Please answer these last questions, Guys

[joeAgain------]

I VERY much appreciate all the experienced people who have responded to my questions.

I have printed all of them out and will study them and try to understand it all long after this post disappears.

Although money is very tight(or maybe because it is), I don't want to buy the PCTV Pro card if it's end DVD/CD player TV screen results won't be even close to the VHS version.

But PLEASE guys, Please answer these 2 last questions, Ok
1) Are those resolution ratings for this card something that indicates it will give poor quality full TV screen results? (that mystifies me and I don't understand what they mean)

2)Those of you that have bought TV cards of this brand or others....do you wish you had gotten something else?

thanks,
joe (Oops, one other last question....I've been hearing that firewire is a good thing for end quality results due to speeding up capture rates...IS there a firewire card that captures VHS tape(not digitally recorded video?)

[Macros746]

You have to tell us what you are aiming to do before we can make recommendations. Are you a gamer? If you don't already have an AGP card I'd still recommend the Radeon AIW 7500. It is cheap and has all the features one could want. The software sucks but if you get showshifter, MMC 7.5, and Virtualdub you can do ANYTHING with this card.

Macros746

[Main]

hi, I was trying out a AverTV 2000 to check out its capture quality. It captures MPEG1 and 2 as well as AVI. I only tried MPEG 1 and 2. The card is very cheap, I got it for less than 50 US$, and for that price I guess the quality was good. But it didn't work for me. If the input video is very good then the capture is ok. I would prefer sharper images though. Even under MPEG 2 it wasen't sharp. But thigs got terrible when the source video was bad. I've used Snazzi 1, DVC1, DVCII and Snazzi III, never saw anything like this. Images were all pixelated even in slow moving scenes. No color or brightness - contrast adjustment when capturing. I guess it would depend on what you need it for but it sure didn't serve my purpose.

Main

[Nelson37]

Joe - 1st, Firewire is primarily a digital interface, not a Video Transmission medium. It does not capture, it transfers a digital file. To utilize it, your video output machine must have a firewire-out port. This is usually found on digital equipment.

Resolution - most VCR are approx 352x480, while TV is 704x480. DVD is usually 704x480 although it can be 352x480. ANY (standard) resolution can be made to display full-screen, its just like blowing up a photograph.
If you are ONLY capturing VHS, 352x480 capture would work fine. However, if you want to capture cable or satellite, the higher resolution capture, even if downsized for encoding, will be a better image.

Capture - Resolution is not the whole story. Even more important is the ability to capture without dropping frames. This is dependent on capture hardware, and, varying with compression from the capture card, your hard drive and CPU. IE, your machine might cap 352x480 AVI just fine, but drop frames at 720x480. With a cap card that does MPG2 or MPG1, which will reduce data rate to the Hard Drive, 720x480 might be easily doable.

I have owned several ATI cards with good results. Driver install a bit tricky sometimes but comparable with other similar cards. Sure you see more complaints on ATI cards but remember that they compose probably 50% or more of these users, I doubt if any other card has 10%. Also the ATI is a decent gaming card so you could re-use your current Vid card.

You are in for a lot of experimentation and discovery, and fun as well. Get some CD-RW disks for testing re-use, keep reading (it makes more sense after a while), decide on VCD vs SVCD, try both, have fun!

[joeAgain------]

Nelson,
Yes, my learning curve is Very steep right now. I'll keep reading. And IF I buy a card and go forward with this, I will get a few CD-RW disc tp practise on.

Ok, since nothing about my camcorder or tapes I want to copy(or VCR)are digital....the firewire is out.

On the resolution thing, this Pinnacle Studio PCTV Pro card I'm considering is rated on the website's Comparison chart as having lower end numbers and it kind of bothers me. Are these bad numbers for reasonably good copies?:

Capture Max. Resolution:352x288/MPEG1 and Max Resolution:768x576


Main,
Did you end up not using any TV card and get another straight capture card? Did you ever get any good copies? With what card and how did you do it?

Marcos,
I want to make copies of "pretty good" quality of my VHS home movies onto CDs. I do have an AGP card. It is a 64Mb Nvidia GeForce2 MX.

A very knowledgebly guy here told me there was a way to find out my max capture frames per second capability of my hard drive by using the Benchmark file in VirtualDub....but didn't tell me the settings to put in it to get that test info. Do any of you guys know? I understand hard drive speed is inportant on Not dropping frames, Right? How to I test my HDD?

[Main]

hello again,

I was having trouble choosing a mpeg 1 card and kept asking. I even posted a question in the forum but no one answered. Then I asked Steve Kittelsen and his words were, "The PV231 *is* the best mpeg-1 card that I have ever seen." I asked a friend to get it for me as it isn't availabel in Bangladesh. Steve was very kind and gave me a descriptive answer and I am convinced that I should get one. I can only let you know about the quality once I get it. If you want SVCDs though you'll need a mpeg 2 capture card and that would be another case.

Main

[Nelson37]

Joe - The max cap is the important one, and I think 352x288 (pal) is low. However, if you are making VCD's, this card apparently does real-time capture and encode. BUT, no SVCD or anything better. Download the test clips on this site and see if VCD will be all you will ever need

[CMP1223]

Try the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe ($250-$270). It has a breakout box that captures analog (your VHS tape) and convert it into a DV format movie. I just bought one, and they are on back order so it should come soon. It captures at a fixed 720x480 DV and only uses Pinnacle Studio for capture. After that, you have a DV movie that can be edited and burned. With this high quality capture, you should have no problem capturing the full quality of VHS.

-Chris