What's best for analog tape. Capture with Firewire or ATI ??

[twoages2]

A simple question and maybe somebody has expirience so I don't have to run many tests:

Since a few weeks I have a Firewire card and a Digital 8 Camera. I already have a ATI AIW 128 in the same computer as the firewire card. My digital 8 plays the old analog 8 mm as well and both capture cards accept the analog signal from the old analog 8mm tape via the digital output from the Digital 8 cam. Now the question:

What card it best to use for the 8mm analog tapes?
1. capture with the firewire card in combination with the digital output connector from the 8 mm camera (and then encode from 720*576 to VCD and SVCD)
or
2. the regular SVHS connection from the D8 camera in
combination with the ATI All in Wonder 128 (using VirtualDub and encoding to VCD and SVCD).

Maybe somebody has a hint or an answer? Otherwise I have to test
and that takes a lot of time!!


Thanks in advance.

[Greg12]

I think the firewire would be better. That's what I do

[waldok]

Hi,

I usually go for analog capture and real time MPEG2 encoding to 352x576 (or 352 x480 if you are NTSC). It gives good quality (as good as the original 8mm tape) and I generate SVCDs that we enjoy watching on a big 43" rear projector.

COncerning DV material, I tried both ways (firewire and S-Video analog output) and I finally stick to S-Video analog cause I can encode to MPEG2 in real time with the ATI.

Hope this helps.

Waldok

[yg1968]

Some programs accept DV and support real time encoding to mpeg. For example DVD complete by Dazzle or Ulead DVD Movie Factory. Ulead DMF can create VCDs, SVCDs miniDVDs or DVDs. DVD complete can create VCDs, cDVD and DVDs. They have trial versions that you may want to try before buying them. It is important to try them first as programs rarely support all capture devices. So I can't tell whether they would work with your camera or not.

I get better results with the firewire cable than with my ATI AIW 128.