Video Capture Cards - decision

[killer]

Hi

Like lots of new members I want to get into video editing. I have some idea of what I want but am having difficulty making that final decision. I want to be able to transfer my old vhs tapes (to DVD) and also my lps and cassettes(I know this is not video!) and have put DVSTORM2 and Liquid Edition 5.5 on my short list. I like the real-time features of the DVSTORM in that, for the majority, you don't have to wait for rendering and creating the final result is fast. On the other hand I like Edition as it's software suite is all in one rather than the DVSTORM(although it looks like Premiere is good too) and that it uses AGP graphics and Background rendering. Can I also use these same capture cards for capturing audio seperately eg LPs. Any help in making the final decision would be great.

Thanks

[FulciLives]

Hi

Like lots of new members I want to get into video editing. I have some idea of what I want but am having difficulty making that final decision. I want to be able to transfer my old vhs tapes (to DVD) and also my lps and cassettes(I know this is not video!) and have put DVSTORM2 and Liquid Edition 5.5 on my short list. I like the real-time features of the DVSTORM in that, for the majority, you don't have to wait for rendering and creating the final result is fast. On the other hand I like Edition as it's software suite is all in one rather than the DVSTORM(although it looks like Premiere is good too) and that it uses AGP graphics and Background rendering. Can I also use these same capture cards for capturing audio seperately eg LPs. Any help in making the final decision would be great.

Thanks

Unless you want to do EXTENSIVE editing with disolves and titles and all that fancy crap you don't need such solutions as what you are talking about.

If all you want to do is back-up on VHS recordings (and LP blah blah blah) then you don't need all that.

I guess it depends just what kind of editing you will be getting into.

As far as doing audio cassette tapes and LP stuff all you need is a decent sound card and sound program such as SOUND FORGE or COOLEdit or GOLDWAVE to do your audio editing and cleanup (remove tape hiss and the LP crackle and pop stuff).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
As far as capturing analog video to digital you can't go wrong with the CANOPUS ADVC-100 or the DataVideo DAC-100

[killer]

John

Thanks for the reply - good feedback. I suppose I need to clarify from my original statement. I will want to do some reasonably extensive editing in the future as I want to get more into that side of things. At present I will want to do some things like transitions/titles etc (as I have lots of home movies on Analogue/DV tape). Some of my friends have also shown an interest in me doing this as well and may want me to do some of their movies too. What I want is a product that will take me from the easy stuff to the more complex stuff without having to buy multiple solutions. I feel it's better to pay the money up front. That's why I'm asking which would be the better solution between the two I mentioned.

Thanx

George

[FulciLives]

Well in my opinion ... if I were you ... I'd get the CANOPUS ADVC-100 as this external box (which hooks up to the computer via the FIREWIRE port) can convert ANY analog A/V source to the DV format.

Once you have your footage in DV you can then edit to your heart's content.

It seems that most semi-pro people to pro people use either Adobe Premiere or Sonic Foundry VEGAS VIDEO

Those two seem to be the two most professional DV editing solutions.

If you decide latter you need something like the DVSTORM etc. you can always get it later.

You will always need the CANOPUS ADVC-100 to convert analog A/V to DV anyways.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[killer]

John

Thanks again. Good points. I'll backtrack and look at the ADVC-100 and do some further research. Anyone else feel the same way or have any other opinions?

George

[DaveS]

Killer - I'll throw in my 2cents since this post is current ... and **these are only opinions *** if others disagree, etc. - don't flame me, just post your own opinions *** that's why this is a forum (ok - back to defcon 1..)

- I agree w. FulciLives posts (although I have much less experience than these guys; I started from scratch about 6 mos ago)

so far, my experience in doing similar to you (w/ a similar theory on spending 'up front' has been):

- figure out your budget - you will think of more things to buy then would probably be anticipated; if you post here, these guys will help plenty; you are doing good things by researching yourself first; this board has got to be one of the best I've ever seen anywhere, on any topic - spend time taking advantage of everyone else's knowledge & posts here - there's a ton to mine

- since you are doing (old) VHS (rather than mostly newly taped digital video, at least to start), you will need to concentrate first on getting the best possible signal / source off your tapes...to me this means the advc-1000 for the analog to digital conversion and also I got the datavideo (www.datavideo-tek.com) TBC-1000 - this is a Time Based Corrector which will help clean up your signal - this is a full frame corrector which replaces the video sync signal - on old tapes you will see those wavy horizontal lines and sometimes up/down problems - this fixes those

- you will also find many fans of the ATI (esp. higher end but also mid/low) boards - this can be your video card and these do capture as well (I myself opted for the advc100 and will get a separate video card but see the lordsmurf ref below)

