please recommend a capture card for a newbie

[Time]

hi to all
please don't burn me -i'm a total newbie to capture cards and i want to do what most want to ,to convert vcr/hi8 tapes to mpeg1/2 but after reading the posts and reviews my head has turned to mush

pinnacle cards seem to have a prob with mother boards rinning sis chips as i have-so i'll keep away from them

canopus which i like the reviews has a prob with sp1 as i have sp1 ;( but i guess it is also out of my $ range which is ( aud$150-300)

leadtek 180 my vivo doesnot have audio in and if i run the sound though my creative audio pci card will i have sync probs with long tapes?

Q. can you capture an image if a vcr is connected to the back of a tv card (do you need a capture card or will the tv card capture?)will it get through the output image protection (i think it's called macrovision protection)or am i way off track?

all i want is something reasonably priced and reliable- man my head hurts

regards to you all
Time

[Will Hay]

I had to reply to this because
a) I used to have the same problem and
b) I used to have the immortal words "my head hurts..." underneath my avitar, but I changed it recently to reflect my recent birthday!
Right, as you say you're a "total newbie":
Firstly, you need to spend some time reading the capture guides man, they're real easy to use
There's also a review of every capture card on the planet (probably!) so have a read through there.
Basically, go with what you can afford.
I picked up an ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo (video in - video out) graphics/capture card for £35.00 on ebay, brand new, and £££ for £££ (or $$$ for $$$) it's the best peice of hardware I've ever bought.
I get stunning full resolution dvd captures at 720 x 576 with this thing, and over a couple of hours capture tend to lose less than ten frames (which, considering 25 frames a second in the UK) is less than one half of one second.
When you decide on your capture card (I have the SiS chipset by the way and it's superb, no issues - unlike VIA, stay away from VIA) you'll need the following:
1) A program/software to capture your digital video/tv/vcr tapes. The ATI card comes with one but I prefer the excellent (free) Virtualdub. Another (simpler) capture program is FreeVCR (again, free) and there is a link on this site with links on where to download it.
Then, you'll need a codec as you capture, which compresses the video feed as you capture it so it becomes a more managable size, but obviously the more you compress the less the quality will be.
Then, assuming you don't want to edit your captured video, you'll need a program to convert the captured avi to mpeg1 (vcd) or mpeg2 (svcd/dvd) or whatever the hell it is you want to output to.
A good encoder is TMGPEnc which is free for 30 days mpeg2 and unlimited for mpeg1.
I use this, I love it.
The offical site can be found here
Again, there are a tonne of guides on this site for converting captured footage but to be honest you should be starting here.
Then, you'll need a program to author to dvd, something like Ulead MovieFactory which will let you add a title and menu. You can go the short route and simply buy something like Nero or (I think) RecordNowMax. These two examples let you burn directly to disk, but you don't get to add your menu's and chapter points etc.
With regards your macrovision question I imagine if you want to convert vhs to dvd then you'll need some form of copy-protection remover. I have a scart box I picked up for £25 on ebay and this removes the protection.
My ATI card hasn't a sound line in but I run that into my sound card and set the capture settings to audio 'line-in' - easy
That's basically a brief intorduction to what you want to do.
Now, go do some reading
One last tip: Change your thread title to something other than 'my head hurts...'. Whilst it appeals to me it's frowned up on this site and will get you flamed.
'Help needed choosing a capture card please' is more relevant, and may get you more replies
Good luck,
Will Hay

[Time]

i apologise to you and the moderators for my bad title to this post if i could change it now i certainly would - i guess i'm just frustrated with too many choices and not knowing what would be right for my needs
peace
Time

[Will Hay]

i apologise to you and the moderators for my bad title to this post if i could change it now i certainly would - i guess i'm just frustrated with too many choices and not knowing what would be right for my needs
peace
Time

No need to apologise, I'm just trying to point you in the right direction
You can change your thread title when you either edit a message or post a reply.
No big deal
Did my post help?
Are you heading in the right direction or none the wiser?
Will

[Time]

