Dream Capture Card!

[CoCoNiPs]

I need to know if a card that can actually do all of the following things exists

Video in and Video out
With high quality TV out a must!
Real time Hardware Mpeg1 (Mpeg2 not essential) compression lots of cards claim this but it seems they are actually just capturing using a software codec which anybody can do with a $30 Tv card and a prog such as winvcr or powervcr

For example
The Gainward Geoforce 2 MX Twinview VIVO Golden Sample mentioned here http://www.vcdhelp.com/capturecards.php?CaptureCard=gainward+&Search=Search
Says hw codec erm hardware codec?

And some online reviews I read said it could do hardware mpeg 1 and 2 compression however their own web site says
Advanced software-support including real time software MPEG2 recording (requires Pentium III or compatible CPU with 733 MHz of faster
http://www.gainward.com/us/products/geforce2twinviewvivogoldensample.htm

Soooooo im confused! Please enlighten me to the Truth

Why does hardware compression ability for mpeg 1 & 2 capture seem to be surrounded by mythological amounts of BS?

Ohh and can someone put together a list of reasonably priced Video cards that fit these criteria bcos that would be just great ;o)

CoCo

[Greg12]

hardware compression takes almost all the workload off the cpu and onto a special encoder chip that sits on the video board. all the cpu has to do is send the video to the hdd.

hardware compression is susposed to offer a better video quality that software compression since the encoder chip is specially designed to handel video.

[CoCoNiPs]

erm yes i know what hardware compression is

its which cards actually support it rather than just say they do i.e they do all there compression in software and are thus cpu dependent and don't have real hardware compression ability

[norm]

What do you call reasonably priced ??
What about a dazzle DVC1 or DVC2 or pinnacle etc etc.
Are they over priced??
Mpeg 1 only cards are getting a bit hard to find now.
Tell us what you really want and how much you want to pay.
or check out the videoguys.com the've got a good list of capture cards

[CoCoNiPs]

Hi
I guess what im really looking for is a new video card that can do tv out
and also manage do hardware mpeg 1 and 2 compression for capture
an all in one solution would be great
Just frustrated to look up video cards that do "mpeg capture" only to find they only do it in software kind of misleading n all
So I was hoping that anyone with experience of using video cards marked as ViVo video in video out thjat said they did mpeg capture coudl actually verify that they in fact really did hardware compression

also
how does mpeg compression on a 200 buck card say a dazzle or a winpvr or radeon etc compare with software compression on a fast pc ie 2ghz pentium 4 or 1.4 athlon
which is better?

[Anonymous65]

PV-231 mpeg-1 only hardware PCI capture card. PV-256C mpeg-1/2 hardware PCI capture card with audio/video out. The PV-231 is around $100 and the PV-256C is around $200. I have only tried the PV-231 card, and I'm very happy with it!

[Causality]

skittelsen, PV? Who is the manufacturer? CoCoNiPs, I'm in the same boat. Pinnacle has a new card they are offering on pre order (not released yet) called Studio AV $129. It is an analog version of its Studio DV. The Pinnacle site says it outputs in MPEG1/2 but doesn't say whether it's a chip or codec. Their other products use hw compression ie. MJPEG. I've Emailed them 3 times over the last week asking for an explanation of this issue. No response. I hope this isn't an example of their usual way of doing business. Does anyone have any prediction on how this card will compress?

PS I've done a lot of research into the capture abilities of all of of the GeForce combo cards and none of them actually do hw compression. Almost all use the same VIVO module and the quality is universally condemned as crap.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Causality on 2001-10-19 16:07:56 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Causality on 2001-10-19 16:12:34 ]</font>

[Anonymous65]

PV-231:
http://www.mediaforte.com.sg/products/video/v64_zap/index.htm
PV-256C:
http://www.provideo.com.tw