New to capturing.....

[rhegedus]

It's going to be tight, HD wise, but I think that AIW cards do the processing on-board. Maybe an AIW user can help me out here.....

[vcd4ever]

PIII 451Mhz
320MB RAM
8Gb HD

Not really good enough I'm guessing...

I'm using a PII 400Mhz with 128MB RAM and 120Gb Hd, so your pc specs are good enough.

vcd4ever.

[uka100]

...and it works fine or do you run in to any problems?

[uka100]

rhegedus is this the sorta thing you started out with?

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3...duct_uid=11501

if I had one of those and wanted to convert 20 odd mins of video from a VHS tape how much space would I need?

[rhegedus]

Nah, I had one of these.

Hauppauge WinTV.

[feenix]

uka100,

What's your PC's Operating System?

[uka100]

XP Pro

Does the Hauppauge come with all the connections I need or will I have to buy more? Because I am strongly thinking of getting one of them.

[feenix]

Sorry don't know much about the card. Looks like it just plugs into a USB port (hence why I asked what your OS was) which I assume you have. It will also have , I guess , a CD with all the necessary drivers, software etc.

I'm guessing that you won't need much else ,apart from some cables from your VCR.

It might be a good cheap entry board though to get you started as long as you don't expect great quality on your captures although I'm a bit concerned about your HD space. You may get away with capturing at VCD specs.

[uka100]

No your looking at the wrong card

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3...oduct_uid=8194

thats the one im talking about, and also all i'll really be wanting to do is cap vcd's from vhs tapes

[feenix]

Sorry mate I was looking at the wrong link.

Well I definitely know nothing about this card so maybe someone else who's had experience with it will post some helpful advice.

It looks like though (reading the blurb) that it only captures in avi format in which case you definitely may have HD space problems. The write up also only mentions video composite in but no audio! It maybe they just missed that bit out or..........there is none! If you're not concerned about the audio then no matter.

But to reiterate it would really be better for someone with experience using the card to carry on from here

Good luck

[uka100]

https://www.videohelp.com/capturecards.php?CaptureCardRead=Hauppauge%20WinTV%20GO&Search...earch#comments

Ive read most of that, and most people have said its good for the price, the ones who couldnt get anything decent from it have not installed decent drivers, and if anyone on this board has one please put some ipnut in thanks!

[rhegedus]

You can capture using VirtualDub to any format you want, but since the native capture will be avi, you're processor will have to do the real-time conversions and sadly, it ain't up to it.

So, if you want to use that card, you will have to get a bigger HD.

Are you thinking of a new PC or upgrade soon? I would wait until then before starting down the capture road.

[uka100]

So it'd have to be captured as an Avi first because my processor cant handle converting it to vcd while capping? Will it be an uncopressed avi? But I can do short clips and music videos because they wont take up that much space.

[rhegedus]

Yes, yes and maybe.

[uka100]

Ok thanks for all the advice man, i'll get a new computer before I try capturing anything.

What sorta spec would I need for a real time converting?

[spectroelectro]

Here's the thing about older computers like a P3 450: you can run an outbaord firewire capture device on them just fine. I used a Canopus ADVC-100 on my P3 450 for years and it worked superbly. Thing abotu firewire is, it aint' capture, it's just data. The real processing work gets done in the Datavideo DAC-100 or Caopus outboard unit. All the firewire does is just shoot data to the computer, which requires virtually no CPU load. My P3 450 could handle 3.5 megabytes/sec data throughout on a sustained basis without breaking a sweat, so it worked great for capping DV AVIs. Encoding 'em, well, that's another matter. A P3 450 is just fast enough for that if you want to encode to MPEG-2. But I encoded to MPEG-2 VCDs for years and that worked fine on a P3 450.

[vcd4ever]

...and it works fine or do you run in to any problems?

I have used this PC now for 5 years without any problems and this is the reason why i'm still using it. I can capture realtime mpeg1 at 352x288 (vcd, pal) if i want to...but i always capture to avi (336x288) and then encoding the avi to VCD (pal) because the quality is much better compared to realtime capture. I can't capture realtime any higher than mpeg1 352x288 (vcd, pal) with my CPU...but this isn't a problem because the avi to mpeg is the method i'm using. The only format i'm using is VCD because i like it...but i can capture to avi at 704x576 without dropping any frames.

vcd4ever.

PIII 451Mhz
320MB RAM
8Gb HD

Not really good enough I'm guessing...

I'm using a PII 400Mhz with 128MB RAM and 120Gb Hd, so your pc specs are good enough.

vcd4ever.

[Moonstomp]

uka,

I used my Pentium 2 (233 Mhtz) machine to capture to compressed avi with Virtual Vcr & the Huffyuv codec (resolution 352x288) with NO dropped frames.

It requires approx 190mb of HD space per minute captured. My TV card is a Pinnacle PCTV Rave card which costs about Euro 60 (Stg £40).

wanted to convert 20 odd mins of video from a VHS tape how much space would I need?

Less than 4 gigs for 20 minutes. Then you can convert it Mpeg1 with Tmpgenc and create a VCD to play on your PC or home DVD player.

Happy New Year !

Moonstomp

[uka100]

Thanks guys thats really good if your PC's can do it without dropped frames, I have orded my tv card (WinTV-Go) but I will only be able to cap small clips because of my HD size, soon I will get a new one and all will be well.

Happy New Year!

Martin

[rhegedus]

This is the guide I first used when I started capturing:

High Quality Capturing with Little Frame Loss in VirtualDub

As valid today as it was then.

[uka100]

Could someone please explain what these settings do (how they will affect the output) on PICvideo MJPEG codec... Subsampling and Force YUY2.