capture card or just firewire+software?

[lapaz]

I just bought a new PC that came with a firewire input (integrated on Audigy sound card) and want to do video editing with PC. More precise:
- input DV material into PC
- basic editing
- make good quality (de-interlaced) still captures
- output edited video to streaming media (Windows, Real or MPEG4)
- output edited video to DVD

I was planning to buy the Pinnacle DV500 capture card package for this, but it seems they don't sell this anymore. Now i was wondering: can't i just buy software (was thinking of Ulead Mediastudio Pro 7) and use the firewire input instead of buying and installing a capture card package?
In other words: what is the advantage of a capture card with software compared to just using a firewire input with software?
Thanks for your time.

[harrymj3]

You still need something to plug into your firewire port. Video camcorder, canopus capture box, etc. ............ harrymj3

[lapaz]

i know, i want to connect my DV camcorder to the firewire port, thanks.

[Tommyknocker]

You should be good to go, then. If you only will use the camcorder to input video, and the camcorder has pass through, you are practically done purchasing hardware. The DV you upload into your PC is as good as it gets as far as quality is concerned.

[lapaz]

thanks for replying, but i am afraid my question is not clear enough.
What i would like to know what the advantages are of a capture card like the Pinnacle DV500 compared to just using my firewire port (and software). For example: i think i read somewhere that a dedicated capture card work faster with the editing or DVD conversion because the codecs are hardware based (capture card) while if i just use my firewire port and than software, everything is software based. Is this true?

[harrymj3]

The only advantages of a card I know of are more choices of capture formats and some cards have a TV tuner. Quality will be best with what you already have. .......... harrymj3

[dougy69]

i am currently using a panasonic dv and firewire for my digital and
analouge conversions. i find this to provide great results. i use pinnacle 8 or vegas 4.0 for the capture as an avi. i use tempgenc to encode to dvd.
in monetry terms if as you say you already have a dv camera you cant go wrong. i suggest that you do your analouge mpeg conversions in half dvd resolution.

[Richard_G]

I don't know about the Pinnacle DV500 other than my experience with Pinnacle products has been nothing but bad. However, this was with the older Miro/Pinnacle stuff and I believe the newer stuff is much better.

I do have experience of the Matrox RT series equipment though. You are quite correct in what you say. You can use the Firewire port on your Audigy to connect your DV source and then do everything in software. You can also spend a lot of money on a card that will do no more until you come to rendering and converting. This is done by the hardware on the card and is much faster than doing it all in software. It also allows you to use a lower spec computer to do the job.

My father runs a system with a 1.2GHz processor and a Matrox RT2500 card. I run a system with a 2.2GHz processor and a simple Firewire port. There is absolutely no difference in the quality of the video files, the only difference is that his rendering and converting is far faster than mine. The other difference is that while I am rendering I can't use the computer for anything else, he can as the Matrox card is doing the work not the computer processor.

It is entirely up to you. You can spend a lot of money on a hardware card or do as the rest of us do and leave rendering and converting until you go to bed and let it do it overnight.

[lapaz]

this confirms what i already thought, i think i'll go for the firewire & software solution, thanks!