- you will also want a decent VCR to suck all the signal possible off those tapes - the more you can do right off the tapes the better off you will be; check out lordsmurf's site www.lordsmurf.com which has some good guides on capture (see the capture forum and guides here as well). He is an advocate of the JVC VCR's - I myself got a JVC with some decent features and have not been unhappy w/ it - some of these do have a TBC built in (not quite the same as the tbc-1000) and some good analog noise reduction & jitter reduction filters which help as well. I didn't expect but did find a noticable difference in the output betwen my JVC consumer deck and the one I got for doing this work - much better color, for one. stay away from a composite video signal if you can - you want to use the S-video signal out of the deck

- capture - scene detection - since you will be capturing off of analog tapes, having some type of scene detection in your capturing arsenal may come in handy for editing (e.g. the s/w looks at your video and marks or creates separate files when the scene changes). I like scenelyzer but before getting a separate tool, decide on your capture/editing s/w and it may have that built in (more below).

- rendering (converting AVI to mpeg2 which is the format for dvd). Try TMPGENC and see how you like it first - 30 days free trial. Also try the CCE basic (cinema craft) encoder too. I did try a bunch of the above and for myself but was not satisfied w/ the results off my older tapes - I was geting a lot of 'mosquito' noise that I wasn't happy w/. One of the benefits of virtualdub and avisynth, (see editing below) is that these are extremely powerful tools to help clean up your captured video and work well in combination w/ temgenc, etc. - but, these are command based (although I think there may be a gui(s) add on out there (?) so they take time to learn. However, alot of people have coded scripts and filters which you can use if you hit problems like this type of noise, etc. - e.g. many do some temporal smoothing to fix these types of noise problems - again...this will be a function of how much time you can invest - I would suggest giving the encoders above a good run for your money and see how you like the results; I also tried main concept which is very very good encoder as well, and actually is built in to vegas, so if you are going to spend on an editing tool, don't spend separate for an encoder license until you know what editing tool you will get. I spent big for canopus procoder, which does transcoding and encoding into many formats; the biggest reason I got it was that the mastering quality knocked my socks off compared to the others, but the tool is *very* pricy (either $500 or $600). Once you get a tool, you will find other uses for it's features and I ended up making some windows media files for something at work, etc.

- rendering - h/w boards - there are h/w boards out there which capture / endocde directly to mpeg2. my **personal opinion** (no flames - fee free to disagree w/ me & post your thoughts) is to try the s/w encoding route first, esp. if you are going w/ something like tmpgenc (e.g. lower cost). I can't speak for the ATI boards, but I would avoid the $100-$150 dazzle, et. al. products which capture real time to mpeg 2. Again - no flames please - these will capture and I'm sure some will swear by these products, but I think they will only give mediocre results. I would rather recommend put your hard earned $300 into an advc-100 (but check ebay for used ones first) and go w/ a software encode to get started. the trade off is that s/w encodes take time; however, the are very good quality and will let you put your inital $ into getting a good capture (you'll need to make sure your PC is up to the task - 7200 rpm separate capture drive min, some do nice raid setups too - suggest 8mb hd buffer if you're buying a new one). IF you want to allocate $300-$500 to a real time mpeg encoding board, you would be safe. check out www.videoguys.com for some good if slighly old info on these boards. canopus has what looks to be a nice prosumer board in the mpegpro mvr, but it is $$$ and is missing one feature that would be better to have for US use (not sure where you are); if you will be converting a lot of tapes for which you *don't* wan't to edit, a board may ultimately be the way to go as it does make things easier (by virtue of being quicker - hard to explain). Note, that if you get a hardware mpeg encoder board, it is only that and doesn't support realtime transitions, etc. when editing (which for example dvstorm does). See FulciLives post in this thread for comments on the editing - unless you are down the road a bit and focusing on editing, I don't think you'll nead the real time effects - it would be overkill for just starting out (and, w/ some of the editing s/w, you can pre-render your transitions / effects so that when you preview your project, they are shown as quick as everything else in your project).

- don't overlook a set top device if you just want to do a lot of converting w/ little editing (I did see your comment on editing but had to put this in to be balanced) - check out the e30, e50, and e60 (panisonic) - many people get good results w/ these although they are limited in some options (very limited editing, and the authoring (menus etc) are "limited" (compared to s/w) as well)

- editing - you may find that you need to focus your initial $$ on the capture / VCR side of things - I would recommend getting good captures you are happy w/ first, then if you have $$ after, spending on an editing tool. search this board and demo them before buying. Since you are also into audio, I would point out to you that the sonic foundry tools www.sonicfoundry.com have their origin in audio and for example the audio tools in vegas are *very* extensive. "Half" of sonic foundry was just bought by Sony but I'll skip the evil empire comments for now (but it did give sonic foundry a good source of funding). I myself went w/ vegas +dvd. There are plent of posts to see on the tools - avisynth and virtualdub, and ulead, movie maker, pinnacle, etc. etc., as well as vegas, premiere, edius (new)), etc.. Since you mentioned DVStorm board (canopus), I'll also mention matrox and pinnacle. if after all of this post, you are still consdering the dvstorm, also check out the competing martox products. Pinnacle tools that compete at that level may be decent (and I will avoid them forever just for making me suffer w/ studio 8 (entry level), which should never have seen the light of day b/c of all of its problems).

