ADS Instant DVD 2.0,Hauppauge 250,Turtle Beach or other with VideoStudio 9

[neftv]

Does anyone know which MPEG2 hardware solution works best with Ulead VideoStudio 9? I want to take analog video and audio and make variable rate 6 or8 mbps mpeg files. I had tried to use the Canopus ADVC300 but I had problems with it. I was done trying to figure it out with Canopus tech support and decided to ship the Canopus back. Any other suggestions on other capture hardware that works with ULEAD. Thanks in advance.

[harley2ride]

The Ads Pyro AV/Link is reported to be able to do mpeg captures with Ulead Studio.

[neftv]

I have already ordered the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI and didnt read your post about ADS. I talked to Turtle Beach and they told me its compatible with VideoStudio. One nice thing is I do get the 30 days if it don't work out I ship it back. I read that the Turtle Beach card does not compress the video and I think that is a good thing. Well I still like to get more suggestion on my original post and I will report back results of the Turtlebeach when I get it. Thanks.

[bits]

I have been using the PVR250 for about a year now and it works great. It outputs compliant mpeg files so it will work with any video editing software that accepts compliant mpegs, which UVS9 does. Many of the mpeg cap settings are user selectable such as VBR or CBR as well audio bitrates.

You do not need to use UVS9 to do any capturing unless you purchase a capture card that does not have hardware encoding. You just cap the files you want and then drop them into UVS9. This is true with pretty much any hardware mpeg encoding capture device, software capture is not required!

[FulciLives]

I had the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 for a couple of weeks.

After testing it for awhile I came to the conclusion that I was very happy with it.

I did end up returning it but only because it has poor support for unattended scheduled recordings. These days I am doing a lot of cable TV recording so I needed a better solution for setting up recordings for when I am not at home etc.

I then tried a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 which has "issues" and is to be avoided (I also returned it) but the 250 model appears to be A-OK.

If unattended scheduled recordings is something you need I would go with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 (or the USB2 model) but if that is not important then I would go with the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 which I felt gave better quality than the WinTV PVR 150 (excluding the issues it has).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[EAO]

I had the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 for a couple of weeks.

...

I then tried a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 which has "issues" and is to be avoided (I also returned it) but the 250 model appears to be A-OK.

If unattended scheduled recordings is something you need I would go with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 (or the USB2 model) but if that is not important then I would go with the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 which I felt gave better quality than the WinTV PVR 150 (excluding the issues it has).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Yup.

Maybe they've fixed the 150, but I also returned it for a 250 and have been pleased.

Can't speak about your SW choice but I would avoid the 150 if possible.

[neftv]

Well I just got the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI card. I didnt get the result I wanted with the ULEAD software though. I think part of that is I don't understand what settings need to be for the capture there some options like yuy2 others. When I go to capture as MPEG at say 6500kbps the CPU usage on a 2.8ghz tops at 100% for some reason. When I use the software that came with the Turtle BEach the CPU usage is about 40% and that is for a 8000kbps file. I think the quality coming out of the Turtle Beach is very good.
ULEAD must be a processor hungry software to do mpegs that way and even running in with a DV cable results in a 80% CPU usage on a 2.8ghz.
Comments, anyone?

[FulciLives]

Well I just got the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI card. I didnt get the result I wanted with the ULEAD software though. I think part of that is I don't understand what settings need to be for the capture there some options like yuy2 others. When I go to capture as MPEG at say 6500kbps the CPU usage on a 2.8ghz tops at 100% for some reason. When I use the software that came with the Turtle BEach the CPU usage is about 40% and that is for a 8000kbps file. I think the quality coming out of the Turtle Beach is very good.
ULEAD must be a processor hungry software to do mpegs that way and even running in with a DV cable results in a 80% CPU usage on a 2.8ghz.
Comments, anyone?

I did some research on the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI card. It has the Conexant CX88X chipset which appears to be a decent chipset but it is a "soft" card meaning it does NOT have a hardware MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoder built-in. This means when you capture to MPEG it is being done completely by software on the computer ... hence the high CPU load even on such a "fast" computer system.

This type of capture card is ill suited for direct-to-MPEG capture. It can excel at AVI capture especially when using a codec like HuffyUV or PICVideo MJPEG.

However if you intend to do direct-to-MPEG capture then this really is not the capture card for you.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[neftv]

Well I just got the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI card. I didnt get the result I wanted with the ULEAD software though. I think part of that is I don't understand what settings need to be for the capture there some options like yuy2 others. When I go to capture as MPEG at say 6500kbps the CPU usage on a 2.8ghz tops at 100% for some reason. When I use the software that came with the Turtle BEach the CPU usage is about 40% and that is for a 8000kbps file. I think the quality coming out of the Turtle Beach is very good.
ULEAD must be a processor hungry software to do mpegs that way and even running in with a DV cable results in a 80% CPU usage on a 2.8ghz.
Comments, anyone?

I did some research on the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI card. It has the Conexant CX88X chipset which appears to be a decent chipset but it is a "soft" card meaning it does NOT have a hardware MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoder built-in. This means when you capture to MPEG it is being done completely by software on the computer ... hence the high CPU load even on such a "fast" computer system.

This type of capture card is ill suited for direct-to-MPEG capture. It can excel at AVI capture especially when using a codec like HuffyUV or PICVideo MJPEG.

However if you intend to do direct-to-MPEG capture then this really is not the capture card for you.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

When I use Turtle Beach's software Power Director to go to it's full setting MPEG (8000kbps) on a 2.8ghz cpu its coasting at around 40% and the quality looks great. Here is the workflow before we used a AG-DV1000 to take analog to 1394 into the computer and Videostudio 9 was purchased to do the mpegs. The DV deck is distined for another function and replacement was needed. Even though now with the Turtle beach software doing the encoding do you see any problem? It just seemed that in my previous scenerio with ULEAD injesting DV is more taxing on the CPU than now.

[FulciLives]

It's still a software based realtime MPEG encode/capture. This is generally not as good as a hardware based realtime MPEG encode/capture.

Cyberlink PowerDirector is generally not thought of very highly around these parts. If you find that you are happy with it then god bless you!

I think you would have been much happier with the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 or the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 than this Turtle Beach thing.

Tis a shame you posted asking for suggestions but then went aheard and ordered anyways before we all had a chance to chime in.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[neftv]

Well I agree and I did jump the gun in my purchase but I did a side by side comparison with using Mini DV deck to go 1394 in to Ulead and Using Turtle BEach to go into Cyberlink and I think its much sharper with the Turtle Beach way. Probably because Cyberlink uses yuy2 (422) and Mini DV is 420. My opinion with today's processors and hyperthreading and SSE cpus software encoding should work well. ULEAD just happens to be more hungry than I thought.
I like for more comments opinions etc...