Silky31 thankyou you are a legend

i already am familiar with converting formats as i also rip movies-ihave quite a few programs for converting formats-i am pretty sure i will find my way in the editing processes as i also have editing software.
my major concern is the capture card- i just want to pick the right one
i have been through all the reviewed cards 3 times - ithink i've got myself confused between tv cards and capture cards and also the macro protection
i looked up the ati radeon you mentioned it is very simillar to the leadtek if i am not mistaken
the capture software you mention i will definately look for
i have an 80gig hard drive and 512mb ram and running 2ghz processor so i know the system can handle it-
i guess what it will come down to is taking the plunge after a bit more research and your help is definately appreciated!!
regards to you and all
Time

ps i'll try to edit the title now -hope i can

[Xtasy2002]

I've had Visiontek Xtasy Everything for a long time now. It doesn't do real time hardware based MPG capture, but no card at this price does. Besides that it blows every other capture card away in terms of features for price.

[scott@butlerandco.co]

The best capture device I have ever had is the Canopus ADVC 100. This works great. No dropped frames. Buy an external 120 to 200 gb hardrive /Firewire and you are ready to rock.

[Earthbulb]

AVOID PINNACLE!!!!! They are seriously the worst ever! I could go on for days about their incompetance, but i'll just say i have never felt so ripped off!!!

I have the Canopus ADVC100 also... Its great, never any dropped frames and the quality is awesome... Its so easy and it works.

[TBoneit]

Go with the Canopus as mentioned above... Any capture that uses the sound card to capture video will most likely have audio/video synchronization issues at some point, usually when you you can not afford it, as you capture that once in a lifetime capture.

I have used many different capture cards and devices including the ATI All-in-Wonder and USB devices over the years and they all had different problems, sync. being only one of them.

Since I splurged on the canopus I have had Zero problems and better quality.

The question to ask yourself is, money more important than ease of use & Quality.

Having many family members where only price is important to them, maybe I'm biased the other way.

BTW I am using the ADVC-100 in Windows XP Pro SP1 with no problems, now that I replaced the TI Chipset firewire card with a differnt cipset brand.

I get nice captures into MF2 for DVD or if I need to edit then I use scenalyzer for the caps.

Good Luck
Roger

[frizb]

Canopus ADVC-100 & a firewire card

[CogoSWSDS]

If you're going to capture and burn to DVD or CD, you don't need video out. If you are going to dump back to tape, you do need the video out (unless you burn to DVD/CD and then dump to tape). In the case where you don't need video out, if you want to do it on a shoestring budget, a TV tuner board works just fine. Most TV tuner boards are based on the BT8x8 chipset (BT848,BT878, etc); if you get one of these you'll get decent quality. Folks on this site also recommend the free btwincap drivers for cards based on this chipset. These are WDM drivers and are available from http://btwincap.sourceforge.net. If you want to use a VfW based application such as VirtualDub for your capturing, you'll also need the WDM VfW wrapper, which you can get by clicking on the "Tools" link on the left side of this site.

Personally I get decent quality captures with nothing more than a WinTV Go! board from Hauppauge; I paid US$20 for this board on Ebay.

CogoSWSDS

[Time]

thankyou all VERY much

i might save for the canopus-but is the compaibility with Sp1 an issue with the avdc-100 model ?

can it get passed the macro protection on video output from a vcr or do i need something aditional?

trust me all your comments good and bad are valued

regards and thanks to you all
Time

[skateni]

thankyou all VERY much

i might save for the canopus-but is the compaibility with Sp1 an issue with the avdc-100 model ?