- authoring (menus and structure of the dvd iteself (vs. just the video/audio stream) & burning - check out the tools and pick yours...some go the author and burn w/ separate tools (and since you are staring don't skip the dvd lab tool - demo it)..check out roxio and see what it can do for you alone and in combo w/ some of the other tools (it can also make labels, I think). other go w/ an authoring package that does both (ulead, etc.). I went w/ dvd architect which goes w/ vegas - there are some nice features b/c of the integration, but nothing earth shattering yet (but they are helpful).

as an overall word of advice, try to get your arms around your approach before over spending in any one area. also, you can start w/ getting an encoding tool and then building out your process both ways around that (upstream toward capturing and downstream toward author / burn) as you learn (which is kinda what I ended up doing. Also, what are the specs of your PC?

Sorry for being so long winded but something struck me about the post...hope all of this helps!!

[lordsmurf]

Though I normally support ATI cards, for your purposes I'd look at a Matrox. One of my friends has a Matrox card on a Mac, and it can do some pretty amazing things.

The Matrox cards are expensive, in the $1000 range, but can do all you want and probably more. They are professional cards.

www.matrox.com

And don't forget Adobe Premiere and After Effects. I'm trying to learn those myself... and the After Effects is NOT easy.

The Canopus DV Storm cards have been out for a while now. They're not the newest ones around. Not sure if that means anything, but I would assume old tech has some kind of drawbacks. Nothing I've used, but it's been a card I've seen for several years now.

And as mentioned above, don't skimp on the playback equipment. Good VCR, good wires, etc.

[killer]

Dave

Another good response. Don't care about the long-winded part - it does give me more food for thought and stacks of info. I'm based in Australia - we get both NTSC and PAL here or appear to, but primarily PAL. My PC is spec'd:

Pentium IV 2.2GHZ
1 GB SDRAM
2 X 120GB Drives (7200 rpm WD)
ASUS M/B
Firewire/USB 2

This reply gives me some more reading and investigation to do (lots). I've used TMPGENC and VirtualDUB and I like the results they've given me.

And you are right this forum rocks in comparison to others.

Thanks

George

[killer]

Lordsmurf

Thanks for that. I have had a look at the Matrox RTX.100 but felt that it need a lot more processing power for what you get (maybe that's a good thing) and that it didn't quite mamke the grade in terms of the integration of the audio. I'd heard lots of people had problem with Sound card compatibility!


As before I'll take up the advice about VCR and cables

Thanks

George

[FulciLives]

I'm based in Australia - we get both NTSC and PAL here or appear to, but primarily PAL.

One nice thing about the CANOPUS ADVC-100 (as well as the similiar DataVideo DAC-100) is that they have selectable IRE level input.

PAL uses 0.0 IRE for the black level
Japanese NTSC uses 0.0 for the black level
Most other NTSC including US and CANADA use 7.5 IRE for the black level

The CANOPUS and DataVideo units allow you to adjust this depending on your input.

In short this comes in very handy when dealing with multi-system equipment and sources.

Also I agree that a TBC is a great thing for VHS videos especially older badly worn tapes.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Will Hay]

Short and sweet but...
...I've been using an ATI for capture (and Matrox G400 + rainbow runner before that) and am about to migrate to the ADVC-100.
Check the top of the capture forum for specifics, the ADVC-100 is hot news at the minute.
Will

[gf]

Hi Killer,
I have a All in Wonder Radeon and a DVStorm2. I have had dropped frames with the All in Wonder ( fixed now ) but still intermittent erratic movement on some captures. A buddy has the TV Wonder and I saw the same effects. But the DVStorm does capture VERY WELL. Software compression is better than hardware compression, it keeps better control on the bitrate and quality of the compression, something hardware encoders don't do. Don't get me wrong, the hardware compressor does work very well but if you want the best then software is the way to go. I have the Storm for about 8 months and still have not used the features that come with this system. If you want to save yourself some money go for the ADVC-100, if you want to have a hardware MPEG compressor and/or perform special effects then go with the storm2. Also the ADVC-100 diables Macrovision.

[tonymac]

I have recently acquired a Navis Pro hardware mpeg card. The quality of captures for vhs is one to one, can't tell the difference. There is no further processing needed apart from cut and edit (using womble). This is a major advantage over ADVC products. I then author with tmpg or spruce and I'm done. The navis also ignores macrovision. There are a few more recent cards using the same hardware as the navis, namely the PVR series. I got mine from ebay and consider it the buy of the century.