Help me pick a capture card.

[s_konstanty]

Last year I bought an ADS pyro for $50. I have been capturing into an .avi and editing it via Studio 8. From here I convert it to an mpeg2 and burn to DVD. I have been very happy with this card, though it takes a lifetime to put it on DVD.

Here's what I want to do. I want a pci capture card that can capture in real time to save me 5+ hours of rendering per tape. I want it to also have an analog input for the older vhs tapes. If possible I still want the option to capture via .avi as well.

Here's what I've narrowed it down to (unless you can suggest something else)

It should be stated that I a 1 Ghz CPU, and about 256 MB of Ram. I don't have the $ to upgrade anything. I know some cards do all the work where as some depend heavily on the CPU. I want to keep this under $200, though closer to $100 would be even better.

I've read all the reviews, but am still confused. All of these capture cards seem to have horror stories, except Pinnacle, but there's only 6 reviews on that as opposed to 100 for Dazzle. I cringe when I read all the necessary "work arounds" on some of these.

Pinnacle DV500 DVD
Sounds solid, is the priciest on ebay for around $200. Include's premiere which I gather is more robust than studio8.

Snazzi III AV-DV
Don't know much about it. Around $100 on ebay new

Snazzi III DVD Creator
About $100 on ebay new

Dazzle DVC II
Around $100

Adaptec Videoh! PCI
Around $100


Thanks for all your help

[subclubkid]

I have a Gigabyte ATI 9200 with VIVO, and I use it to capture and its a video card too. The captures are great.

[s_konstanty]

Thanks, but I was hoping I could get some feedback on the four or five I've narrowed it down too.

[disturbed1]

The DVCII isn't ideal for VHS captures. Most RT Mpeg cards aren't. You'd be better off capturing to avi, filter, encode.

I use my DVCII purely for Direct TV captures. At 720x480 5000CBR they look almost identical. I've nver had a problem with my DVCII compared to most reports. All captures are always in sync, even after editing. It's migrated through 4 systems, but all have been Intel chipsets. If you keep an eye on the auctions, the DVCIIs go for $40-$100.


Goto the pinnacle forum and read a little. If there isn't too much bitching, I'd go for the DV500. The VIA KT133A is listed as a supported chipset, though Chaintec isn't listed as a supported MB. Premiere is worth $200 alone, though it will most likely be version 5 or 6. Should also come with Pinnacle Impresions SE dvd authoring application. It uses the C-Cube DVXpress chipset which a step above the DVXcel in the Dazzle DVCII. These chipsets can handle real time encode/decode of MPEG1/2 and DV streams. Pinnacle has a bad habbit of dropping support on their products. The DC30 (once $1000) isn't fully supported in Windows 2000/XP, but the DC10 (once $120) is . My DC10 and DC30 would never work properly with a VIA KLE 133, KLM 133, KT133a, SIS735 chipset motherboards, but they do work great with the intel 440BX, and so-so with an Intel 850 chipset. The hardware compatibility of Pinnacle cards are known to be hit and miss.

A few DVCII users migrated to the Snazzi III. Found it be about the same in every way, just different work arounds needed.

Computer Shopper did a review on the Videoh! a while back. Wasn't good nor bad, but this should be at the bottom of your list.

[FulciLives]

The best PCI capture card that does HARDWARE MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoding is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 and the WinTV PVR-350 with both being exactly the same except that the WinTV PVR-350 adds a TV output which can come in handy for checking out your captures on a TV if you have one near the computer ... also nice for simple time shifting as it saves burning to a DVD if you just want to record something to watch then delete.

Here is a great website resource for these capture cards:

http://www.shspvr.com/

Now please note that when I say that the WinTV PVR-250/350 are the best I do mean that they are the best that are reasonably priced. Canopus makes a similiar device but the price is very high (something like $500 USD) and it has IRE BLACK level issues unfortunately.

As for the PCI cards you mentioned:

Pinnacle DV500 DVD
To the best of my knowlege this only does DV capture. For the price you are better off with the Canopus ADVC-100 which for about $50.00 more is the best analog to DV capture device. But of course neither do direct to MPEG-1/MPEG-2 hardware encoding.

Snazzi III AV-DV
Snazzi III DVD Creator
Dazzle DVC II
Just about everyone I've talked too have said that these are all pretty much junk. They sound nice on paper but just don't work very well.

Adaptec Videoh! PCI
This is somewhat newer than all the other options you listed ... I don't know a whole lot about it. I would look here in the capture card section for reviews and comments. Maybe even do a forum search here on it to see if you can find any old threads about it.

I just checked on PRICEGRABBER.COM and for best price I found:

WinTV PVR 250 = $127.84 Lowest Price
WinTV PVR 350 = $178.52 Lowest Price

Anyways good luck with whatever you decide to get!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
For editing MPEG video I suggest you try either Womble MPEG2-VCR or TMPGEnc DVD Author

[donpedro]

Pinnacle DV500 DVD
To the best of my knowlege this only does DV capture. For the price you are better off with the Canopus ADVC-100 which for about $50.00 more is the best analog to DV capture device. But of course neither do direct to MPEG-1/MPEG-2 hardware encoding.

I am not sure, but I believe that for that price you are getting a lot of software and not just card.
Check this link http://www.pinnaclesys.com/docloader_n.asp?templ=10&doclink=/WebVideo/dv500dvd/English(US)/doc/key.html&Product_ID=564&Langue_ID=7&loc=spec&divis ion_id

Powerful Features:
Digital and analog input/output

[disturbed1]

The DV500 does hardware assisted mpeg encoding.

Plus real time render free real time effects.

Capture in DV, edit, encode to mpeg2.