Taking Recommendations For Capture Cards

[Sterling]

I am in the market for a capture card to run on my Win2k Box (Athlon 1.4 Ghz w/512 MB DDR RAM).

I usually convert DivX movies to XVCD(NTSC) (720x480 @ whatever bitrate will fit on 2 80 min CDs) so I can watch them on my Sony DVD player; I do have a few SVCDs and they look outstanding (albeit 3 CDs instead of 2).

Now I would like to get into capturing shows off of TV that I cant get on DVD (like Conspiracy off of H.B.O. - if it was out on DVD I'd buy it) and convert to either SVCD or XVCD. I already have a Tivo so Im not looking for anything to go out and record stuff on its own, just do a good job of capturing when I tell it to.

Here are the cards I'm considering:

- Creative Labs Video Blaster Digital VCR ($100)
- Dazzle Digital Video Creator II ($250)
- ATI AIW 128 ($100+)
- ADS Instant DVD USB ($175)

I have read the user comments on the above devices but would like some personal input on how the above would work for me for what Im trying to do.

1 - Are any of the cards above outright junk? The CL Digital VCR only has 1 comment. Anyone else out there like to tell us how its working for them?
2 - Any cards that are just spectacular that I have missed? (In the $100-$200 price range).
3 - Does the CL Digital VCR capture MPEG2 @ 480x480?
4 - Is the Dazzle DVC2 worth the extra $150?
5 - Is there a difference between the different ATI capture cards (i.e. the TV Wonder/VE/USB and the AIW 12? I dont care about gaming, just about capturing video.
6 - Are PCI cards that much better that USB-only devices? I'll pay a little extra if frames wont be dropped.
7 - For what I want to do are the cheap $50 cards (like the Dazzle DVC80 & Hauppauge WinTVGO) a waste of money?
8 - Has anyone used the I/O Magic PC PVR?


Thanks!

Sterling

[disturbed1]

Here's a link to some DVCII clips

http://www.spawns.dk/svcd/index.htm

I've seen clips from the ADS, not too bad either. Only does CBR from what I've read though. Soft image, not too sharp, which can a good thing.

Since you have an AMD cpu, the ADS USB might be your best bet. I've heard horror stories about Dazzle and AMD.

forum for DVCII users.

[Gazza]

If you have money to spend (and I mean lots of money) consider buying a decent DV Camcorder (I have a JVC DVL915) and a Firewire card. You can capture TV shows directly from your VCR and also TV and I think a DVD player also. After that you can capture it using Firewire. This is the overall best option, HOWEVER you will need tons of HD space (about 26 gigs for a 2 hour movie) and the camera's run upwards of $600 for a halfway decent one.

Now, out of the choices you selected, I would reccomend the DVCII... I have heard about it more than any of the other ones and it seems to have relatively good reviews, just make sure you get the utilities and tools reccomended of the VCD help review page.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Gazza on 2001-12-27 00:57:24 ]</font>

[Gazza]

And yes, for capturing purposes WinTV Go's are sadly crap... no hardware encoding at all. It is the first "capture" card I owned and I would drop frames left and right capturing at anything higher that VCD resolution. For watching TV on your computer they are great, but as for capturing, you are better off spending the $200 on a hardware encoder.

[TheInformer]

Interesting that you say "I would drop frames left and right capturing at anything higher that VCD resolution" in regards to a WinTV board. I've used both the WinTV GO and WinTV PCI/FM PCI cards and have captured at 352x480 from TV and VHS and haven't had a problem with dropped frames. If you system isn't up to snuff, that can cause frames to be dropped. Another problem is if you don't turn video off in VirtualDub during capture.

That being said, the WinTV boards aren't marketed as capture boards and (I believe) this thread was meant to be about cards that would do real time MPEG-1 and 2 compression, so they really aren't applicable :^)

Sterling: have you thought about getting a Sony DVMC-DA1 (or 2) box which will convert your input to DV format? Everything I've read about them has been positive. My DA1 should be arriving in the mail in a few days (good deal found on eBay).

My system: Tbird 1.2 Ghz, 256 megs RAM, 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

[Sterling]

disturbed1: After looking at the samples you got from the Dazzle DVCII, that looks like a pretty sweet card. Im concerned about what the Dazzle website says about not supporting AMDs though. Their web page says they dont support several of the Via 133 Mhz chipsets. I have an ECS K7S5A that uses the SiS 735 (266 Mhz) chipset. I've already emailed them to see if theyve tested them together yet. If anyone else has done so, PLEASE let me know what happened!

Gazza: I dont have that much money, I need to stay in the $200 range. I looked at the sample clips that the guys here did on the Hauppauge WinTV PVR and they look like crap. I would hate to see what it looks like on my 27" TV.
So far the Dazzle looks great.

