Capturing from LaserDisc for DVD burning - best method?

[Xoanon]

I'm looking for a capture card/input device for capturing from a LaserDisc player. To preserve quality, I want to capture in AVI format if possible, not MPEG-2, so I can do the MPEG-2 encoding myself later.

Does anyone know a non-too-expensive method for capturing in AVI format? Everything I come across seems poor (Dazzle DVC 100) and/or only captures in MPEG format.

Thanks, guys!

[jman98]

Just my opinion and you are free to disagree with me, but...
I feel VERY strongly that lossless capture is hugely overrated. With a high enough bit rate you'll get excellent results. Trust me. If you capture at, say, 15000 Kbps, and encode down to 7000 Kbps, you're not really going to tell any difference with that and encoding down from a lossless source.

I've been recently using the Hauppauge Colossus card. It only records in H.264 but I have encoded to DVD via AivSynth and I'm pleased with the results. Oh - I should have specified that I am doing laserdisc captures too. Capturing at over 10000 Kbps in H.264 is excellent. It's really hard for me to believe that you really need lossless. Heck, even high bit rate MPEG-2 is really really good.

[Xoanon]

Well I want to do any restoration/clean-up on the highest quality source as possible. I can take capturing in H.264, but MPEG-2 is a no-no. But I dont even have a capture card right now.

[buckethead]

The ATI USB 600 using virtualdub works VERY well for me. I have a 32 bit Vista OS, so I'm not sure of its compatibility with other OS, but search this forum for tips and discussion. I had previously tried the ATI 750 USB, but it refused to work for me.

[Xoanon]

I have Windows 7 x64 so would be interested to find out if it works. Does it capture in AVI format? It appears to be a TV tuner, how does it work?

[buckethead]

Read this thread. It has a lot of good information. Puzzler was the member who sold me on the ATI USB 600. It can capture AVI. Don't be swayed by the title.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/331817-Best-MPEG-2-Capture-Device

[usually_quiet]

I have Windows 7 x64 so would be interested to find out if it works. Does it capture in AVI format? It appears to be a TV tuner, how does it work?

The ATI USB 600 includes a break-out cable for analog video capture. It uses software for compression and can be used to capture uncompressed or losslessly compressed video in an .avi container.

The ATI USB 600 has Vista drivers, but no Windows 7 drivers. There are some VideoHelp members who have managed to find a way to get their ATI USB 600 working in a Windows 7 64-bit system, but it seems not everyone succeeds. buckethead found a thread about that very topic, which I remember well.

[filmboss80]

This thread has gotten me curious about the actual content of the laserdiscs themselves. Are these rare videos? If they are commercial movies, then you would save a lot of time and labor in simply buying DVD or Bluray versions of the movies. The image quality would be better, too.

Of course, if they are difficult to replace, I could understand the logic of going through the time consuming, labor intensive exercise of capturing, cleaning-up, re-encoding, authoring, and burning the content to new media.

[edDV]

Remember that Laserdisc is analog composite video similar to 1" Type C videotape. The capture card should have a good quality comb filter to get an optimal Y/C split. Ideally you would capture analog composite video to 9 or 10 bits before level correction or noise reduction.

I agree with Filmboss80 that the commercial DVD will be better quality so long as it avoided analog during the mastering process.

[Xoanon]

Read this thread. It has a lot of good information. Puzzler was the member who sold me on the ATI USB 600. It can capture AVI. Don't be swayed by the title.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/331817-Best-MPEG-2-Capture-Device

Thanks man. It appears to be a discontinued product, but I found this. Is this a re-version?

http://www.zones.com/site/product/index.html?id=002330587&zone=business&srccode=cii_26...ode=30-3627943

[usually_quiet]

Read this thread. It has a lot of good information. Puzzler was the member who sold me on the ATI USB 600. It can capture AVI. Don't be swayed by the title.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/331817-Best-MPEG-2-Capture-Device

Thanks man. It appears to be a discontinued product, but I found this. Is this a re-version?

http://www.zones.com/site/product/index.html?id=002330587&zone=business&srccode=cii_26...ode=30-3627943

The product in your link is the correct device. Diamond Multimedia sells graphics cards and other video devices based on ATI products. VisionTek is another company that sold PC TV tuner devices using ATI technology.

[Xoanon]

Many thanks indeed. So all I need is to hook the LD up to this and I'm good to go?

Does anyone know if I can capture in Premiere Pro with this or do I have to use something else?