DV500 Plus. For $490 you get full Premier 6.0 and other software. It has both firewire and analog inputs (but they give little documentation on capture, esp analog). It has onboard MPEG2 but it seems to want to only capture 720x480 NTSC which would blow if I wanted SVCD. No help on their forums so I asked some questions & will report.

Any of you have additional info?

Thanks, Da Kitty

[SHS]

Go for it but I wouldn't give $10 for it this over cost junk.
Snazzi III has MPEG2 Hardware codec
Pinnacle DV500 Plus has Hardware DV codec all real doing is paying for Adobe Premier v6.0.

[kitty]

Well blow me down - I thought I read it had a MPEG2 chip onboard. What the heck is their hardware really for then?

[SHS]

Read and Lean
http://www.videoguys.com/dv500plus.html
DV500 plus: Real-time features where it counts!
Real-time multi-track audio mixing with gain and pan adjustments
Real-time wide screen format support (16:9) for video, transitions and titles
Real-time Image Correction filters for changing saturation, contrast and brightness controls
Pinnacle DV² Speed Codec with Dual Processor support for ultra fast DV mastering
Monitor titles with real-time video output monitor
Create CG pages over background video track with new compose-in-context
Export Formats: MPEG-2 (DVD compliant), MPEG-1, MP3, Real Media and Windows Media

It dosen't say
Real-time: MPEG-2 (DVD compliant), MPEG-1, MP3, Real Media and Windows Media

No it not a MPEG2 chip it a Real-time video processing for the DV format for effects, transitions and titles.

[dgraham]

Make sure you find out if Pinnacle is going to support it under XP. They have announced no XP drivers will be developed for some of the products they are still marketing heavily.

[norm]

The DV500 is a C-Cube DVxplore or maybe it's a DVxpress based card either way it will do Mpeg2 Video in Hardware no problems. Just like a DVC2, Megvc2, DV1000, RT2000, RT2500 and the list goes on and on and on.
However the Snazzi 3 does have Video and Audio hardware encode on board. That's a plus.
But if you need DV then go for the DV500.

Cheers

[norm]

I forgot to say it will most likely only encode 720 x 480 NTSC 720 x 576 PAL. It probably doesn't do SVCD. You would have to read the specs.
But it is designed as a DV card primarily.
AS SHS says it will export to a number of formats and the C-Cube chip will do the real time transcoding and effects from DV to Mpeg2

Cheers

[teljeur]

I am using the dv500+ for two years now. I've made DVD-R's with the pioneer A03 burner from several sources. VHS tape and home movies filmed with a sony pc100E dv-camera. The dv500 does have a hardware Mpeg1 and Mpeg2 codec. I am running it on a Win2000 system. It is a total solution if you want to burn your movies on DVD-R

[kitty]

Finally someone who uses this piece of machinery...

So it does have MPEG hardware. I too want to do VHS/Video8 and TRV-900 DV movie editing for SVCD and DVD+RW (eventually).

One off the wall question - if I needed to back up some VHS tapes does it have macrovision?

DO you use the included software to burn to DVD or have a 3rd party package?

Thanks, Da Kitty

[SHS]

teljeur how long dose take you to make MPEG2 file?.
Starting with 1 hour clip no editing just make that 1 hour in to MPEG2 format?.

[ashtones]

I have had the DV500 plus for a couple months now. It does not capture in mpeg format, just AVI. You can export to mpeg2 but I have found it easier to just frameserve to tmpenc. This card is more for video editing then say just making dvd's & vcd's. It's a great cars but when I buy a dvd burner I will probably get a Dazzle II for converting.

[kitty]

It is pretty clear it doesn't capture in MPEG, just DV (the analog too??). But there are conflicting reports that the chip can encode the DV to MPEG2 in hardware when rendering. The Pinnacle answer forum at http://pinnaclesys.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/pinnaclesys.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=...Z2U9MQ**&p_li= states "Exporting to MPEG2 is useful if your production target is a DVD or MPEG2-CD. During this process, your project will be rendered into separate video and audio files that are compatible with authoring applications like
Pinnacle Systems Impression. Since the DV500 includes a hardware MPEG2 encoder, the export process is much faster than software-based solutions while providing an excellent level of quality."


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kitty on 2002-01-06 17:00:01 ]</font>

[ashtones]

Yes it will export to mpeg2 but it is not real time and in my opinion it is not a whole lot faster then using other encoders. Also with the software version 2.0 there is a bug in the mpeg2 export that causes a bit spike a the very end of the file making it unusable in anything but Pinnacle impression. I heard this was fixed in the 3.0 release which I have but have not installed because of instalation issuses. Apparently if you don't completely restore your system to a pre-DV500 state the new version will not work properly.

[kitty]

I read about that bug but I would try the 3.0 drivers with a new purchase - sounds like they addressed alot of problems. There is conflicting info on their own web site if Impression DVD SE or Impression CD-Pro is included for mastering disks.

[ashtones]

Mine came with se. I have never used it. Not even once on the account it will not do vcd only dvd compliant files. Might work good when I get a burner. Like I said though I have every intention of getting a Dazzle II or equivilant.

[teljeur]

Ok, many questions, here are some answers.

First of all, the bug in the Mpeg2 export with the high bitrate is solved in version 3.0. There are no installation problems as far i now. I had v 2.1 installed, when installing the v 3.0 drivers it will first uninstall the old drivers restart the computer and install the v 3.0 drivers. After a second restart of the computer u are up and running with version 3.0.

The software i use.

For capturing i use Scenalyser live. http://www.scenalyzer.com I think this works better than the tool form pinnacle. It can capture from the dv input or analog. If capturing from a vhs tape with macrovision protection it will give the same problems as copying it to another tape.

To edit the movies i use the software from the pinnacle bundle, premiere etc.

From the timeline in premiere i export the movie to Mpeg2. I use a fixed bitrate of 6 kb/s (max 75 min movie on a dvd-r) for dv and 4 kb/s ( max 140 min movie on a dvd-r) for vhs clips. It will take about 20 min to export a one hour clip on a 800 Mhz pc.

Normaly i've got 3 audio tracks, front, back and music. So i export this into 3 seperate wav file's. Then in cooleditPro i prepare them for the Sonic Foundry Soft encode. With Soft Encode u can generate a 5.1 ac3 file.

Then i author a dvd with SpruceUp And finaly i burn the DVD-r with Nero.

I hope this will answer some questions here.