Capture Card Recommendations for New Dell

[phant0md0g]

i'm relatively new to the area of video editing and capturing, and i'm looking to get a capture card that is supported by the following Dell machine I've ordered:

Memory 512MB PC800 RDRAM(2x256M modules)
Keyboard Dell® Quietkey® Keyboard
Monitors No Monitor
Video Card New 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4™ Ti 4200 Graphics Card with TV Out and DVI
Hard Drive 80GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
Floppy Drive 3.5 in Floppy Drive
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Mouse Dell® 2-button scroll mouse
Network Card 10/100 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
Modem 56K PCI Telephony Modem
CD or DVD Drive New DVD+RW/+R Drive with CD-RW (1 DVD+RW disc included)
Sound Card Turtle Beach Santa Cruz DSP Sound Card
Speakers Select Monsoon Speakers Below
Bundled Software Microsoft® Works Suite 2002 w/Money Standard
Digital Music Dell Jukebox powered by MusicMatch
Digital Photography Dell Picture Studio, Image Expert Standard
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1 Year Limited Warranty plus 1 Year At-Home Service
Internet Access Service 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Recommended Media Free Verbatim DVD+RW Media,1 Disc
Special Offer $100 OFF SPECIAL OFFER
Monsoon® Speakers Monsoon® MM-702 Flat Panel Audio System

At first, my motivation for buying a card was for capturing TV, but now, i would like to plan for the future, by getting something that offers both high-quality analog and digital capturing, editing, and encoding. After reading the comments in the Capture Card List, it seems that many people have had positive experiences with the Canopus DVRaptor and its corresponding AV/DV Converter. Would these work with my configuration? Should I get something else? Does anyone have any recommendations? Although I can't put endless amounts of money into this, i would like to know what my options are. Thanks.

[phant0md0g]

No one has any ideas? i've been leaning towards a Canopus RaptorRT and a AVDC100 or a Matrox card? Are either of those good? Any replies would be appreciated.

[You_Are_Alive]

Go with canopus RT for sure like alot of other people have discovered that once you move up the ladder, you won't regret it. this is especially helpful if you plan to edit your stuff beyond the boring cuts only. It is a good choice. You can also go with Pinnacle or Matrox. Both offer great products for about $100 bucks more. Hint: Make sure to double check the canopus site for the Storm2. It is leaps and bounds ahead of the above mentioned products at a very low price too.

I've been using a dc1000 with DV/component (New at only $950) and I'm absolutely blown away at its quality output and the fact it is able to capture "realtime" IBP streams over 3 years ago, matrox and the rest have only gotten this ability implemented only recently. Not too shabby for a card thats discountinued. You'll be lucky if you find them still floating around. I capture, then put this straight to DVDit, Nero, Impression, and just burn. I've also got the component with it, so I get even better quality.

But like so many others, you have to make a choice, I don't regret getting the dc1000, but if I would have waited a couple more months or a year, I would have gotton the Storm2! good luck with your decision, you really won't go wrong with any of them.

[phant0md0g]

Thanks for the reply. I had just recently been exposed to video editing, and I can't wait to be able to experiment a high-end capture card!

[phant0md0g]

To be sure I'm clear on this, the RaptorRT will work in my machine, based on the configuration listed? I've looked at Canopus' site, and my hardware isn't explicitly listed there, so I'm unsure.

Also, is it possible to get the card, cables, and drivers without Premiere? I have that already, and I don't need to spend money on another license. If so, where can I buy just the card/cables, etc?

Thanks!

[Rich927]

Dell offers a capture card package for your Dell. Cost is $300.00. It captures Firewire and analog. Comes with MGI Videowave.

[phant0md0g]

Thanks for that piece of information. When I went to Dell's site to look for the offer you mentioned, I couldn't find it.

Where is it?

I definitely think that this offer is something for me to consider.

Thanks.

[The village idiot]

My penny worth of thoughts would be to get something that will capture analog video via firewire (DV). You will hav e the highest compatibility with the hardware, but will have to convert the DV to mpeg. The conversion can take from hours to over a day (24+). All depends on the speed of your machine, length of clip, type of compression (CBR or VBR), etc.

[elonohic]

Hi,

What kind of cpu are you using? PIII or P4? If you want the job done prefect you need to have a data disk for the caputred avi files.
I would suggest you to install your OS to a 30/40G Hard disk and the 80G hard disk serve as data disk.
For the caputre card you can visit the pinnacle website for more information. http://www.pinnacle.com
For the priemere, which version do you have. If you get the pinnacle caputre card (i.g. DV500 I am using it) the Priemere was inclused as the buddle software.
Hope this would help.