VHS/TV Capture HW/SW recommendation for WinXP ?

[schroederp]

My system is a Athlon TB1,33GHz with 512 MB RAM and GF2GTS Video Card, running WinXP Professional. I´d like to capture TV and VHS, convert it to MPEG1/VCD format. From what I´ve read so far there are several capture cards which cause trouble in a XP system.

and, btw, I´m not going to do this on a (semi)professional basis, so I´d appreciate hints on budget solutions...

[catgoat1792]

I was coming here to ask the same thing, only a little more detailed. I have seen video capture software at places like Best Buy that comes with a USB video input....thingy. heh. Well, i am not looking for professional quality, but I was wondering whether or not to get something like that, or a video card with some inputs on it. I am looking to capture VHS and TV just like our friend here. I am running WinXP on a Sony Vaio, w/ a P4 2.4, 512 mb ram.

[theDruid]

hi,

the analogue capture card that i've got is an old AverMedia TV98 - see the Entries for AverTV98 in this site's Capture Card section.

It's a real budget solution - apparently you can pick them up on ebay for GB£20-30 or so. The real bonus is that the card is based on the popular (albeit a little dated) bt848 chip, which means that you can use VirtualDub to capture.

I personally use the following set up to convert VHS to VCD:

* VCR connected to AverTV98 capture card by Composite cable (allthough there's also a RF/aerial & a S-Video/S-VHS connector on the card)
* Capture with VirtualDub & HuffyUV codec
* Encode to MPEG1/VCD with TMPGEnc
* Burn with Nero

There are many different ways to do it, but this gives me results that I'm very happy with - and the only software above which is not freeware is Nero (and if you wanted to do the burning step with freeware, then there are burning/authoring progs like VCDEasy which come highly recommended.)

As for XP compatibility - with the latest 2K/XP drivers & software downloaded from AverMedia's site, I've had no problems with XP Pro or 2K Pro.

So, there will be many other options no doubt, but if you're looking for good value for money, I'd really recommend that you get one of these cards if you see one on ebay, get the software (Tools section of the left), and read up on the guides on this site.

For the money we're talking about, you can't really go wrong!!

cheers,

mcdruid.

PS. I'm hoping to do a guide on the VHS-VCD process I outline above soon, as I keep getting PM'ed about it by visitors to the forum.. hopefully before x-mas!

[rustic]

I've got the AverTV Stereo, and I like it a lot. I have basically the same software setup as the guy with the AverTV98, and it works like a charm.

[theDruid]

not wishing to foul the forum with advertising, but there's a TV98 card available on ebay in the UK (but they'll ship worldwide) at the moment (highest bid is £5.50 + p&p as I write this!)

That auction'll be over in a couple of days, so just to be helpful... here's a link to just search for AverMedia on ebay:

Happy bidding!

and no, I'm not selling mine!

cheers, mcdruid.

[q1aqza]

If you are going to do this on a semi pro basis then you may want to consider one of the hardware capture/encoder cards such as the hauppauge PVR250 or the ProVideo cards which will save you lots of time (realtime capture). I use the PVR250 and I am happy with it but then I capture to DVD spec which is very good quality for a 'budget' hardware encoder.

Also, for VCD quality if it is for semi pro use then a customer's untrained/inexperienced eye may not notice the difference in quality between a cheap hardware encoder (PVR250 is pretty cheap for what it does) or a decent quality TMPG encode so you could probably get away with it.

An example in time difference, PVR250 will capture a 2 hour VHS or TV program in 2 hours, and using the bundled Ulead Movie Factory you could have this burned to CD in less than 10 minutes. If you use a non hardware card you will capture in 2 hours the spend probably spend a further 4 hours encoding it with TMPG - big difference in computer time if you are doing this semi pro.

Worth looking at.