Will my P2 450Mzh work??

[Nectar]

Hello!

I´m thinking of buying a capture card. I wonder how good my computer will work. This is the specs:

P2 450Mzh
128 mb RAM
6gb Harddrive

I want to capture from VHS and TV and put it on a VCD.

How much hd-space will one hour capture require? What format is the best output when i capture, it should be MPEG when I burn it on the VCD but should I also save it as MPEG-1 when I capture? All other formats are sounds a little big for my HD.

I´m strongly thinking of upgrading my HD up to about 30gb, but will my CPU work?

I´m willing to pay up to $100 for the card, what card should I get?


Thanks!!

[baker]

I have a pIII 450mhz and have no compliants, however I reccomend at least a HD space of 40gigs as you will need at least 30 for capture.

I also reccomend pic video insted of huffyuv aas it prodeuces better quailty.

Baker

[Nectar]

Thanks

But why do I need that big HD? Isn´t it possible to record as MPEG-1? Or isn´t the result good?

//Nectar

[baker]

You can go straight to mpeg 1 but at 450mhz the encoder will have to be very fast, this means quailty drops significantly.

I reccomend capturing to picvideo then converting to vcd/svcd/cvd

Baker

[crahak]

Direct capture and encoding usually gives lesser quality. But for VHS to VCD. A MJPEG probably would be quite enough, but it might require more CPU power...

[paulgab]

It is also recommended that you change HDD, choose 7200rpm for faster access.

[ChrisX]

Hello!

I´m thinking of buying a capture card. I wonder how good my computer will work. This is the specs:

P2 450Mzh
128 mb RAM
6gb Harddrive

I want to capture from VHS and TV and put it on a VCD.

How much hd-space will one hour capture require? What format is the best output when i capture, it should be MPEG when I burn it on the VCD but should I also save it as MPEG-1 when I capture? All other formats are sounds a little big for my HD.

I´m strongly thinking of upgrading my HD up to about 30gb, but will my CPU work?

I´m willing to pay up to $100 for the card, what card should I get?


Thanks!!

Nector -

You might just make it on 450 Mhz, however the recommended CPU speed is at least 800 Mhz for satisfactory capturing. The VCD processing will need more CPU power and more space in your hard drive.

An hour of mpeg capture will use 1 Gb of space. This depends on image resolution and sound.

If you want to burn your video into a VCD, you need a faster CPU and a massive HD to do this. Overall, whether capturing, burning into a VCD or both, you need at least a 40 GB HD or more. The bigger computer the better and you must use NTFS as oppose to FAT32. A faster HD at 7200 rpm is recommended.

I know you may not be able to afford this, you will be much better to buy a faster and bigger computer for the work you require on capturing and a creation of a VCD. You need time and the processing time depends on the computer's speed and performance.

[mats.hogberg]

If you want to burn your video into a VCD, you need a faster CPU and a massive HD to do this

Afaik, the burning process is the part that requires the least when it comes to computer specs - I've been happily authoring/burning VCD's on a P1 166 MHz, and the only "extra" space needed is some corner of the HD with capacity enough to hold the CD image (~800 MB).
If you include the encoding process, an additional 7-800 MB is needed, but as far as processor goes, the "only" drawback of a slower processor is longer time to encode.

/Mats

[vitualis]

Capturing to MJPEG with a P2 450 should be fine. You should ensure that DMA is enabled for your discs.

What will be relatively slow will be the encoding stage...

IMHO, you will not get satisfactory results with real-time software MPEG-1 capture with your CPU. If you have a capture card that can do real-time hardware MPEG-1 captures then that's a different story.

Regards.

[nick1977]

baker, how can pic video be better quality than huffy uv when huffy is a losless compression

Nick

[Nectar]

Hallo again and a lot of thanks for taking time and help me!

I´m thinking about a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250 (for example). Shouldn´t this card work capturing MPEG-1 with my P2 450?
The good things is that I will get my damn MPEGs instantly without any encoding that i think will take a lot of time with my CPU. Or am I wrong?

I want to use my capture card instead of a VCR, just record and burn as a VCD without hours of encoding. CD-R is a cheaper and better way to store movies than the VHS-tapes in my option.

Since my computer isn´t the newest one I´m not sure I can have a larger HD than 32gb. If a MPEG-1-card will work a ~30gb-HD will work fine.

Tell me, does this sound like a good idea or am I totaly lost....



Thanks!

[mats.hogberg]

Since that card has hardware MPEG2 encoding, your PII box will do fine. You can then burn as SVCD/DVD directly from the MPEG file the card outputs.

/Mats

[Nectar]

Thanks.

Does it not have MPEG-1 hardware encoding?

And does the cheaper HAUPPAUGE WINTV GO PCI-card got hardware encoding?

[mats.hogberg]

Took a brief glance at the Hauppage site for the WinTV-PVR-250, and only saw MPEG2 encoding mentioned. Don't know about the rest. I encourage you to a little investigation before you go shopping...


/Mats

[Nectar]

Mats Högberg? Sounds swedish....

