Which capture card for these requirements?

[Rehan]

I need to pick out a capture card for a new PC I'm putting together. Here's some background on it:

1) Alongside the PC will be a Sanyo DSR-M800 Digital Video Recorder -- http://www.sanyosecurity.com/np-item/n_vcr-pages/n-dsrm800.html (already purchased, and can't be changed). This Sanyo DVR records incoming analog video into MPEG2 format, which can then be copied to the PC. The original video source is also analog.

2) Currently, I'm planning to have a Radeon 9000 128MB card in the PC

3) The capture device needs to be supported in RealProducer -- i.e., VFW support

4) The PC will be used almost exclusively for video capture, authoring, and DVD copying. No gaming.

5) There will be little or no editing of the videos. So a DV solution like a Canopus ADVC-100 is not really on the short list.

6) In addition to capture of live video from time to time, I have about 200 hours of footage on VHS that I would like to convert to SVCD or DVD.

7) I would like to spend my money as wisely as possible.


Would the Radeon 9000 Pro AIW 64MB be a good choice? or should I just go with the Radeon 9000 (non-AIW) plus a separate capture card -- one that actually has decent VFW support?

I haven't yet had a chance to play around with the Sanyo DVR to see what kind of quality its MPEG2 files have and how easy the unit is to work with. But it's most likely that for any SVCD/DVD authoring, I would just capture through the Sanyo DVR, then copy the MPEG2 to the PC for cutting/splicing and finally burning. So that may leave only RealProducer for which I need the capture card.

Any suggestions as to what I should choose?

[SaSi]

Two things you want to do. "Copy" footage from the SANYO DVR to the PC and "capture" VHS footage.

Copying the MPEG video from the DVR presents three options:

1. Remove the internal HD from the DVR and install it on the PC and copy the MPEG contents. (provided you wish to open the DVR and the file system of the device is compatible with your PC to allow copying).

2. Use the built-in LAN connection to copy the video, provided this feature is supported.

3. Last resort, you need to capture the DVR video as analog capture on your PC, in which case DVR capture and VHS capture are the same thing.


Case 3 above is the same as VHS capture, in which case you have two options:

1. Use a dedicated capture-encoder like the canopus and feed DV to the PC.

2. Use any appropriatelly equipped VGA with a Video In port to do analog capture.

I personally use the second option, which is nice if you try enough and experiment with different capture programs and codecs. I have had problems until I learned and view problem postings in DVDR by people doing this.

On the other hand, the canopus appears to be a good and versatile solution for capturing so I would advise you to try it.

If you want to buy a capture card, I am using an ASUS 9180 video suite which uses an - obsolete now - GeForce4 MX 440 chipset with 64Mb and twin VGA outputs, plus composite/S-Video in and out ports. Supposedly unsuitable for recent games, I have succesfully enjoyed the ones I like (flight simulator 2000 and F1 2001) plus high quality capture and VGA display at high resolutions.

I have heard the ATI capture chips have problems and incompatibilites, so search the forum for such postings and use caution.