what capture card should i get?

[ssjneo]

I am wondering what card I should get. Price is a little factor, I will be using it to capture music videos off of tv and to capture various things off my dvd player. I also wouldn't mind if it had a tv out so i could watch downloaded movies on my tv. Does anyone know a good quality capture card that does this?

[ssjneo]

Anyone? please answer this..

[WildStyle]

Look through the capture cards link on the left. For good quality caps get an ATI card (AIW or Radeon Vivo). To record stuff from DVD, instead get a DVD drive and learn to rip it. If you have camera with firewire and it has a pass thru function, then all you need is firewire card. Great quality with this option. You'll need a P3 600 at a minimum.

The bottom line is you'll need to READ a lot more instead of asking.

[ssjneo]

well i already have a dvd player so couldn't i just hook that up to my dvd player and capture, or woudl the quality suck? And I am pretty sure the mysql is down on the site currently so the list doesn't work.

[ssjneo]

And i'm looking at the different AIW cards and there is liek 10 of them, whats the difference? Which one should i get from those? Other people please respond with other opinions.

[vhelp]

ssjneo,

Ok, basically, basied on MY experience with the following:

a - DVD capturing . . .Hauppague WinTV PVR (USB model)
b - Satalette captuirng . . .DC10+
c - experimental captures . . .hauppauge wintv pci (an old capture card from 1996)
d - other test captures . . .ATI Rage Fury

The above are just some of the cards I used. I have other as well, ie, ATI-TV Wonder/DVC I usb/

I might share some sample from (c) I already have for (b)

a) I capture at 2520 (usb model) and if need be, I cut with Womble. There's NO need to
mux my audio either. The quality is great! I do ALL my dvd movies with the PVR. The usb model
only caps at 352x480, but the quality is soo good, that capping at 704x480 is just a waist, even if
the usb model were to supply it (which it doesn't)!!

b) I've used my DC10+ for some time now. I have it licked except for the color issue. It only
captures in the range 16 - 253, instead of 0 - 255. I read this somewhere in a forum elsewhere.
I haven't found the solution to this color issue, but for the time being, I just adjust the colors as
best I can, and live with it. At least, till somthing else better comes along. As for the color issues,
it's only more noticable in dark scenes. But for lighter scenes, its pretty darn good. I have samples
of the dc10 case you want to check it out - (see b)

c) I'm testing this card out right now. Ben running some cap tests for abuot a week now. And, I'm
pretty impressed with it. I like capping at 352x480. In short, it's really not worth capping at anything
nigher than 352x480 unless the source IS 704x480 or 720x480 and in VERY GOOD CONDITION!
Else, you'd do best to cap at 352x480 in AVI that is. But, capping at 352x480 with good quality as I
have ben getting is most likely based on your cards abilites. Only testing will show its true colors, hehe.

d) ATI - Stay away!!! if you can, that is. he, he.... Most come with Macrovision on hardware, else
driver dependent. In any case, since I have the Fury, I cannot cap from any of my dvd players.
I get a dark screen. So it might be the ATI card, and/or my MB configuration. I only use this card
as my vedio card to replace my ATI Rage 128, which I'm in the process of putting this my 2nd pc.
I bought the Fury because it was cheap and also had capture capabilities build in.
Ok, I've used the ATI capture software. I don't like it for avi because it wont capture at 352x480.
will cap at 480x480 and 720x480, and a bunch more (useless tough), but 352x480 is what I want.
I did try there MPEG2 real time capture software. In short, it sucks on MY machine. I easiliy
noticed the blocks. For me, my needs are Quality!! I want good quality, and nothing less.
I've done a lot of reading here, and one thing I noticed is that there are all kinds of people
here. A handfull want/need/disire Great Quality, while some want good quality, and others
will settle for less - so, to each his/her own.

