Can anyone reccomend a good MPEG-2 Capture Card?

[Nawtwrong]

Hi, I am wanting to buy a TV card with capturing capabilities. I've seen loads on the marked, but am particularly interested in the ones that offer MPEG-2 capturing. I want the MPEG-2 to be as best as I can get it from an S-Video source, but at the same time am looking for a fairly low cost solution.

My main question is: What sort of quality is the captured MPEG-2? also which cards offer hardware encoding and is this any better?

Eventually I want to integrate this into a windows media center PC, which is why i'm looking for the best quality on a fairly limited buget.

Thankyou in advance for any help you can give........

[MrMungus]

I have the PVR-250. I like it. Great card if you want to capture directly to MPEG-2 on the fly, especially if your computer isn't super powerful (I was doing perfect captures on a P3 750 with only 256MB RAM -- CPU load was only 45-55%). I'd suggest, though, that you get an external version that can use USB 2.0 to give you a bit more flexibility (such as if you have more than one computer). The downside to the 250 is that the only audio format you can capture to is MP2, which is fine if you're going to output that to DVD. You can convert this in programs like TMPEG DVD Author but I was trying to avoid that.

But I just got a new computer and now I do my capturing via Firewire and do software MPEG-2 encoding on the fly using Ulead DVD MovieFactory, and I can encode the audio to LPCM instead of MPEG-2 (for wider player compatability).

I'm actually supposed to be updating the capture card list here on the site to indicate which cards have onboard MPEG-2 and which ones are just BT878 cards with MPEG-2 capture software.

[lordsmurf]

ATI All In Wonder 7000 to 9800 <- my cards of choice
Happauge PVR250 or PVR350
Matrox RT2500 or RTX100 <- expensive, but lots of editing features

[davideck]

mrmungus - Could you please comment on the PVR-250 quality versus the Ulead software encode?

[MrMungus]

mrmungus - Could you please comment on the PVR-250 quality versus the Ulead software encode?

Honestly, I don't see a difference. I've only been able to capture directly to MPEG-2 in any way for a few weeks but so far the captures on the 250 have been great.

The reason I'm doing it via Firewire/software encoding now is because I had a problem where the 250 was creating MPEG-2 files from bad tapes that TMPGEnc DVD Author couldn't use. What would happen is that I would do the capture, getting what I thought was a good MPEG-2 (played fine on the computer) but when I tried to create a DVD in Author (or DVDLab), the audio synch was screwed. I was even able to narrow it down to the where on the tape would cause the problem. I found out here it was definitely a problem with the MPEG file, especially since I COULD use the same MPEG-2 file to create a good DVD in Ulead DVD MovieFactory.

Like I mentioned earlier, another thing I don't like about the 250 is that you have to capture the audio to MP2, which is not a big deal, but I would hae liked to have the option. Also, MovieFactory lets me do things like set a capture time limit which is useful for doing unattended video capture.

Read all the reviews in the capture cards section. I don't know why some people have had problems getting it to work; no problems here.

[davideck]

Thanks mrmungus - I love using the PVR-250 and Ulead Movie Factory 2 because the whole process is fast and reliable. I eliminated my audio/video sync issues with an external TBC, and since then I have not had any problems. I would be willing to software encode if an improvement in picture quality was possible, but the PVR-250 provides very good results, and I am spoiled with real time encoding.

[MrMungus]

Thanks mrmungus - I love using the PVR-250 and Ulead Movie Factory 2 because the whole process is fast and reliable. I eliminated my audio/video sync issues with an external TBC, and since then I have not had any problems. I would be willing to software encode if an improvement in picture quality was possible, but the PVR-250 provides very good results, and I am spoiled with real time encoding.

Yeah, I know. One thing that impressed me about MovieFactory was that it can use input from either a hardware MPEG-2 card (the 250) or Firewire. It seems hard to find programs that will do both that way.

What are your capture settings when you use the PVR-250 with MovieFactory? If you choose to capture to DVD/MPEG in MovieFactory, wouldn't the program be encoding the hardware-encoded MPEG-2 source to MPEG-2 again in software? If you're wondering about your capture quality, I wonder if that's your problem. Whenever I used the PVR-250, I'd use the bundled Hauppauge software...

[davideck]

mrmungus - I do use the Hauppauge WinTV capture software. 4500/8000 kb/s yields two hours per DVD. Otherwise 8000/9100 kb/s for best quality. Movie Factory multiplexes the video/audio, but if I use a DVD-RW I can skip that step by using fast-editable mode. Very quick for testing purposes. I am an aging video engineer, so I am very particular about picture quality. I think that the PVR-250 provides great results, but I still notice the mpeg artifacts. If these artifacts could be noticeably reduced by using a different encoder, then I would give it a try. But my own firewire attempts did not look as good as the PVR-250. Other people have given me DVDs that they encoded in software, and the PVR-250 looks better
than these as well. So I was curious about what you found...

[andkiich]

ATI AIW cards 7000 or >

I personally use the 7500 and it has been great.

[Spectra]

I can't say enough about my updating to an ATI All in Wonder card. It has worked well beyond my needs. I use an AIW 9000 Pro.

Good Luck

[Dr. Swirl]

I liked my ATI AIW8500DV so much, I bought an ATI AIW 9000 when I built my other PC.

[Pa Kettle]

With the large price differences in the AIW cards, is there a difference in capture quality between the 9800 and the others or is it because of display properties
Since I don't use this computer for games, and only want the best capture for the price, it is a big difference.

[lordsmurf]

With the large price differences in the AIW cards, is there a difference in capture quality between the 9800 and the others or is it because of display properties
Since I don't use this computer for games, and only want the best capture for the price, it is a big difference.

Not really. Look for THEATRE 200 chipsets for newest ATI AIW capture cards. Example: The ATI AIW VE and the ATI AIW 9800 have the same capture chips. You're paying premium for the graphics (which are only good for gaming, what a waste).

[Sulik]

Personally, I would avoid the AIW VE - even though it's very cheap, it's also a PCI board, and may [or may not] cause compatibility problems, depending if you're lucky or not

The cheapest good AIW is the AIW 9000 (Just as good as the 9800AIW for capturing).