Can a K6-3/450 capture VHS/VCD quality?

[kalabp]

What I'd like to do is capture video from an 8mm camcorder to CD at rougly VHS quality. From what I've been reading, this is basically what a VCD is, and it would require capture at 352x288 or so resolution. My system is only a K6-3/450 MHz with 256 MB RAM and a Maxtor DiamondMax 40 40GB (5400 RPM, UDMA 66) hard drive.

First question: is this enough without using expensive hardware?

Way back in 1999, Tom's Hardware did a review of several all-in-one video cards including the ATI All In Wonder 128 and the ASUS V3800 Ultra Deluxe. In this review, the ASUS board was shown to capture "low quality" (I believe this means approximately 352x240 or so) video with low CPU consumption on a Celeron 333, at 425 KB/sec, for up to 28 minutes per 700 MB CD
(http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/99q4/991118/video-in-19.html). From this, it seems to me that a K6-3 with an appropriate codec should be able to do what I want.

So the next question is what capture device should I use. At the extreme low end, I can get either the ATI TV Wonder VE or a surplus ASUS V6600 deluxe for roughly the same price. Would the ATI card, using MPEG-1, or the ASUS board, using ASV-1, be suitable?

Thanks,
Peter

[Akai Rounin]

It should work fine, at least for short clips, under an hour in length. Beyond that and some of the processing may seem glacial in performance. I first used the ATi All In Wonder 128 16MB AGP card in my Dell Dimension XPS 266 MHz machine. I must say I was absolutely astounded by the quality of the video capture and TV viewing I got using it. I bought that card about three years ago for around $190 and there are retailers that still sell it for nearly $120. At that price you might do better with the Xtasy Everything card. If you are on a very tight budget, then something like the ATi TV Wonder or Pinnacle Studio PCTV can handle the video capture without trading in your current video card. Check Price Watch and you should be able to find cards like the ATi AIW 7500 for around $150 and the ATi AIW 8500DV for $220. Assuming your budget can take it, upgrading to a 300W system case, AMD Athlon XP 1900+ CPU, ECS K7S5A motherboard and 512 MB DDR RAM can be managed for under $300. That way you could just reuse the components (hard drive, floppy, etc) from your old PC.

HUN-YA!

Akai Rounin