My Card Dilemma...

[Akhet]

I know very little about capturing video, so i have been having alot of problems choosing a card. There are the variety that are tv tuners like that cost around 50 bucks, and then from there i get confused about which cards are for what. Some are only for people capturing from camcorder, no?

I saw that exact card above in the store today, but am worried that it might not produce results i want because of its cheap price tag. I have an HP 1Ghz, 256 mem, 40GB hd. - win me

"DirectX 8 or higher compatible graphics board
(800x600x16bpp or higher) and sound board "

what does this mean?

How can i check that i have this?

the box of the one card above said i needed a compatible vga card - what the hell is that, and how do i kno if mine is compatible.

I have been told this is a particularly good cheap card:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/z-computers/pinstudpctvt.html

I only want to use the card to cap music vids and live perfs off tv - so a typical length would be 3-6 minutes i would say. I don't need to cap full movies or anything, but one thing i need is good quality picture, and the ability to make mpeg 2's with the card. Is it possible to have such a result with these cheaper cards? I have heard yes and no..


Sorry for my ignorance on all this

[KingJohn]

I have used the very first card they made, it does not have mpeg 1 output, but with some software I can save to mpeg 1, the output is just fine. (WIN TV 2000) basic PCI

Take a look at the full range of the cards here.
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/specs.htm

You will see some more modern cards...

"DirectX 8 or higher compatible graphics board
(800x600x16bpp or higher) and sound board "
what does this mean?

Have you installed Direct X V8 (www.microsoft.com)
Is your graphics card displaying 16 million colours, and a screen size of 800X600 ?

Right click your desktop and select properties, then display. Or My computer > Control Panel > Display. This will tell you what you have it set as under the settings TAB


VGA cards are very old, you have probably got a SVGA and its probably AGP and its probably a lot lot higher than needed , its tell you the basic requirements.

If you go to My computer > Control Panel > system > device manager > Display adapter. This will tell you what your graphic card is.

Now update your computer details

http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintv_pci_datasheet.htm

[Akhet]

thanks for the response!


ok - S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage


high color 16 bit - 1024 by 768

[KingJohn]

Then update your Computer details with "Graphic card = S3 Graphics Inc. ProSavage"

That card will be just fine

[Akhet]

So you think it will produce nice results? Will i be able to make nice mpeg2's with it?

[KingJohn]

Its not possible to say exactly what it would be like on your machine, I would guess it would produce good results from a good source.

If that source was a week TV signal, then the results would not be so good. I get very good quality from my Digital TV using the Composite in, but the RF side of the TV card is not so good.

You have chosen a basic card which is one of the cheapest, the Digital TV card is one for the future, but 3 times the price.

So for the money, I think its just fine