Anyone know where I can get some samples from the Creative Labs card?

Thanks!

Sterling

[Gazza]

I had a 700Mhz with 128 megs of RAM when I was using the WinTV Go... I didn't really feel like messing around with settings so that could be why, but either way, you are better off with a hardware encoder... the WinTV PVR recently caught my attention and might be good since it is designed to be a capture card (it's about $70 or so less than the DVCII.)

[Sterling]

TheInformer: I didnt really consider getting a D/A converter. I'm guessing that you could use it just like the cards Im currently considering with the exception that the Sony & Canopus converters dont come with conversion software (I was thinking of using TMPGEnc anyhow).

Im still hoping to see what the Creative Labs card can do. $100 doesnt sound bad.

Sterling

[disturbed1]

Sterling,

I wouldn't expect an email any time soon. Support hasn't been there in the past. Although SMC micro seems to be doing a better job now.

Check this out http://www.digitallyactive.com/dazzle/
I wouldn't goto the bank with that info, but it could help.

Check out the DVCII forum link I posted, lots of users have commented on their good/bad experiences with DVCII.

I think the biggest issue is A/V sync with AMD chips. Although not everyone has this problem.

Here's an older post about the Video Blaster.
https://www.videohelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=69402&forum=2
According to them, I'd run away from it. 640x480 is max capture resolution.

[lagarto]

about creative labs digital vcr:
- it does capture at 480x480, bitrate up to 8.0 Mbit/sec
- it capture audio only at 32Khz, you must demux, re-encode the audio, and re-mux to produce svcd compatible files playables in dvd (i own a philips 711)
- i have to set the bitrate to 1.5 Mbit/sec because if i set to 2.3 Mbit/sec the card make peaks up to 3.5 Mbit/sec and lock my standalone dvd player (it looks very blocky at 1.5, i will do more testing)

i am waiting for betters drivers, and hopping the hardware is capable to 44.1 Khz audio capture

and about the review, believe half of it
i will wrote a full review when i have some free time...

[Nexzus]

I bought a Dazzle DVCII about 2 weeks ago and it works like a champ. My sys specs are 1G AMD T-Bird, 320MB, ABIT KT7ARAID. No install problems, no sync problems, no problems at all.

I'm capturing @ 720x480 with no dropped frames from VHS source. The quality is superb. I highly recommend it.

[dumwaldo]

i dont really know if it worth mentioning because it is fairly new but i am purchasing one of these before the weekend...

http://www.visiontek.com/everything.shtml

i read a review of the card in the january 2002 maximum PC magazine. the only flaw they could seem to find with the card was that it uses a ge force 2 and not a ge force 3. not being a gamer and not paticularly caring about 3d acceleration this looks perfect for me. i am replacing an old tnt2 card with 32 mb ram so it has to be an improvment over what i have now regardless of how well it caps.

all i am really hoping for out of this card is to replace my VCR for regular weekly taping of shows. i dont know the performance of the card yet but i saw this post and thought i would throw this goodie into the mix and see what other think of it.

[web_woman]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-27 00:38:20, disturbed1 wrote:
Here's a link to some DVCII clips

http://www.spawns.dk/svcd/index.htm

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Could not get any of the sample links. FTP...Pages/files
not found. Any other samples or an updated link?

Regards,
WW

[web_woman]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-27 10:25:58, web_woman wrote:
<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-27 00:38:20, disturbed1 wrote:
Here's a link to some DVCII clips

http://www.spawns.dk/svcd/index.htm

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Could not get any of the sample links. FTP...Pages/files
not found. Any other samples or an updated link?

Regards,
WW

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>


Update:
could not get to samples via HTTP by clicking links.
However, if anybody else has this problem you can get
to the files by FTPing to the root at:
ftp://svcdvcd@spawn.dnsalias.com
then drilling down manually.

Regards,
WW

[buzz10]

Sterling, I just had to speak up and vote for the WinTV PCI model 401. I disagree with Gazza about it dropping frames "left and right" and looking like "crap". I just captured an hour long TV show that was 107,785 frames long and it only dropped 12 frames! That is only .000111333 of a percentage point drop, which is nothing! This card gives good quality picture, is very flexible in the resolutions you can choose, and is low cost too. Consider it. Here is the system I use it with:

Windows XP
AMD XP1600 CPU
FIC AD11 Motherboard
256Meg DDR RAM
40Gig ATA-100 Hard drive

P.S. I have yet to see a hardware encoding card that can beat the software encoding quality you can get from VirtualDub and TMPGenc.

