Who's Capture Card????

[u8at711]

I have been doing video capture for about 3 years now, and I got me a new machine,
Abit IC7
800 fsb
2.4 INtel
Ati Radeon 7200

My video card cannot do capture with windows XP
and I can not get windows 98 to run on my system,

I'm looking for a new "Capture Only" card

I do not want any ATI product
it can be usb1 usb2 or Pci anything other than a video combo card,

What should I get,
willing to spend upto $300 US but I have no problem spending less
It must do MPEG1 and Mpeg2 in real time,,

HELP
Thankyou
Mike

[u8at711]

What is better USB or PCI for capturing device?

[D_Knife]

USB 2 is ok - but there are not yet that many USB 2 devices out
USB 1 is almost useless
PCI is internal - they are ok
in very general terms

[rhegedus]

Why insist on real-time MPEG capturing?

[trevlac]

Why insist on real-time MPEG capturing?

I agree with the above. Especially if you are talking hardware encoding.


Anyway, you have not provided enough information to make a recomendation. Tell us:

• How easy does it need to be
• How good/clean is your source
• What is your source
• Sounds like you don't want a tuner

If you give up on real time MPEG, want easy, source may need some cleaning, don't need a tuner ... I'd go with a DV device.

I hear that ATI is the easy direct MPEG option. I don't have one and I don't believe direct MPEG is worth doing.

A cheap BT878a card with the recent MainConcept encoder could give you total control ranging from RealTime Mpeg capture to Huffy capture with a bunch of cleaning. It would not be plug and play.

[davideck]

I have been using a Haupaugge PVR-250 for almost a year now. I am very happy with the video quality and the process is quick and easy. I do have an external TBC though, and would definitely recommend one for capturing analog videotape.

[u8at711]

well I was considering the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350

I only looked into the Hauppauge selection, I already know what Ati has to offer and I don't want there product because that is the only thing that I have been buying for the past 3 years

Most of my captures are from the satelite mpeg2 s-video source, but I do the Vcr tape conversions alot also, I want something that will grow with my next computer, I don't want to buy a new card when I upgrade my computer everytime,
I capture at a good resulution then convert to my desired format, mostly for VCD or DVD.
I don't need anything that is user friendly, I noticed all the preset settings are low in quality.

What is better PCI, Usb2 or IEEE1394 I can use any of these,

and let me know if there is any other capturing hardware that I should check out, ,,

[lordsmurf]

I have an ATI All In Wonder 7200 PCI card running off the latest Catalyst drivers and ATI MMC 8.7 ... and installed on Windows XP Pro SP1... and it works wonderfully.

If you still insist against ATI, then start looking at Canopus and Hauppauge products.

I have no problems with direct MPEG captures. Quality is there.

[u8at711]

my Radeon 7200 card is AGP, my friend has the same card I took him months of trial and error to get his card to capture, he also spent a long time talking to tech support, and that is Ironic because his day job is tech support

I have tried many different drivers, even non-ati drivers and still I get the "unable to initiate video" message ooooh I got a different message this time,,, I will try "1" more time,

brb

[u8at711]

OK I give up again, after installing 2 more drivers and 4 reboots, I had it, ATI IS KILLING ME
Can't we all just get along

smurf tell me what I'm doing wrong,
the only thing that Ati self diagonsitcs is telling me that my zip drive and my usb memory device drives are not DMA,,, that has nothing to do with video,,
and I don't capture to zip drive of compact flash.

[Brainiac]

Hi

I have the Canopus MVR-1000 (cost me $700.00 new.) The realtime MPEG-2 captures are outstanding! For my AVI captures done through firewire, I use the software that came with the MVR-1000 for hardware assisted conversion to MPEG-2. High price, but worth it.

I also have the Hauppauge PVR-250. I Feed MPEG-2 files through MPEG2VCR's GOP fixer to correct errors. Quality is very good but MPEG2VCR refuses to open files for editing.

Brainiac

[u8at711]

well I just talked to my friend, and after about 1 hour, we finally got it to work,
I am still going to buy a new capturing device, I will look into that Canopus,
Mike

[lordsmurf]

I also have a ATI 7200 AGP on MMC 8.1 and Catalyst 3.8 and WinME, works even better than WinX system (better hardware in this one).

Glad it works now.

The Canopus MVR unit (MPEG Pro MVR, external) would be an upgrade. I like it, just cannot afford it.

[trhouse]

For $700 you might consider buying a DV camcorder with pass through and a fast software encoder. The camcorder is pretty useful on its own. I do own an Adaptec Videoh DVD USB which is compatible with the 1.1 and 2.0 standards. Its advantage is that there are more usb ports out there than 1394 ports. Its disadvantage is that it seems like its capture rate is limited to about 6.5Mbs. Some say it is the driver which limits the speed. Its quality of capture is pretty good if you are not a critical viewer. In other words, you don't expect to stop the movie and examine the writing on objects in scenes. My test has been to take ordinary viewers from a normal living room distance and switch back and forth between the capture and original. If they can't tell, the capture is good enough. The Adaptec is up to that. With it and and a external USB hard drive, I can capture on a wide variety of systems. Last week we tried it on a 600 MHz laptop, with a 4 GB hard drive. Worked very well.

[davideck]

Brainiac - could you please comment on the picture quality differences between the Canopus and the PVR-250? Is the Canopus significantly better; enough to justify a $700 upgrade?

[Brainiac]

Hi

To be perfectly honest, I only use the PVR-250 for TV show captures via the built in tuner. For that purpose, the picture quality is simply stunning! The only real problem I have with the card is that the MPEG-2 files are not always reliable - MPEG2VCR won't demux the files and TMPEnc has problems as well, so converting audio to AC3 can be problematic.

I have a home-based video transfer business, so I don't want to risk capturing with the PVR-250.

The cable quality in my area stinks, so the captures really can't honestly be compared. As for justifying spending $700.00, I don't want to give my customers something that I wouldn't be happy with.

Brainiac

[rhegedus]

I'll repeat:

Why insist on real-time MPEG capturing?

The only thing you save is time - quality will never better captured avi converted to mpeg .

[proxyx99]

This offer is definitely worth a serious look>

http://store.yahoo.com/ambery/

external MPEG 1&2&4 box with a TV tuner, full frame capture.
hardware encoder up to 10Mbps.

I don't own it but it looks very promising. Can't beat the price.
Feature for feature that must be a best buy!
I wish I could tell you more. Planning to get one myself.

I think that if it's true what they say, you won't need anything else. Ever.

[trhouse]

Trouble is the story doesn't end there. It has been said that Betamax was superior to VHS and does not take any more time to produce, yet it is VHS we have. If I remember correctly, part of the reason is that the 19" TV was the most popular size at the time and it was not so easy to distinguish the difference on a small screen.

I have now tried DV camcorder pass through with tmpgenc plus and had others compare the video against that from a capture from an Adaptec Videoh DVD USB device which captures to mpeg in hardware. Stopping the playback and examing the screen closely showed the pass through, tmpgenc combo was more accurate, but just viewing the movie on a 20" to 27" screen most viewers didn't think the difference to be significant, but as you mentioned pass through, tmpgenc took a lot more time to produce.

On larger screens is were the difference favored pass through, tmpgenc.

[lordsmurf]

Everything I do looks fine on a 37" tv. Don't have anything larger, cannot afford anything larger, so what looks best on the largest screen is not important to me. I would guess many people are in my same situation.

[u8at711]

Well I picked up the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 350 PCI card today, looks nice the radio works nice also, cool remote control,
I have not tried any captureing or Tivo type stuff yet, but I will when I get this stupid wireless keyboard to work