What is the best capture device?

[pbuscher]

I am planning on purchasing a USB capture device. But there is so many to choose from. Which is the best and affordable? I'm looking for a device that would capture and make MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD, and SVCD from a camcorder, a vcr, and from movie files on the PC in pretty good quality. So far, I came across these:

ADS's USB Instant DVD
http://www.adstech.com/products/USB_Instant_DVD/intro/usb700.asp?pid=USBAV-700

Digital Video Creator 150- Dazzle
http://www.dazzle.com/products/dvc150.html

Digital Video Creator 100- Dazzle
http://www.dazzle.com/products/dvc100.html

Would anyone recommend any of these products? Would anyone recommend any other product? Or is a PCI Video card Capture device a better way to go??

Thanks.

[Toogy]

Why do you want USB?

[AHaxton]

I would recommend the AVerTV Stereo TV Tuner PCI Card. If you want a sample of the quality, pm me your AIM screen name or MSN name and I can send you a capture svcd sample.

[pbuscher]

USB? I dont know. It seemed easy, but now that I look at some things, a PCI card might be easier and faster. My only problems is if I have any IRQs left on my computer. Or does a PCI TV card take up any IRQs? Hmmm...

So, ok. What is the best PCI capture device??

Are PCI capture cards cheaper than USB capture devices?

[AHaxton]

PCI cards are cheaper. The AVerTV Stereo card is only like 50 buxx. It has unbelievable quality especially for the price. I give it an 8.5/10

[la_bomba]

If you have a laptop, then USB might be the only option,
otherwise I would recommend to stay away from it.

I do not own any USB capturing devices, but I suspect that the transfer speed for USB v.1 is not enough to capture with high quality. (USBv2 is capable of up to 480Mbit transfer rate compared to 12Mbit for v.1)

in other words, PCI (or perhaps firewire) is really the way to go.


hope this will help.


/bomba

[bemax]

I recently bought the ADS Instant DVD USB because I have no slots left in my computer and I wanted to play with Video cap. I was a little concerned after reading all of the messages on this and other boards but after careful consideration, I went ahead and bought a refurbished model for $100. It came with all of the latest software and drivers and ....

It works beautifully on my Win2K system. I have not had any of the sync or driver problems mentioned by others. I am mostly using it to edit 8mm video tape and save to SVCD.

I set the iDVD to capture at DVD 5 mb/s and then I edit/trim the mpegs in Video Studio 6. I convert to SVCD using tmpgenc because I get better quality that way. All in all it works flawlessly.

By the way, the USB 1.0 interface is adequate because the iDVD is a hardware MPEG encoder so the only thing transmitted across USB is the encoded signal which is much compressed.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[SingSing]

I own two capture card, then bought a digital camcorder, which do analog passed through ( same as capture ).

If you eventually going to have a DVcam, then you must as well bypass capture after all.