Capture for LAPTOPS

[marscable]

Hi as the title says im looking for a good "external" capturing device as obviously i cant put an internal one in my laptop..

Ive read advc-100 by canopus is a good choice but it shouldnt be just that isnt it? I hope anybody or anyone can give some more good insight about this.. TIA

:^)

[redwudz]

The ADVC-100 uses Firewire for transfers. Others use USB2. Firewire is more stable than USB2 with most applications. I have tried my ADVC with my laptop and a Firewire Cardbus card and it works great. Don't know much about the USB alternatives, but I have had problems with USB2 and external drives. No problems with Firewire.

[snafu099]

I have ADS usb Instant Dvd-2 and am very happy with it's performace and quality, in syn captures. I don't have firewire. Most recent pc/laptops will have usb and most usb-2 cap devices are backward compatable with reduced cap bitrate.

[grossjamesh]

I use the Hauppauge WINTV PVR USB2.0 works very well. Does hardware mpeg encoding.Highly recommended.

[marscable]

thx guys appreciate those replies...

now i have choices..

:^)

[Manokat]

I have preordered the Plextor PX-M402U which will be released in mid February. It is USB2 hardware encode MPEG1/2 and MPEG4, DiVX certified. Check out the link here:

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/ConvertX2.htm

I had tried a couple of other USB ones but I am not satisfied with the quality. One mentioned on previous post is very nice, but I dont have time to spend on hours of rendering and encoding as the capture device is not hardware MPEG2, MPEG4 capable.

If you can find firewire capture device that has MPEG2/4 support, that will be the best choice.

Looking forward to trying Plextor ConvertX 2

[Jester700]

I had the ADS USB1.1 unit. It was OK, but not great. The 2.0 one is probably better. I had the Hauppauge USB1.1 unit. I returned it because it ONLY capped audio in 44.1. You had to convert the audio to 48k after the fact. Since I wanted it for DVDs this was unacceptable, and the specs for the 2.0 unit look like they haven't fixed this.

The Plex looks interesting...

[DVWannaB]

Hey guys, be careful of the Plextor unit. I am not trying to discourage you or anything of the sort, but just be aware of what you are getting before actually getting it. Take a look at the "CAPTURE CARDS" review section of this site.

If you are capping in MPEG4, apparently, it is only playable in the software that Plextor supplies. So it is a proprietary MPEG4. Just so you know. Hopefully they will come to their senses and change that.

[Manokat]

I think you are talking about the older Plextor the CovertX M401U
not the ConvertX2 MX402U the new one is certified by DivXNetworks, it has the DiVX logo on the website.

[briandugas]

I use the Hauppauge WINTV PVR USB2.0 works very well. Does hardware mpeg encoding.Highly recommended.

Does this device offer the ability to transfer back out to a VHS unit like the ADVC 100, the DAC 100, and the ADS Instant DVD 2 units? I like this device because of the built in TV and scheduling ability.

[grossjamesh]

No, it does not have that ability. I also like the scheduler, I set up a week in advance and dont worry about missing shows.
I also think the WINTV2000 SW is very good.

[marscable]

THX Manokat..

As a matter of fact i just happen to have run into that a little while ago while surfing before i came back here to look for more comments in this post of mine.. coincidence?..

Anyways i didnt even know its not available yet so i guess we'll just have to wait and see it looks pretty promising and its coming from a well known respected company so my hopes are high..

Since you've ordered it already i hope you come back here and give us an insight once you receive it.. and i hope it will be a good one too.. g/lk

:^)

[DVWannaB]

I think you are talking about the older Plextor the CovertX M401U
not the ConvertX2 MX402U the new one is certified by DivXNetworks, it has the DiVX logo on the website.

Thanks for the update, Manokat. Its the right thing to do and they should have done that on the previous unit. I guess its another example of these manufacturers rushing products to the market prematurely. Good for Plextor AND GOOD FOR THE CONSUMER!!!!!!!

[MrMungus]

Hi as the title says im looking for a good "external" capturing device as obviously i cant put an internal one in my laptop..

Ive read advc-100 by canopus is a good choice but it shouldnt be just that isnt it? I hope anybody or anyone can give some more good insight about this.. TIA

:^)

I've been using the ADS device lately. Really, it depends on what you want to do. If you want to encode directly to MPEG-2 then you could use either the ADVC or the ADS MPEG-2 hardware capture device. The only thing is that if you use the ADVC then your computer will have to be fast enough to do software MPEG-2 encoding on the fly. The downside to the ADS MPEG-2 device is that you can capture in MPEG-2 only. This will be a problem if you want to do edits of your captured video beyond simple cuts.

[briandugas]

I use the Hauppauge WINTV PVR USB2.0 works very well. Does hardware mpeg encoding.Highly recommended.

I was doing some reasearch on this unit, and it also seems that it encodes audio at 44.1 rather than 48Khz. I would rather not have to de-mux, and re-mux an edited audio file. Just creates more work. It is such a sweet product though, especially for the laptop users out there. I'm sure it makes a great PVR.

