Dazzle DVD Creation Station 200 Question

[tharris]

I am looking at the Dazzle DVD Creation Station 200 and have been lurking in the forums for awhile looking for an answer on whether or not this capture box actually captures in native MPEG2.

The comments so far indicate that it does not but captures the audio in a proprietary format. What I want to do is create Super VCDs so I need to burn the CD using MPEG2.

If this box has to convert the captured MPEG2 prior to burning, how long does a conversion take? Looking for Super VCD clips that run around 20 minutes; my PC is a Pentium III 450mhz.

Thanks

[SodGawd]

Hi tharris,

Yes, the Dazzle DVD Creation Station 200 does capture in MPEG-2 format. I could not get it to capture worth a darn. The sound was great but the image was choppy and looked bad. It connects into your system via your USB port. I tried it on USB 1.1 and on a USB 2.0 card with the same results. Of course, it could be my KT-133 motherboard chipset with the AMD T-bird 1Ghz. Dazzle does make some nice products and this one has potential. It should have been a firewire (1394) connection not a USB.

As for the converting, that depends on many many factors. What codec your using? How was it captured? what resolution was it captured? what encoder are you planning on using? What does the footage consist of?

Hope this helps.

Sod out..

[tharris]

Thanks for the reply.

I am looking at the Dazzle 200 because I want to capture in SVCD MPEG2 480x480 and then use my Ulead MediaStudio 6.0 editor to add titles, etc.

MediaStudio does "smart rendering" if the source clips and exported clips have the same bit rates, etc. so it won't have re-render the source MPEG2 file.

My concern is that if the Dazzle 200 captures the MPEG2 video in a proprietary format (audio was what I read in one of the posts about the box) then before I can import the clip into MediaStudio, Dazzle's MovieStar software would have to render the source clip to true SVCD MPEG2 format. If it does indeed do that, the render time plays a role into whether I would want to try this box out or not.

If MovieStar has to render it and if the render time is as long as converting AVI to MPEG2 then nothing is gained and I might as well capture and edit DV AVI (downside of huge capture clip files) and then render that to MPEG2.

Based on what you said, the Dazzle 200 does capture MPEG2 so it wouldn't have to render it prior to importing the clip into MediaStudio so, in theory, it would be possible to save alot of time by not having to re-render and have smaller capture files that can be burned directly to a SVCD and playable on a DVD player.

[ajp]

Have you ever considered the Snazzi III? It comes in both PCI and USB2 versions as well as one with a Firewire port. I just bought the USB2 version myself and I'm very happy with it. A couple of minor issues but nothing that would stop me from highly recommending this product. Their support is very responsive and friendly too.

It captures directly to DVD/SVCD/VCD and compresses .mp2 audio in hardware (separate .wav/.mp2 availible)

At least have a look at it, can't hurt... www.snazzishop.com

[tharris]

The Snazzi does look pretty good but the minimum PC requirements exceed my PC specs, especially for MPEG2 captures. I've got a Pentium III 450 and according to the specs on their web site, a PIII 650 in the minimum.

The Snazzi III DVD Mill looks like it might be an option though as the minimum requirements are PII 400mhz.

[ajp]

I always take those minimum requirements with a grain of salt. They're usually too low anyway but in this case I think it's a bit high. A P3-450 will probably do since everything is compressed in hardware, as long as the disk can keep up. Can't be sure however, maybe they put that spec for a reason. I don't think it needs more power than any other similar card though but maybe the PCI model requires less than the USB2 version...

[SodGawd]

one way to speed up "render" time is to De-Multiplex the capture file to the video file and the audio file. Import both into MSPro 6 and do your editing. Export the video only to your needs and then export the audio file as a .WAV file. Then use BeSweet or HeadAc3he to encode it to a .mpa file to the specs that you need. Both offer a broad range of options and are farely easy to use.

Good Luck!!

Sod out..