[Valnar]

Since you have 512MB of RAM, I'm assuming you are running Win2K or WinXP. (BTW, Win2K is preferred for this realm).

Go to eBay, and search up BT878. Buy any PCI board with that chipset. That's the best analog capture card under $100, bar none.

You can get third party WDM drivers and capture programs from http://www.iulab.com.

Also, for a huge thread on the Creative Labs PVR, visit http://www.avsforum.com

Robert

[Sterling]

buzz10: Were you capturing MPEG1 or MPEG2 with your WinTV card? Did you use Virtualdub to capture??

Valnar: Yes, I am running Win2k. Can you use Virtualdub to capture MPEG1/2 from BT878 cards?

All: If I get a Dazzle card, is the Dazzle software better than Virtualdub for capturing to VCD/SVCD?

Thanks!

Sterling

[disturbed1]

Dazzle doesn't use VFW or WDM drivers to capture. You'll have to use the Movie Star app (Included with the DVCII) to capture. There are a couple of freeware apps available (TWHN is a good one) that access the DVCII's controls. V-Dub uses VFW and WDM, as do most capturing wares, (MSP, VW, VV, AVI_IO)

Movie Star is a full editing app with transitions, wipes, cut splice, audio editing, audio dubbing blah blah blah so on and so on. It also comes with a DVD Player, Smart Sound, and DVDit LE.

[anvil82]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-27 11:03:50, Valnar wrote:
Since you have 512MB of RAM, I'm assuming you are running Win2K or WinXP. (BTW, Win2K is preferred for this realm).

Go to eBay, and search up BT878. Buy any PCI board with that chipset. That's the best analog capture card under $100, bar none.

You can get third party WDM drivers and capture programs from www.iulab.com.

Also, for a huge thread on the Creative Labs PVR, visit www.avsforum.com

Robert

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Is this one good?

http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/bennyip/PixelviewTVFM.jpg

PixelView Play TV Pro FM
It only has 1 vote of a 7.8 and one comment.

[buzz10]

Sterling,

To answer your questions above....

1) I have captured 352x240 AVI's for MPEG-1 XVCD's, and I have captured 480x480 AVI's for MPEG-2 SVCD's with my WinTV PCI Model 401. Never have I had a problem with many dropped frames. Dropped frames are not the cards fault usually anyway, it is the computers fault for not being fast enough to keep up with the capture. (ie..CPU, Hard drive)

2) Yes, I used VirtualDub for the capture, and then I used TMPGenc for the conversion.

BTW, my WinTV card has the BT848 chipset, not the BT878 chipset, and I'm using Win2k drivers for it, and my operating system is Windows XP.

Be aware, this card does not do "live" hardware encoding straight to MPEG 1 or 2, it is a capture card for capturing AVI's, then you convert them to MPEG using software such as TMPGenc. Hope this helped..

[matt-o]

the creative digital vcr dose an ok job of time shifting tv/vcr use.. I might have been tempted to keep it for Tivo type use if it had TV OUT!! As a Tivo device it really dose do a pretty decent job but then to have to view shows on the pc monitor stinks.

For capture card use for burning to VCD etc.. it has a long way to go yet. I Can only hope the software gets better but I think I am gonna send it back.

SO FAR The captured files don't look great at lower bit rates (2mbs-4mbs) and I have had what looks like dropped frames and once a file would not open in TMPGE or other apps after conversion with the creative supplied application (I may have done something wrong?). In fairness Yes I can capture at high bit rates and convert to VCD or SVCD with TMPGE but this still takes a long time and has little or no advantage over the huffy/avi process. It only captures with the creative app so far. I had hoped that this was gonna be one of the first cards to eliminate all the steps to go from tv input to MPEG compliant files without many intermediate conversion steps. this card is not there yet!probally won't get there as this is not what they intend it to do.

the only hope I have left is the ADS usb instant dvd
MPEG1 and MPEG2 it uses 3rd party app ( Ulead? ) so probally can use other capture applications etc..
I hope it produces clean compliant files..
possibly pv 23x or pv 25x cards or some of the newer stuff coming out?

the bt8xx cards require huge files/HD space, and then take a long time for the conversion process.. with a slower cpu. I want hardware encoding that works! with out having to run the files through a 2nd encoding pass.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: matt-o on 2001-12-27 21:01:40 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: matt-o on 2001-12-31 12:00:38 ]</font>

[Sterling]

buzz10: Yes, all the info you and everyone else has given has been a tremendous help. What is the difference between the bt848 and bt878? Faster, higher quality??

I am still torn on whether to get a "hardware" MPEG1/2 card or just a PCI capture card and capture with V-Dub & convert with TMPGEnc. Lord knows Im used to it from converting DivX movies to XVCD but it would be nice to capture & encode on the fly.