Här är lite info från Dustin.se :


Med WinTV PVR 250 kan du spela in TV eller Video i MPEG1 och MPEG2. Har du en DVD brännare kan du skapa DVD filmer med titlar och funktioner med DVD Movie Factory. WinTV PVR 250 har en 125 kanals tuner med autoscan för TV och en fjärrkontroll. Medföljande programvara innehåller TV program, en scheduler för att programmera datorn att spela in video precis som en vanlig VHS, ett konverteringsprogram för VCD, SVCD och tom. DVD! WinTV PVR 250 använder hårdvara för kodningen till MPEG2 därför förlorar du ingen data/bilder.


Se på TV i ett skalbart fönster eller fullskärm
Enkel installation med autoscan funktion
Kompatibel och certifierad för Windows 98Se/Me/2000 och XP
NICAM Stereo ljud på TVn
Styr din TV eller dator med fjärrkontrollen
Spela in TV eller Video direkt till Hårddisken MPEG1, 2 eller 4. MPEG2 hårdvaru-encoder för högsta prestanda (lite CPU belastning)
Redigera Video med medföljande DVD Movie Factory från ULead
Bränn VCD, SVCD eller DVD (kräver brännare)
Har en S-Video (S-VHS) ingång



Spela in TV eller Video direkt till Hårddisken MPEG1, 2 eller 4. MPEG2 hårdvaru-encoder för högsta prestanda (lite CPU belastning)

Hur ska man tolka det? Att det bara är vid MPEG-2 det är hårdvarukodning?

[ChrisX]

If you want to burn your video into a VCD, you need a faster CPU and a massive HD to do this

Afaik, the burning process is the part that requires the least when it comes to computer specs - I've been happily authoring/burning VCD's on a P1 166 MHz, and the only "extra" space needed is some corner of the HD with capacity enough to hold the CD image (~800 MB).
If you include the encoding process, an additional 7-800 MB is needed, but as far as processor goes, the "only" drawback of a slower processor is longer time to encode.

/Mats

I am shocked that you are happily using a P1, 166 Mhz computer to do the authoring and burning VCD's. Must be very, very, slow and the processing would take a long time.

Six months ago, I did own computer like this with a worn out processor due to age and use. It is now gone and upgraded to a P4, 1.6 Ghz with a bigger HD and the performance is now much faster and better. The machine still got the old floppy drive, the old keyboard with the orginal NIC intact. Everything else is as new.

[vitualis]

I suppose it depends what you mean by "authoring and burning". Most of my time that I spend "authoring" is with writing XML -- and the speed of your PC doesn't have a great bearing on how fast your text editor works.

A faster HDD will make VCDImager work faster when it is "building" the image -- but this is a difference of only a couple of minutes at most (unless you have a REALLY slow HDD).

Simiilarly, burning is primarily determined by the speed of your burner (assuming your PC actually supports DMA of course).

I think that this was what mat.hogberg was referring to CJGS. Obviously, encoding and converting on an old machine will be very slow (if not impossible if it doesn't contain MMX).

Regards.

[mats.hogberg]

CJGS -

I am shocked that you are happily using a P1, 166 Mhz

I've been happily authoring/burning VCD's on a P1 166 MHz

There's a slight difference in tempus here
It was some time since I did threw my old 166 at burning, but that aside, What takes a lot of CPU is the encoding stage, but then again, it only affects how long it takes, not quality. Disk space is needed for capturing in uncompressed / low compression formats (and DVD ripping). Encoding to VCD only requires HD space corresponding to 2-3 CD's worth for the MPEG's and the one CD worth when building the image. 3.2 GB tops.

/Mats

[mats.hogberg]

Nectar - Yes, I'm Swedish - but let's stick to English in this international environment.
As far as I can tell from the quote from Dustin, your interpretation is correct - The capture card contains a hardware MPEG2 encoder. MPEG1 & 4 is a software solution.
But since it can churn out MPEG2 at 2, 4, 6 8 and 12 Mbit/s, (DVD standard=8 Mbit/s according to Hauppage) you will be able to capture at above DVD quality, or, at the lowest setting, at SVCD quality.
Sounds like a card I'd like to own!

/Mats

[Nectar]

Yes, the 250 PVR sounds like a good choise.

Let´s say I record one hour MPEG2, how long time will it take to convert it to MPEG1 whit my P2:450?

And are there ant less expensive cards with hardware encoding?

Thanks, Nectar

[Nectar]

On the other hand i saw this at Hauppalauges site:

"WinTV-PVR-250 uses a new integrated MPEG1/MPEG2 encoder, the IVAC015,which compresses your videos 100:1 whithout slowing down your PC's processor and while providing great on-screen video quality. WinTV-PVR-250 can record full screen TV using 2 GB of hard disk space per hour."

Shouldn´t this meen that the hardware encoder supports both MPEG1 and MPEG2?

[mats.hogberg]

Yes, that definately sounds like it has hardware encoeder for both MPEG1 & 2. I can see no other way of interpretating that! - Maybe anyone around here how owns one?

/Mats