Which CARD to buy...?

[monki]

Hi,

I'm a newbie... I would like to convert super8 from my camcorder to vcd or better. I only have composite outs on my camcorder and need to purchase a video card. I'm not interested in TV features just capture. I would like to spend less than $250 on a card if possible but after looking at all the rated cards here I'm still confused. My system is a K7 1.4ghz with 256 ram and an 80gig drive... For software I have MovieFactory, mediastudio 6 ... any help would be appreciated on the card purchase... thanks!

[gNOMEintheRedHat]

Hey monki,

Sorry it took so long for a reply, my boss expected me to WORK today! Can you belive the NERVE of some people!

I've had GREAT success with the I/O Magic PC PVR card. It cost me $45 at CompUSA.

I have had it working in MediaStudio, BUT i upgraded to WinXP and it's not seeing the card now....

I haven't spent much time playing with it yet...The BOSS again......

It has the TV features, but there MORE THAN FREE at this price.

These are actualy PINNICALE Systems cards, just renamed.

Good Editing,
gNOME.....

[monki]

Thanks for the reply Gnome but it looks like I might get my hands on a Radeon wonder card DDR. From what I've read here it sounds pretty sweet... next question, How many gigs does an hour of mpeg2 video eat up ? Anyone ? Buller ? Buller ? hehe.. thanks in advance.

[dumwaldo]

it all depends on the bitrate you use.

standard VCD bitrate of 1150/224 is about 10 meg a minute

using this as a benchmark it is easy to guess the aproximate size of your video. 3000/224 would come in somewhere around 30 meg a minute.

if you plan to capture straight to MPEG-2 i would suggest looking at an external hardware capture device like the dazzle DVC2. there are a few different hardware mpeg capturre devices and i would suggest comparing before buying.

if you are getting a card with no hardware acceleration for mpeg captures then it is much more realistic to capture uncompressed or lossless compression avi files.

uncompressed is about 300 meg a minute

capturing using the lossless huffy codec is about 100 meg a minute.

in my opinion you need a bare minimum of 20 gig that you can isolate on its own partition to use for capturing. defragment this drive often, it will help prevent droped frames during captures.

[monki]

Thanks Dumwaldo and sorry I wasn't more specific. Mostly due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. I have a 7200 rpm, 40 gig, maxtor so it sounds like that will probably work. I use the program diskeeper to defrag automatically and can set it for hourly if need be. It's a great program and beats the pants off windows defragger.

Next Question : I have my old cables off a ATI All in Wonder card. The original 4 meg, Rage II chip. Does anyone know if these cables will work on a new Radeon 32m, DDR wonder board ? It looks like the same thing from the pictures but then again one wire could be different and I'd be out of luck. Reason being I see alot of cards for sale (OEM) without the cables. Or maybe somewhere I can buy the cables seperately. Thanks in advance... later.