Nope ... stay away from DLink Firewire cards ( which is based on the TI chipset ). I am using it with a Shuttle built-in Firewire and it works like a charm with SP1 and the works

can it get passed the macro protection on video output from a vcr or do i need something aditional?

trust me all your comments good and bad are valued

regards and thanks to you all
Time

Yep .. just press the select switch for 15 to 20 secs and the macrovision will disappear. You need to do this again if you power off the unit

[burnmaster2003]

I use an Adaptec Video OH PCI card to capture VCR movies. The card list for about $170 US dollars. Do not use the software which comes with the card. I use Snazzi's Movie Mill, which is a free download from their site, to capture the video. The software can capture video for MPEG 1 and 2, but the capture card is designed to capture DVD quality MPEG2 video. I have copied about 24 VCR tapes of home movies, and the burned DVDs look better than the tapes.
8) 8) 8) 8)

[Time]

hi all

skateni thankyou
so the type of firewirecard you have could also effect the canopus avdc-100

is there a way to check-the one in my case was put in as part of OEM
if i open the case i doubt it would be printed on the card -i'll check it though

burnmaster 2003 thankyou also
i'm still open to suggestions on the pci cards and will look for movie mill definately

thanks and greets to all
Time

[irongang]

I've got the Canopus ADVC-100 and a $30 CompUSA Firewire card. I've captured literally hundreds of hours of video with it and have yet to have a dropped frame or out of sync audio. It is more expensive but d*mn it's cool!

The only thing I haven't figured out is how to do timed recording. I'd love to say 'start at 'x-o'clock' and stop at 'x-o'clock' and then start and stop again, etc. The timer programs that I've seen want separate audio and video sources and don't consider the ADVC to fit the bill. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Alex

[skateni]

I've got the Canopus ADVC-100 and a $30 CompUSA Firewire card. I've captured literally hundreds of hours of video with it and have yet to have a dropped frame or out of sync audio. It is more expensive but d*mn it's cool!

The only thing I haven't figured out is how to do timed recording. I'd love to say 'start at 'x-o'clock' and stop at 'x-o'clock' and then start and stop again, etc. The timer programs that I've seen want separate audio and video sources and don't consider the ADVC to fit the bill. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Alex

I use Macro Magic. It allows you to "script" mouse clicks, key strokes and then use the Windows XP schedule to schedule the scripts. The script would run DVIO, click on the Capture button, then pause for the duration of the capture, stop the capture and shutdown the comp. Only thing is you need to ensure you got enough diskspace and ya on the correct channel on your VCR or cable box and the ADVC-100 needs to be on though

[skateni]

hi all

skateni thankyou
so the type of firewirecard you have could also effect the canopus avdc-100

is there a way to check-the one in my case was put in as part of OEM
if i open the case i doubt it would be printed on the card -i'll check it though

burnmaster 2003 thankyou also
i'm still open to suggestions on the pci cards and will look for movie mill definately

thanks and greets to all
Time

Most have no problems with other TI chipsets cards except the DLink ones ( which coincidentally uses the TI chipset ). No need to muck around with ya comp. If you use windows, run the Device Manager and expand the IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers. It would show the "type" of Firewire that Windows detects ( mine shows up as a VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller ).

PS : It needs to be OHCI compliant ( which almost all modern FireWire are nowadays ).

[txpharoah]

I'm a major fan of Canopus products, from using their $2K DVstorm package and MPEG2 cards, but their good products are all really in the $1K+ price range. That ADVC-100 card was not very good at all. I'm still amazed at how many people like it. It's external (which is slower and not as good as internal AGP cards) and it only captures DV AVI, not having any true hardware encoding for other formats such as MPEG1/MPEG2 (you've got to get one of their $500+ MPEG encoders cards). The Canopus codecs are also a pain to use unless you use ProCoder or Avid DV Xpress.

I always push the ATI All In Wonder 7500/8500/9700 cards for newbies. Heck, even for "oldies" like myself, it's a high performance card. The quality is excellent, it is a true hardware capture card, and easy to use. The VHS->DVD guide below (in my sig) has step-by-step info on how to make a perfect-quality DVD with ATI cards. The ATI 9700 is still in the $250+ range, and since it replaced the 7500/8500 cards, you can now find them for as low as $125!!!! (My 7200 card was $300+ when it first came out some years back, and still worth every penny.)

