Capture Clueless?

[FT Shark]

I am interested in getting my first capture card. I want to capture analog TV broadcasts. I have a couple of questions:

1. Should I get a card that realtime encodes mpeg-1/2 or should I get a cheaper card that captures AVI and then encode it with TMPGEnc?

2. Which card will give me good results? I don't want dropped frames... I mainly want high quality mpeg-2 video.

[FOO]

Get an ATI. It does both quite well.

[HAGGARD]

Hi,

If you want high quality MPEG-2 video, then I would suggest using a cheap (not to cheap though, LOL) capturecard and convert to MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc...
TMPGEnc is vvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyy slow, but gives much better MPEG-2 quality than realtime MPEG-2 (Hard/software) cards!!!
And with TMPGEnc you can change more settings...

'HAG

[FT Shark]

Hi,

If you want high quality MPEG-2 video, then I would suggest using a cheap (not to cheap though, LOL) capturecard and convert to MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc.

What card would you suggest that does a good job? The suggested card would capture in AVI right?

[Gazorgan]

You want the BT 8x8 chipset, which is about 75% of all capture cards. $30 US, any resolution, any codec, capture to AVI. I have an AVerMedia card. If you want Stereo it's $20 more, but I use an external decoder, so it doesn't matter to me. Capture to Huffyuv or mjpeg, edit out commercials, resize, mask, filter, frameserve, encode. Piece of cake :P

You can get hardware capture cards, but it's CBR MPEG2, and good luck editing the video when your done.

[lordsmurf]

The BT chipsets are old and on the way out. They work, and are cheap. Great for AVI, but you still need to convert to DVD.

But the quickest way to grab broadcasts in good quality direct to DVD MPEG2 (good computer required) is to get an ATI AIW card.

Goto www.lordsmurf.com and read the "AVI vs MPEG capture" guide. See what you want to do. If AVI only, a BT-chip card would be fine. If MPEG, look at an ATI.

[ya_jai]

just a quick note:. If you capture to AVI with huffyuv you will need a lot of hdd spac, let say 40GB per one hour captured.
I, myself capture to avi with V-dub and huffyuv code only. Then you can encode to either mpeg2 DVD, or mpeg1 VCD with TMPGenc. It is a lot easier to cut off commercial in V-dub and frameserve to TMPGenc to encode to whatever format you want.

[FT Shark]

I just bought the ATI All In Wonder 9000 Pro... I followed LordSurf's suggestions and guides on his web site. The MPEG2 encoding is superb. With a couple tweaks to accommodate my sloooow 1ghz, I can still capture MPEG2 video at 720x480 resolution w/ a bit-rate of max 8mbps / avg 6mbps. I thought I would be dropping frames all over the place but I'm not dropping any.

Thanks for the suggestion LordSmurf

[presto]

If you plan to capture one or two shows a week I guess you could capture avi and conver to mpg. If you plan to capture every day and archive your favorite shows then get an ATI All In Wonder card and capture mpg.

[stiltman]

I just bought the ATI All In Wonder 9000 Pro... I followed LordSurf's suggestions and guides on his web site. The MPEG2 encoding is superb. With a couple tweaks to accommodate my sloooow 1ghz, I can still capture MPEG2 video at 720x480 resolution w/ a bit-rate of max 8mbps / avg 6mbps. I thought I would be dropping frames all over the place but I'm not dropping any.

Thanks for the suggestion LordSmurf

I bought the same card myself about a month ago, and love it.
You want my tweaked setups?

[FT Shark]

I bought the same card myself about a month ago, and love it. You want my tweaked setups?

Sure, I am open to any suggestions you or anyone may have regarding the ATI AIW cards...

[SHS]

Man talk about doing thing the hard way this how I do thing
WinTV-PVR 250
Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2
Womble MPEG2VCR
DVD Shrink
All the movie, episodes, etc, etc that I been recording are done SageTV and or sometime SnapStream (Betaing), I most record at 352x480 3.0 VBR audio 48k/224k, Most of the Movie I record at 720x480 6.0 to 9.5 VBR audio 48k/384k depend on long or weather or not it need editing.
I'm sorry lordsmurf but your page is way off when it come to editing MPEG the problem is that 97% of the so call MPEG editor don't work this where Womble MPEG2VCR come in to play it best there and very frame-accurate.
FT Shark I wish the best of lucky trying capture 720x480 with reg AVI/RGB card and better start building a raid system you need with AVI

[Gazorgan]

The KISS principle is worth doing. My method will cost you less than $30 US. There are many capture cards/devices available from cheap to realtime MPEG2/4 encoding. You can try capturing without a lot of hardware costs, and using all free sofware. Lord Smurf is full of Blue Sh*t on many subjects, but everyone is entitled to there own opinions, but feel free to buy a video card to capture with (do you listen to MP3's on a microphone?). As a general rule, you should avoid trying to edit mpeg's, you will have many frustrating hours if you do it wrong.

[lordsmurf]

Lord Smurf is full of Blue Sh*t on many subjects

Excuse me? I thoroughly research my information. If you don't want to believe me, then fine, don't. But if I'm full of blue shit, you're full of purple shit, okay? I find most people appreciate the information I provide.

As far as altering/tweaking ATI AIW settings, use my guides, but feel free to change bitrate, resolution and the IPB radius. Also the audio bitrate is adjustable. And play with Video Soap. Everything else should pretty much be left alone (which is just a few settings with format and interlace). I change all of this myself, depending on the project at hand.

[FT Shark]

I know I could have bought just a capture card, but I needed a new video card too. It replaced my old TNT2 16mb card. And just like LordSmurf says on his website capture in AVI for extensive editing, but capturing in mpeg2 for cutting commercials is fine.