I think I have ruled out the Creative Labs card.
I would like to get more info on the ATI AIW Cards.
I wasnt impressed with the quality of movies captured from the Hauppauge WinTV PVR.
The Dazzle DVC II looks great but is at the upper end of my budget AND since I have an AMD Athlon, I am hesitant to buy one and then have to return it if it doesnt work with my motherboard.
I still havent heard from anyone with an ADS Instant DVD. How much of an impact does using USB vs PCI make on a captured movie?

Sterling

[next]

Sterling - my advise is to try them all. Take advantage of the liberal return policies out there and report back on your conclusions.

[aguillon]

I can personally vouch for the DVC II's quality.
Clips captured with it are vibrant in colour, well synched and with very little artifacts. No dropped frames on my systems (but then I always build high-spec pcs so cannot comment).

Cons:

1- Some of the units come with an assembly flaw: one chip needs to be pushed in - happened to me
2- Hates to share IRQs with other cards on your system. Can lead to having to juggle the card from slot to slot or manually assign IRQ...
3- Their drivers are proprietary, the device does not show up through Windows, so you cannot use other capture software like VirtualDub with the card. You are stuck with their Moviestar software (not a problem it s quite nice)and a couple of third-party apps. Would have been nice to be able to use a scheduler like AVI_IO for instance.

[buzz10]

Sterling,

I don't know if there is any quality or speed difference between a BT848 and BT878 chipset.

One thing I found interesting regarding USB versus PCI is this: Low-speed USB operates at 1.5meg/second, Full-speed USB operates at 12meg/second, and High-speed USB operates at 480meg/second. PCI operates at 132meg/second. You can read about this at:
http://www.usb.org/faq/ans2.html#q1
http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/infobrf/ibpci.html

Also, PCI has been around for quite a while now, and is very stable/compatible, whereas, USB is newer and is still going through some stability/compatibility issues.

[Valnar]

Yes, to the poster a few replies above, that one would be a good choice. Any BT878 is a good choice.

Now, capturing is done uncompressed, but it can scale to 720x480 and 30fps if needed. The HARDWARE is capable of anything. How you compress is up to software instead of crappy built in codecs, which is prefered these days because of the availability of such fast processors. In any case, HuffyUV is good for capturing, and TMPGEnc for converting offline. That will give the best quality bang for the buck. Any 7200rpm EIDE drive can handle this, but you will need 40GB+ free space.

To tell you the truth, I'd only consider an analog capture board above $800 as the next step up from a BT878 based board, but even then, the BT878 supports everything I need. I have a firewire card for all my digital stuff when I'm done converting my analog tapes.

An analog board like the Pinnacle PCTV Pro (or other BT878 board) plus an ultra fast PC like a P4 or Athlon XP is prefered to a slower PC with a hardware based capture board. With hardware, you are limited to the codec the MFG used in their board, which is usually substandard to CCE or TMPGEnc anyway. With an AVI capture board, you do all the compressing in software, and its always a better video that way! It may take more time and hard drive space, but its worth it.

Robert


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Valnar on 2001-12-28 07:33:24 ]</font>

[icono]

Talking about BT chips, how about the rage theatre used in most current Radeon VIVO boards. Granted that it does not have hardware encoding features, is its ADC quality better than bt878?

[Macros746]

I know I am in the minority here but I love my Radeon AIW card. Once you figure out how to get around the ATI software (it isn't all that hard to get it working...at least for me) the captures are really beautiful.

Macros

p.s. Because the new crop of video cards just came out they are affordable too. I got mine for $120 from Best Buy a few months ago....

[Sterling]

Do the Hauppauge WinTV PCI cards use the BT848/878 chipset?

How about the I/O Magic PC PVR? Anyone used one of these? Just curious what chipset it uses.

Sterling

[Valnar]

Sterling, the WinTV-FM card I think has the BT878.

Also, for all who posted before, AVI_IO and VirtualDub are great programs for capturing. You can get the full resolution your hard drive and CPU can handle with those programs under Win98SE.

** However **

Win2K uses WDM drivers and prefers Directshow applications. Currently, the only one around is iuVCR. It's not bad, but its no AVI_IO. You may want to do your captures in Win98 so you can use it and other VfW applications. The VfW->WDM wrapper Microsoft made for Win2K/XP is flawed, and cannot do above 352x240 captures.

I have to dual-boot for all my VCD needs, with Win98 only used for capturing. However, if iuVCR has fixed all its audio-sync problems in the latest 4.0 beta, then I can ditch Win98 forever and do all my capturing on an NFTS partition. Woohoo!

Anyway, have fun.
Robert