[austin316gb]

I like the look of the plextor but i like to capture in Huffy and then apply filters to my captures when I encode. My laptop has both firewire, USB 2 and a big enough HDD so any advice on an external capture card for this use. The only thing i do requre is an S-Video Input on the capture device.

[marscable]

MrMungus:

Thx for the tip i think i got a fast enough computer to run an on the fly encoding.. i think i gonna wait a couple of more months and see how that new plextor unit would work out.

Again thx for the infos guys!

:^)

[Kevin abq]

I have a laptop too at home that I use for capping. I started my capping project in 6/02 and made the mistake of buying the ADS USB Instant DVD. It was pure junk. Then, after a month-long lip-sync nightmare, I bought the Snazzi III USB2 box, which also works with USB1.1. Then I found out the hard way that I definitely needed a time base corrector for VHS transfers if I wanted any hope of getting good lip-sync, so I got a Datavideo TBC-1000.

I've been happy with the Snazzi, but I think there are better units out there for less money than I paid. IMHO, avoid anything made by ADS. Why? They cut corners like nobody's business. That original box I bought from them was based on the Cirrus CS92210 reference design. This design requires the PC sound card to capture the audio portion. This design also allowed for an analog audio mux in the unit which would improve chances for lip-sync, but ADS chose to save 50 cents or a buck per unit and they left that feature off to save the cost of another IC. The result - a hopelessly inadequate piece of junk that was only fit to be thrown as far as you could chuck it. No kidding. That's how ADS builds video gear. Avoid them like they were an STD

[briandugas]

I but ADS chose to save 50 cents or a buck per unit and they left that feature off to save the cost of another IC. The result - a hopelessly inadequate piece of junk that was only fit to be thrown as far as you could chuck it. No kidding. That's how ADS builds video gear. Avoid them like they were an STD

You speak from experience with the ADS, so I can't refute, cause I never owned the USB 1.1 version. Several others have stated the same problems with the Instant DVD usb 1.1 version. But now they have a USB 2 version, which looks a lot better. A few others on this site own the newer unit and speak very well of it. I just purchased it, but I have only done one capture with it. I did check for sync, and my 2 hour movie was in sync down the very end. I haven't burned it yet, so we'll see. I have no doubts though, as the reviews on this product are very nice in comparison to the older USB 1.1 version of Instant DVD.
In life we find many companies that make a crap product, but that doesn't doom the company. All it takes is one change in management, or corporate philosophy, and suddenly the company is making good products. I can't give specific examples, but I do remember hearing about this. I wouldn't cast off ADS just because of one product that was good in theory, but was doomed to fail because of USB 1.1 restrictions.

[Kevin abq]

Fair enough. They might have "seen the light". But the mention of ADS hit a nerve. Let me explain ....

That first month I tried capturing with that IDVD was a nightmare ...I lost sleep, was stressed out, and I wasted sooooo many hours trying different tricks to get lip sync. At one point I used an app to demux the audio and video, resample the audio so the duration was slightly different, then remux with TMPGEnc. It didn't work. Nothing worked. It was horrible, and I had such a bad taste in my mouth after that experience.

What really turned me off about ADS was that through ADS' support website there was link to an "Instant DVD user's forum". After using it for a week I got suspicious because it seemed that every criticism of ADS products, by many users, or attempts to isolate the problem as a design issue, was liberally censored by the board administrator. Not answered ....edited and censored so that it wasn't critical of the company ...or just outright deleted! Not because of profanity, or copyright issues, or any of the other legitimate reasons ...just criticism of the company and the product. The blame was instead directed at the user's hardware setup. A common one was to blame the lip-sync issue on the user's mistakes, or on the lack of a dedicated HD for capture ...regardless of the PC's specs or the real reason for the sync problem.

It was disguised as an impartial forum, and the board administrator was supposedly neutral. I found out, through a 1 hour phone conversation with Mike McCoy, ADS president, that this "impartial" board administrator was actually compensated by ADS. They gave him free merchandise. Of course he wasn't impartial ...why bite the hand that feeds you? Mr. McCoy saw nothing wrong with this practice. I left the board in disgust and joined Heyday's DVC2 board in 2002 and have been there since. I vowed to never buy another product from ADS. Here at work, I'm known as a bit of a PC "guru". I'm a radar design engineer, but I've always had a way with PCs. Because of my experience I have dissuaded dozens of people from buying ADS products in the last 2 years. Any company that would resort to seeding a user forum with a company "shill" like they did is a company to avoid, IMHO. What's more, about a year ago I made a post about my experience on the Snazzi forum and this administrator apparently spends quite a bit of time trolling boards. Maybe he's unemployed. He saw my post and threatened to sue the board operator because his name was used. That's why I left it off here. I don't want this board to get in trouble over this issue, which is really a dead issue.