Which realtime Mpeg2 encoding hardware is good?

[easteast]

I am trying to convert my VHS tapes in DVD. And I don't want to convert it too much with the computer because of the sync problem. I want a movie box which can encode my video in Mpeg 2 while recording.
Which one is good? Pinnacle? Dazzle? Or...? Any suggestions? Price is not an issue.

[flaninacupboard]

If price is not an issue and you don;t want to do anything complex i heartily reccomend a standalone DVD recorder. They have realtime encoders, some have time based correctors, they have simple editing, they have DVD burners, they play DVD's and some even have hard drives!

[Barnabas]

The Hauppauge PVR-250 and 350 are great choices. I picked up my 250 for $99 after rebate.

[TheMoviezMan]

You Could just bring the signal from a tv capture card such as the Hauppauge 250 or 350, the 250 has hardware encoding and the 350 has hardware encoding and decoding engines, so u could be doing whatever else without sacrifacing :P any quality during the process.

Btw: they both have RCA/Svideo Inputs

[MachineMan]

Don't get Dazzle!! I tried them out last year and it was a major headache. Painful driver issiues as well as every piece of software needed to be upgraded to use. I returned it.

[easteast]

First of all, thanks for you guys suggestions. I am now considering Hauppauge WinTVPVR 350. The only difference between 250 and 350 is the hardware decoder in 350? Anything else?
I have a motherboard using VIA chipset. I read the comments about this product. Someone said that it may not be compatible with chipsets other than Intel 845. Is it the case?
For the price, what is the best possible price u guys can find for a 350? I am living in Hong Kong and I am considering making a shipment from the net if the price difference is big. I can get one here at around US$210. Is it too expensive?

[txpharoah]

All of the ATI ALL IN WONDER RADEON cards incorporate MPEG-2 hardware encoding (supposed to be based off the Ligos GoMotion MPEG technology).

For the best MPEG2 hardware encoder card, check out this Matrox item:
http://www.matrox.com/video/products/rtx100xtreme/acquisition_delivery.cfm#mpeg2
http://shopmatrox.com/usa/products/datasheets/pro_dvd_bundle.asp
If you're serious, this is one of the ultimate hobbiest toys. It's a professional card. It has full Ligos GoMotion MPEG technology for hardware encoding. The ATI card is a very stripped-down version of this, so I can stick to my ATI card for now.

[Bob W]

I saw the Radeon 8500 AIW card on sale at CompUSA for $150. Is that a good card for capture of VHS?

[txpharoah]

The AIW 8500 is an excellent card for VHS to DVD conversions.

[darkstar127]

For capturing Analog signal to Digital. The best and only one to use is the Canopus ADVC-100. There are no audio/video sync issues, there are no dropped frames, and the capture is in DV format.

Edit in your favorite video editing package and then Render with MPEG-2 encoder.

---- Personally my workflow follows as

Capture with ADVC-100 to Computer

Open capture in Vegas Video 4.0

Edit capture

Render to VCD, SVCD or DVD.

If I need to reduce noise or some other tweaking on the renders, I'll just export from Vegas in AVI -DV format and encode with Tmpgenc encoder.

-darkstar127