Hollywood DV-Bridge viable for laptop capturing?

[bchalker]

I'm looking to have my Tivo/VCR S-Video capture to my laptop? How is the capture quality from the Firewire Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge? The captures would be used to make SVCDs.

I already know the desktop solution is preferred, but...

[gNOMEintheRedHat]

Does your laptop have a IEEE1394 (FireWire) port?

This captures video in the same DV format as MiniDV and Digital8 camcorders.

It captures video @ 704X480 10Mb per second.

The captured AVI file is easy to edit.

It must be encoded into MPEG2 for SVCD or DVD.

Thanks,
gNOME

(now you know my alter ego)

[bchalker]

Yes, it does have a Firewire port.

I have a 120GB 7200RPM (8MB Cache) hard drive in a Firewire enclosure that would hold the capture.

Would this drive and the DV-Bridge be effective at capturing for SVCD creation?

[mojo]

I've been capturing on my laptop using the DV Bridge. I run a cable signal into the Bridge, cap on the laptop, and encode with TMPGEnc. Results are really nice SVCDs.

BUT

Serious tests with the DV bridge show it kinda sucks. The Canopus ADVC 100 has pretty much been universaly heralded as a superior product that does the same thing.

But more importantly, even at best quality, Tivo output is full of Mpeg artifacting (in both picture and sound). Encoding this to DV and the re-encoding this as an SVCD will never produce great results. As much of a pain as it is, your best bet it to be home to digitize the live TV broadcast and save that to your hard drive. Capturing a cable TV image will also look better than Direct TV or another DBS, since that is also a compressed MPEG stream!