Basically here is GOAL rage: (1 - 5)
1 - I don't care. just want to fit more on cd - (screw quality) - (blocks)
2 - I Don't care. just want to fit more on cd - (quality if i can get it) - (blocks)
3 - I care, but still want to fit more on cd - (but with quality too) - (some blocks)
4 - I want good quality! - (don't mind the multi cd's) - (min. blocks)
5 - Great Quality - (don't mind the multi cd's) - (+/- blocks, nothings perfect)

My aim is for 5. That's what my goal is. ...Great Quality!
I think I'll use this rule as a guide for now on.

You didn't specify what your goal is and wheather you have cable/sat
So, for music videos, ie, CBT/BET/MTV/VH1 comes out pretty good.
And your goal with this should be 4 or 5 (above)

I don't know what your experience level is for capture/encoding, but since you did
ask for capture card recommendations, I would catagorize you as a newbie.
You could try out the Wintv Go card. This is an AVI capture card. You have to
encode to mpeg later on.
* try and stick to caps at 352x480
* if quality IS your concern, encode to SVCD else, VCD (352x240)
again, 352x480 is best, SVCD (xSVCD to 352x480 instead of 480x480)

Stay tuned to some samples from c)
They'll be worth it! (the download, that is), he, he...

Well, I'm getting carried away over here... So, I'm gonna stop here!
Good Luck!! And may the best card win!

---------------------------
AMD t-brd 900mhz w/ pc133 128mb ram

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vhelp on 2001-11-22 02:23:36 ]</font>

[Arepiv]

My reccomandation would be to stay away from higly electronicaly dense cards such as combined video and PC graphic cards. The more you put ICs on a board the more difficult to get interference free signals in the analog video circuitry.

I have tested the ATI AIW 128Pro for video acquisition and the quality sucks: image background interferences and small artifacts on some surfaces makes the result of poor quality. I would not recommend this board for video acquisition. Other sophisticated boards may work but I believe it's somehow a lottery: one pc board layout may be ok, but following a modification in the layout it may get worse.

So, based on my experience, I reccomand the very "simple" TV capture cards like the Pinnacle Studio PC TV Rave (cheap and has the S-VHS connector) or the Hauppauge Win TV PCI (without the S-VHS connector and more expensive than the Pinnacle). Other boards using the Conexant BT878 chipset may work but again the layout has to be interference free.

The disadvantage of these cards is that you loose the overlay support, but that's not a big issue.

Arepiv

[spiderman2k1]

get the Dazzle 2 if you have a intel set up it has some problem's with some AMD board's. Some AMD set up's work great http://www.digitallyactive.com/dazzle/



http://stop.at/dazzle2

[ssjneo]

So vhelp is this the one you said would be best for me?
http://vcdhelp.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=374210&search=Wintv%20Go%2...fc8b4afb8ff383
don't want to get the wrong one.

[ssjneo]

Ok i'll give more specifications
I'm a newbie
I want the card to capture from my dvd player (ps2) and from tv (mtv/vh1 etc).
I don't want any that cost more than 200 bucks.
is that wintv go card the best i can get to do what I want in the price range? or are there better ones? Please clear this up, youv been a really great help.

[SHS]

ssjneo it real depend on weather or not you want go for Hardware MPEG capturing or SoftAVI capturing or SoftMPEG capturing.
Hardware MPEG capturing keep your CPU usage down.
SoftAVI capturing need fast Harddisk with a lot of disk space and a very fast CPU plus you to convert it to MPEG format which take a long time to do.
SoftMPEG capturing need very fast CPU but only get fair quality it not bad but it not good.
If you go with the Hauppauge WinTV card you can get a free SoftMPEG capturing tools called nanoDVR 1.1.12 Special Edition for Hauppauge WinTV or WinTV-PVR only PCI cards.

If you only went to do VCD capture quality only you may want think about getting Hardware MPEG1 encode they don't cost lot of money any where from $100 to $125 like a ProVideo PV231 with out tuner or PV233 with tuner check out http://shop.store.yahoo.com/akidacomputer/tvcapturecard1.html that should help you get started just a note min don't come with MPEG editor but that should be a problem you can fine some low cost editor out there.