mpeg4 real time

[amdworld]

i've searched the capture card list here, and seen 2 mpeg4 real time analoge capturing devices.
Plextor ConvertX
and
Snazzi DV.AVIO

can anyone tell me which one would be a better choice if i'm planning to capture from a TV source?

[gmatov]

I don't know either of those cards, but have an MSI tv@nywhere, and tried an MPEG4 cap last night. I wanted to watch the end of a movie that had a couple hours to go, so just set it to cap. 8or 10 hours later, I had about 250 meg capped, and was not impressed with the output..

Guess I should have set the cap rate higher than the 264 kbps default. I haven't tried it with TV out. Might be better, but doubt it.

Maybe next time I'll try 1/4 D1, or VCD or something.

The good news is, the cap drive had about 123 gigs free space, and was good for nearly 1100 hours of capture.

[amdworld]

thx for the reply
guess mpeg4 does save space
lol
plextor doesn't seem to have the product on sale, but can be preordered.
the snazzi product can already be ordered..
anyoen have comments on the companies snazzi and plextor?
like.. which one's more reliable?

[freestyler]

I'd be interested to know when this Plextor device is shipping - it looks very promising.

[amdworld]

I'd be interested to know when this Plextor device is shipping - it looks very promising.

it's available for preorder at the plextor site i believe.
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/ConvertX.html

i felt the same way, but also saw the snazzi, so don't know which one to get

[gmatov]

I think you guys have sold yourselves on a particular bill of goods.
I think the Plextor unit is a rip off.
However, be my guest.

Oh, under MPEG 4, it says 800 to, what, 4000kbps? My card defaults to 264 kbps, selectable as optional, and VCD is 1150, standard, MPEG1, so where does 800kbps save you anything, including disk/capture space?

[spectroelectro]

I'm not sure that DiVX will ever be an optimal real-time capture format. Have used XVid to capture real-time video using a PCI capture c ard, and to get video quality as good as a typical MPEG-2 encoded form an AVI I've had to set a pretty high bitrate, around 5000.
Bottom line? You are ALWAYS going to get much better-looking DiVX or MPEG-2 video if you capture to AVI and encode from that, rather than capturing directly to a compressed format.
The reason is obvious. A real-time system doesn't know what video frames are coming next and so it cannot set its capture parameters with maximum efficiency. This means that a real-time compression card will always waste bits as compared to a non-real-time encoder like TMPGenc or CCE. As a practical matter, this means that the real-time compressor must use a singificantly higher bitrate than the non-time encoder.
So a real-time DiVX or MPEG-2 encoder means you have chosen to trade off a larger compressed video filesize for less encoding time. This doesn't make much sense to me, since you can always set a DiVX or MPEG-2 encodder to poerate in batch mode while you're asleep.
Do you really care how much time your computer takes to encode something while you're asleep at night?
BTW, the real-time XVid encoder is downloadable freeware and I got it to work with an el cheapo LeadTek WinFast TV 2000 PCI card. Total cost for real-time DiVX encoding: $54.

[amdworld]

the thing is, in my case, i'm planing on recording tv shows
so.. i probably won't have time to encode since there's shows everyday .lol
that's why, i was looking up a real time encoding program.
there's show's that show weekly, and if i save them to mpeg2, they'll take up my hd in no time.
but divx, though quality might not be perfectly, is my option cause of the size it takes up.
so.. any recommendations for mpeg4 real-time capture device?
thx

[amdworld]

sorry for writing again,
read some guides and stuff,
and as u guys stated,
divx quality isn't good for direct capture.
the guide said that i should capture first with AVI IO.. (dont' konw which type is that.. raw avi?)
then convert to mpeg2, and than divx.
if i were to follow this recommendation,
which hardware would best fit this process?
thx

[leebo]

This thread seems all mixed up to me.

The original poster wanted info on two real time mpeg4 capture cards, but what he got was opinions on a bunch of other stuff.

gmatov, if your card is real time, why did it take over 8 hours to capture 2 hours??


And although Divx is a variant of mpeg4, it's NOT mpeg4, to my understanding. It produces AVI files, right?

AVI_IO is a CAPTURE program, not a format. It uses your AVI capture card and controls the capture of AVI video files. Converting AVI files into Divx or mpeg4 is a SOFTWARE function that will take up a hell of a lot of hard drive space (something like 5 minutes per Gig, I believe), and TIME.

I'd say, since obviously nobody has either of the two cards you asked about, it's best to wait until they're shipping. Then buy one at a local retail store and judge for yourself. If you don't like it, you can return it.

[amdworld]

damn
wisest post eva!
thx man
and thx everyone also!
will wait till the products show up in stores

[gmatov]

leebo,

You misunderstood. I didn't want to stay up to watch the remaining 2 hours, so set it to cap, and it kept on capping till I woke up and turned it off.
No idea what the other 6 or 8 hours of programming was, probably paid ads, as it was about 2 AM at the time.
It capped 266 megs of TV, don't really know how many hours.

And, I have to correct myself. I did not shut down when I woke up. It had locked the program up. If my calculations are correct, I captured 134 minutes to 266 megabytes