[skateni]

I'm a major fan of Canopus products, from using their $2K DVstorm package and MPEG2 cards, but their good products are all really in the $1K+ price range. That ADVC-100 card was not very good at all. I'm still amazed at how many people like it. It's external (which is slower and not as good as internal AGP cards) and it only captures DV AVI, not having any true hardware encoding for other formats such as MPEG1/MPEG2 (you've got to get one of their $500+ MPEG encoders cards). The Canopus codecs are also a pain to use unless you use ProCoder or Avid DV Xpress.

Well I don't have much money to burn on hardware MPEG encoders ( besides it'll be obsolete in a few months anyways ) so my preference is to stick to software encoders . For it's price point, the ADVC-100 is pretty reasonable and have all the features I want ( audio lock, defeat macrovision, very good picture quality ). My 2 cents is being an external unit is a plus point rather than a negative one, cause I could unplug it and plug it to my laptop or to the office without having to muck around with my comps innards ( it don't need drivers and no hardware conflicts cause it's external ). As for it being slow, you only need a sustained transfer rate greater than 3.6 Mbps for digital video stream ( anything more than a mouthful is a waste I say ).

I always push the ATI All In Wonder 7500/8500/9700 cards for newbies. Heck, even for "oldies" like myself, it's a high performance card. The quality is excellent, it is a true hardware capture card, and easy to use. The VHS->DVD guide below (in my sig) has step-by-step info on how to make a perfect-quality DVD with ATI cards. The ATI 9700 is still in the $250+ range, and since it replaced the 7500/8500 cards, you can now find them for as low as $125!!!! (My 7200 card was $300+ when it first came out some years back, and still worth every penny.)

Well... usually people use their comps for gaming as well and with the ATI, they would have to junk their latest and greatest souped up GeForce 5. With the ADVC, they can keep that .

[spiderman2k1]

I would get Dazzle 2 pci card go to www.dazzlegeek.com to see if it works with your mother board. Also PVR-250 and PVR 350 are very good ATI is oh ok if you find one cheep

[YMe]

I know next to nothing about all of this and yet I was able to install the ATI All-In-Wonder 7500 in an old Dell (400mhz) and it worked great. I just wish ATI would add an IR blaster so that the TV Guide scheduler could change channels on the satellite box. I called ATI and they told me that they have no plans to offer this feature.

BTW - I found the radio controlled remote that comes with the All-In-Wonder was a pain to operate so I got a Logitech radio controlled keyboard/mouse. I use the unit in my bedroom as a digital recorder and guess what - I discovered that the best mouse pad ever is a cotton sheet!

[Time]

hi all

i agree you get what you pay for and each type of capture card has both good and bad points-which sometimes is also influenced by the users experience and the type of system it has to work with

the canopus avdc-100 is about $670 aust. which is alittle pricey for me but it seems that it is the only decent card coming with macrovision defeat and the only bad thing is that i have to re-encode to mpeg1/2-what do you use to re-encode if you don't mind me asking.Also to upload the average 2 1/2 hour movie in dv avi format via the canopus how much hard drive space is required and after re-encoding how much space is needed?

i don't need to make dvd's since i only have a cd burner

the ati sounds good also for different reasons - $ mainly- txpharoah you make a good argument but what do you use to overcome macro protection?

this post has helped me Alot and going by the number of views alot of people are interested.

o.k these two cards i will have to choose from
what it will come down to will be ....that i will not be a newbie forever and the type of card i choose should have ease of use now while providing quality (for a price)
my head is starting to hurt and also my hip pocket..lol :P

again thankyou all !!
Time

[skateni]

hi all
the canopus avdc-100 is about $670 aust. which is alittle pricey for me but it seems that it is the only decent card coming with macrovision defeat and the only bad thing is that i have to re-encode to mpeg1/2-what do you use to re-encode if you don't mind me asking.Also to upload the average 2 1/2 hour movie in dv avi format via the canopus how much hard drive space is required and after re-encoding how much space is needed?

You could use any MPEG encoder you like ( CCE, MainConcept, TMPGenc etc ). To me, there is no such thing as the best, only what you are comfortable with ( features, price, speed etc etc ). It takes up approx 13 Gb per hour of video and depends on the bitrates and type of compression, you could get 10:1 ratio or more.