capture card recommendations

[kcella]

I am looking to replace my Dazzle DVCII. It is causing me too many headaches, so I want to upgrade. I was happy with the quality and resolution of the DVCII when I was able to get it working. So i'd like something simliar. I'm looking at spending about $300. Please offer any recommendations.

thanks,
Kevin

[Toogy]

I would recommend the Canopus ADVC-100 or the ADVC-1394. I have the 1394 and have nothing but good things to say about it.
Great quality and headache free operation.

[kcella]

I was looking at that product, but I'm a little confused. How does it work, because I do not have any DV devices. I understand the ADVC-100 is an analog to digital converter, but don't you need a firwire card to connect it to? And how does I capture the data into MPEG2 format?

[Toogy]

The ADVC-1394 had a built in Firewire card. That is why I got it.
It captures MPEG2 via software only.
I use it to capture to straight DV and it works great.

[kcella]

Well, then I'd like any other recommendations if anyone has one. I prefer to have a hardware capture straight to MPEG2. That is how the DVCII worked. MPEG2 makes it easy to play on my computer and send it to other people. Is there a good USB 2.0 capture device?

[kcella]

top

[smorgesbord]

Im looking for a hardware capture card too, and was particularly interested in the navis pro, cause of good reviews i the user opinions section. Check out the manufaturers reply below!



hi, im trying to find a uk supplier of a navis capture card, specifically the Navis Pro card, pci connection. can you also verify the card can HARDWARE realtime encode video captures to vcd compliant mpeg 1?

many thanks


chris

Dear Chris

Yes you can buy the Navis / Navis Pro Cards Via us in the UK,

Just to let you know the Navis Card Does not to VCD,

The Navis Pro Card does do VCD but it is buggy ( the sound sink is out) so I would advise Recording in Mpeg 1 then encoding it into a VCD format using a 3 party bit of software. When you Record in a Mpeg 1 or 2 format using the card you will find the Quality Amazing, but the only let down is the VCD problem.
Regards

David Hopwood

Technical Consultant
PentaMedia (Europe) Ltd. www.pentamedia.com
(European Driver Download page) www.pentamediaeurope.co.uk
PentaMedia (EUROPE) Ltd
Cedar House, Cedar Lane
FRIMLEY, CAMBERLEY
GU16 7HZ United Kingdom
Tel: (+44) 1276 675858
Fax: (+44) 1276 675959

[kini mini]

kcella, I'm looking for about the same thing as you. Except I don't really nind too much if I have to fiddle with TMPGenc for a while to get a file if that's what it takes to get decent quality.

Toogy - when you use the ADVC-1394, if I undersatnd you correctly you end up a raw AVI and then processing? Whereas with the ADVC-100 you get captures straight to MPEG-2 in Canopus' proprietary codec.

[Anonymous65]

I have tried the ADVC-100, and the quality is very good. However, I thought it had hardware DV encoder, but it doesn't. It outputs raw uncompressed 24 bit video, so you need a very powerful PC to to the DV encoding in software. DV bit rate is about 25Mb/sec, while raw video is over 200Mb/sec.

I would like to know if the ADVC-1394 has a hardware DV encoder chip, or it works like the ADVC-100 where the DV encoding is done in software? I would surely like to have the DV encoding done in hardware. I know the mpeg real-time captures are done in software, either from 24 bit raw video or DV encoded video.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you transfer video from a DV camcoder, the stream via the firewire is DV encoded video, and not 24 bit raw video?

[D_Knife]

I think I came in late on this one - but what is the problem with your DVC II?

[kini mini]

I have tried the ADVC-100, and the quality is very good. However, I thought it had hardware DV encoder, but it doesn't. It outputs raw uncompressed 24 bit video, so you need a very powerful PC to to the DV encoding in software. DV bit rate is about 25Mb/sec, while raw video is over 200Mb/sec.

I would like to know if the ADVC-1394 has a hardware DV encoder chip, or it works like the ADVC-100 where the DV encoding is done in software? I would surely like to have the DV encoding done in hardware. I know the mpeg real-time captures are done in software, either from 24 bit raw video or DV encoded video.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you transfer video from a DV camcoder, the stream via the firewire is DV encoded video, and not 24 bit raw video?

Well that puts a wholly different perspective on it, I was under the impression that the ADVC-100 went straight to DV - seemed a pretty big drawcard to me! If I only wanted raw output I wouldn't want to pay that much...

[Anonymous65]

Yes, the ADVC-100 is just a fancy version of a BT8x8 chip as far as capture goes. I think it is really missleading when they say the ADVC-100 use their high quality Canopus DV codec. Well, the DV encoder is software, and you don't even get a copy of the software encoder with the ADVC-100.

[Toogy]

When I use Vegas Video to capture the resulting file on the hard drive is a DV AVi file. for 2 hours of video it uses approxiametly 22-23 GB of drive space.

Does this sound right?

A little confused on the terms.

I just want to add that whatever it does it does a great job.

[kini mini]

When I use Vegas Video to capture the resulting file on the hard drive is a DV AVi file. for 2 hours of video it uses approxiametly 22-23 GB of drive space.

Does this sound right?

A little confused on the terms.

I just want to add that whatever it does it does a great job.

I'm really confused now...so does this thing output uncompressed video or doesn't it?!

[Anonymous65]

As I understand it, it outputs uncompressed video over the firewire, and then you select a DV codec as your compressor, and you then save the video stream to your hard drive as a DV file. However, you can also select any other compressor, like Mjpeg or Huff and save the video. Without the DV software codec, you're saving the file as an uncompressed video file.

[kcella]

D-knife - my problem with the DVCII is that when I goto use the setup wizard to verify i'm getting an A/V signal, i get a hardware not found error. even though the dirvers and software are installed, it doesn't think the DVCII is there. i'm going to attempt to get it working this weekend. i've read some of the posts on http://www.spawns.dk/ -- there are a couple of things i can try. if nothing works out i'm going to buy another cappture device.

[KDT]

I just bought a hardware encoder from compgeek for 134.99. The board was made by kworld(never heard of). You can check it out at www.kworld.com. I will let you know how good it is.

[D_Knife]

In most cases the "chip" problem is the most common - this happened to me the first time and whenever I move my machine a lot.
But I just checked out that web site and it looks REAL GOOD!!!
Thanks anyway.
Thanks for taking the time to tell me the problems as well

[kini mini]

As I understand it, it outputs uncompressed video over the firewire, and then you select a DV codec as your compressor, and you then save the video stream to your hard drive as a DV file. However, you can also select any other compressor, like Mjpeg or Huff and save the video. Without the DV software codec, you're saving the file as an uncompressed video file.

I see, thanks a lot for your help . Prob not going to get this unit now!

[Toogy]

The card captures to DV AVI. If you do nothing but capture, the file that is on your hard drive is DV AVI.
If you use the winproducer 3 software that comes with the card you can capture to straight MPEG. Not sure of the quality but it is doable.
What I do is capture using Vegas Video 3 and then do some minor editing and then encode in Vegas Video to MPEG-2 and then burn on DVD and my results have been outstanding. I have done 15 2 hour DVD's and I have had no dropped frames and the audio is in-sync the entire time. I love the card and recommend it.