AverDVD ezMaker

[Kill-K]

http://www.aver.com/products/dvm_AVerDVD_ezMaker.shtml

Have anyone had this DVD capture card? Is it good?
I want to find out more information about this...
Thanks!

[Bob W]

I have one and love it. Used it to capture about fifty VHS movies that are not yet out on DVD and it never dropped a frame. You can buy it at CompUSA for $39 or so and it comes with NeoDVD Standard software which actually works well.

[reubenray]

What chip does this card have?

[Bob W]

What chip does this card have?

BT-848

[housepig]

I'll second Bob W.

I have this card, I like it quite a bit. I usually capture 720x480 29.97fps .avi, Huffyuv codec with iuVCR, on my system that gives me a good audio sync, very few dropped frames (<8 / hr) and excellent quality.

I find the captures done direct to mpeg-2 are a little soft for my tastes, whether I use NeoDVD (included), PowerVCR or WinDVD Recorder, so I don't capture direct unless it's stuff where I'm not as concerned about quality.

Overall, excellent card, great bang for the buck.

[Bob W]

I'll second Bob W.

I have this card, I like it quite a bit. I usually capture 720x480 29.97fps .avi, Huffyuv codec with iuVCR, on my system that gives me a good audio sync, very few dropped frames (<8 / hr) and excellent quality.

I find the captures done direct to mpeg-2 are a little soft for my tastes, whether I use NeoDVD (included), PowerVCR or WinDVD Recorder, so I don't capture direct unless it's stuff where I'm not as concerned about quality.

Overall, excellent card, great bang for the buck.

So you capture AVI then what convert to "Huffyuv" (whatever that is)? Do you then convert all that to DVD files for burning to DVDR? I'm just capturing as mpeg2 should I be doing it your way for better quality?

[Vejita-sama]

Huffyuv is a 'lostless' codec, it captures as avi files but at 2:1~2.5:1 compression. It's called lostless but some lost of quaility does occur, but many people the lost is well below the ability of the human eye to detect.

As a general rule you get your best quaility when you capture at the highest bitrate & resolution your system can support, then encode to the lower bitrate/resolution desired.

Capturing directly to MPEG2 never produces (at least with the cheapo software codecs that we're using ) the same quaility as the above process. But capturing to MPEG2 directly saves a lot of time. So as always it's a trade off between: quaility vs. time vs. money

I also have this card (got it for $50 at compusa no discounts, much cheaper mail order but didn't want to wait). For the money it's a great card. I'm in the (long slow process) of converting some Japanese LDs I own to DVD and adding selectable english subtitles.

[housepig]

Huffyuv is a codec (coder - decoder : the piece of software that compresses a giant video file into something we can fit on a disc!)

an avi file can use any one of a number of different codecs, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. with the Divx codec, you get a massive reduction in size, with some hits in quality. With Huffyuv, you get really good quality, but only about a 2:1 reduction in size over raw, uncompressed video.

so yeah, I take the Huffy-codec avi that I capture, and then encode it to dvd mpeg with TMPGenc.

and again, as far as quality goes - I notice enough of a difference in quality that on most things I'm willing to go the extra mile and convert, rather than capture direct to mpeg.

I also have a bunch of movies on Betamax that I'm getting ready to capture, and I know that a little extra sharpness is not going to make a difference, the source isn't that crisp to beign with. So there's no point in my going through the extra hassle for a 5% increase in quality. Those will just be captured direct and get minimal authoring.

But quality is in the eye of the beholder. I would suggest trying the same piece of footage both ways (my favorite test clip was the Beastie Boys' "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" video off laserdisc, for the motion, quick cuts, and different film stocks and effects that are used - it's a real encoder torture test!) and see which you like better, and if the difference in quality makes up for the extra time and effort it takes to do it my way (I'm usually setting up my encoding right before I go to bed, then it's finished by the time I get up in the morning.)