Opinions on Pinnacle Studio VCD

[falco533]

Ok sorry to have to ask BUT the capture card section to the right is non functional.
I am new to this and about to purchase a capture card and have sort of decided that I will go with the Pinnacle Studio VCD. I have done a seach for comments on this forum but there is not too many on this card.
So any comments appreciated. I mainly want to copy my old home video to a format that my Pioneer DV344S can play. (SVCD PAL )
Also; are their any capture cards that have a STEREO input, everything I have seen is all MONO.
Thanks for any replies.

[rop37111]

first audio will go in and out pc by audio card.
a creative 128 pci will be just fine.
for capturing video i use a ATI graphics card.
look for a ATI regeon with tv-in and tv-out with 64MBDDR.
use mmc 7.6 from ati and upgrade it to mmc 7.7 for capturing s vcd complient video.
plug scrat adapter to your vcr scart plugin.
conect audio to line-in in audio card.
conect video to tv-in in ati graphics card.
start video-in in mmc 7.7
play your tape or tv channel.
just capture it and burn the cd with vcdeasy available here.
edit the film with adobe premiere 6.0.
download it from adobe it is a full functional for 30 days.
search the net for a crack for it u will find it.
good luck

[falco533]

I have just reread the Pinnacle sight and it appears the Studio VCD is quite OLD. They dont offer any support on this product and its not designed for XP. So back to the drawing board.

[falco533]

Thanks for your reply ROP37111.
Just went to the ATI sight and it says the Radeon supports 720x 480 @ 30fps.
As I will be using the PAL system I was under the impression I should be looking for something that will do 720 x 576. Is this correct.

[offline]

Be aware that there is a lot of noise in VHS video and that many
ppl at this forum have been less than satisfiedwith the results
they have achieved putting VHS to VCD.

There are two provenways to capture high quality video.

With an analog capture card at high resolution [352x480(576)] using any generic card that has a Brooktree BT878/879 capture chip under windows 2000 with tweaked drivers (avail on the net.) Or, using a firewire card
and capture software at high res with a digital camera acting as
an analog to digital bridge between the firewire card and the vhs
vcr.

Both the above require that u have a siginificant amount of free
disk space and a decent CPU.

To sustain the VHS quality, you have to turn your
captured video into a format better than VCD. CVD or SVCD
can give excellent results, while DVDr remains the best (if more
expensive) way to save those videos for the future.

Other methods (such as mpeg capture cards, ATi, Dazzle, Miro etc.)
have their supporters and detractors. In any event, to obtain
near to original VHS quality from video tape requires research and
lots of fiddling around with drivers/filters etc.

[Mirror_Image]

Give this site a look:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/

[rop37111]

it will work great.
it is agp 4x.
and in pal u only have 25 frames/s insted of the 30 ntsc.
ask for advise at your local pc store.
i'm shure it is a good value.
good luck

[rop37111]

after 55 hours of reencoding with TMPEGenc i finaly backuped Snow White in vcd format and it's better than in original tape. why i did it? my 2y old dougter play it 5 times a day.

[falco533]

Ok I have decided on the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe even if it is a bit expensive here in Australia. ($799)It has stereo inputs and outputs as well.
Thanks for all the advice above.