IS there a good affordable capture card?

[rsl614]

I've been reading the boards for a while now. On the advice of people here I bought an ATI All in Wonder. It turned out to be a piece of garbage. Returned it, and on the advice of folks here I got a Hauppage
WinTV PVR-250, and so far, it too has been nothing but trouble. My computer is a monster, and should be able to handle the task easily.

So what I'm asking is this: ARE THERE ANY GOOD CAPTURE CARDS in the 2-3 hundred dollar range? Or is the technology just not there yet?
It seems that no matter what folks buy, it is not working properly. I've seen posts complaining about virtually every product on the market, and virtually none reporting any positive results.

Since I will probably ditch the WINTV-PVR in favor of yet another solution, I just thought I'd ask.

Rob

[Stanley Bostitch]

I got my TV Wonder for $60 at PCUniverse.com, and it has provided fantastic quailty captures of all my favorite shows (w/ PowerVCR II).

I doubt you'd need to spend that much, unless you've got a real bad case of the mooies.

[jonhildrum]

Well, Since You already tried ATI AIW and didn't like it I'm not going to suggest it.

However, I have had very good results using the ATI AIW radeon with MMC 7.7.
I like it.

[kayfam]

I have to agree with jonhildrum on MMC 7.7 for the ATI AIW. Dollar for dollar you can't beat this card. Your only other choice is to go with a hardware based solution, but be prepared to spend some major money.

[kreg]

It will make a difference depending on what exactly you are trying to do. Do you want to capture directly to mpeg or mpeg-2? Or do you want to capture raw video such as avi's and then encode to mpeg? I use an ATI AIW for captureing raw avi's then encode to mpeg's. It does also capture directly to mpeg and mpeg-2, but it's not exactly the same quality as when doing it the long way.

Kreg

[SHS]

rsl614 you rgtih about this part virtually every product on the market has there up and down's yup that gose for MAC and LINUX to.

rsl614 if can hold on to your pants long enough I see what the engineering have to say about your there nothing can on sunday where I live so give me a few days and keep cehck forum on PVR site who may new drivers that are come soon will fix that problem btu some tell no.

As I said what it look like to from thoses picture you post it look like the tape got eat up on side on of it been the upper half of your spanshot picture look good.
It possable it could be something with the card.
I be ask you some Q in the PVR forum very soon.

[Barnabas]

Your Hauppauge 250 *should* make VERY good captures unless you are capping from video tape. What is the problem with your captures with it? I have 4 cards here I use, and the Hauppauge makes VERY nice captures from Satellite, and Laserdisc, but NOT from video tape. I use a WinTV PCI card to capture from tape.

[SHS]

have look Barnabas what do think it look like
http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=106736
http://pvr.opcenter.de/viewtopic.php?t=840

[Barnabas]

I have never had any wavy problems with my Hauppauge PVR USB unit at all. If it only does this off of video tape, then it's the tape or might be the VCR/ cap card interaction, but if off of the air also does this, then the card could be bad or some AC noise or something might be getting into it. Try unplugging some power "bricks" to things you are not using. I have to do that here or I get horizontal streak lines on all my capture devices except my ProVideo PV-231 card. The screen capture below is from a video tape to the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB. While the Hauppauge does not do a great job from video tape, there are NO wavy lines at all in this cap as you can see by looking at the MIC stands.

[BKL]

I have experienced many of the frustrations mentioned here. I have a Sony camcorder with analog throughput that converts the analog input into DV and then outputs the DV to my computer via Firewire. Concerned about wear and tear on the camera, I now use the Hollywood DV-bridge from Dazzle to convert from an analog signal to DV. When capturing, I usually use ULead VideoStudio 6 and capture straight to MPEG1 with quite satisfactiry results.
I would still like to find a capture card that does a decent job of real-time MPEG2 capture at a decent price, but the rig I have now works well with my Athlon XP 1600+ system.

[Spicuzza]

rsl614,

Try this system:
http://www.canopus.com/us/products/stormrack/pt_stormrack.asp#technical_specifications

[tumbar]

StormRack
Catalog No > 770-10064-100
MSRP > USD $7599.00

Brother, can you spare a dime?
How about a quater?

Jim