i'm retiring from vcdhelp

[vitualis]

this site was vcdhelp.com long before dvd's were around

Out of curiosity, what would have been the video source for the VCDs if DVDs were not around? I can't imagine the home capture scene was that big back then.

Those were the days...

Sources included TV captures, VHS, etc., and DVD ripping in its infancy.

This was BEFORE there were commonly available VCD authoring apps that were capable of making menus and we were arguing about the relative merits of Nero 4.x vs. Easy CD Creator vs WinOnCD...

And DVD ripping with command console tools...

Best regards.

[rhegedus]

So when were the first capture cards available, and what were they capable of?

[Rookie64]

So when were the first capture cards available, and what were they capable of?

I remember first seeing them in the early 90s...and got my first card in 1995.
My main purpose was to do still captures, but it also captured small AVI files (audio and video) and did clip captures (of more than a dozen frames at a time)

My OS was Windows 3.1 when I started out...I've come a long way in a short amount of time
Was funny, 'cause I had no idea what I was doing and I learned as I went along. I was also using the Internet at the same time...and that sure was an experience
I'm surprised how quickly I caught on though...I was lucky to find someone who explained a lot of things in detail that I could understand.


Got my first All-In-Wonder in 1998 when I upgraded to Win 98
The card featured up to 8MB of memory, 64-bit 2D acceleration and resolution up to 1600x1200 at 85Hz

Still & Motion Video Capture
MPEG Playback
Input and Output adapters (output displayed to TV)
DBX Stereo Sound

TV Resolutions on Win95 and Win 98 - 640x480 and 800x600

I'm currently on my 3rd ATI card/ 4th capture card...but also attempted captures with a Snappy (which was total junk)


This site explains it in detail better than I can - http://www.pctechguide.com/24digvid.htm

[BJ_M]

So when were the first capture cards available, and what were they capable of?

i bought a optibase mpeg real time encoder card (d1) for 25,000$ in about 1997 ... had targa cards back in early 1990's .... they were about 12k for just the card .. avid was already seling mac based systems in that time also -- couple years later they offered both mac and pc

but there were cheap cards out then i think -- remember the 'snappy' ?

[Sefy]

Nostalgic moments again, God I love those!

Lets see, when I first came here, or should I say before I came here, I had to do a Capture from VHS of my Original Transformers Movie, but because HDD sizes weren't exactly "large" those days, and I didn't even have Internet to get "codecs" I had to capture the movie in 5 segments, just so i'll be able to have the whole movie!

I Didn't even know what VCD was back then, Didn't have a DVD Player either and then I saw this place. Couldn't really understand any of the guides, I had figured they were more designed at those with experience, so I kept bugging everyone with questions (remember that Baldrick ? Adam ? Vitualis ? and god knows how many!) till I made the first guide back then using the basic tools of back then (Smart Ripper / DVD2AVI / TMPGEnc / VCDEasy).

If I had known the guide would become this large today, i'd quit it back then already

[Capmaster]

Sefy,
How did it turn out with that site that was illegally using your guides? The thread for that one got out of control and I never did find out if you got that resolved.

[Sefy]

Unfortunatly, there is absolutly nothing I can do from where I am to stop the site from using my guides to make profit, they have not contacted me, and I tried contacting the host representatives, but for some strange reason, they want my autograph, whatever for I don't know, but I don't just give my signature for no good reason.

Basicly, I am at a lose

[Jukka]

Saw this and had to post.

Have been using this site for 2 years now (stumbled on it when investigating 'SmartRipper'), firstly with VCD and now with DVDR. Excellent guides, tools and help (thanks all, esp. Sefy, Mr Shrink, ddLooping). I remember the old versions of DVD Shrink, trying to hack DVD2ONE, VCDEasy, etc...

Just a question, before DeCSS brought ripping big time how did people backup their DVDs??

Jukka

[Sefy]

I Think in the past, before the DeCSS, people connected their DVD Players to the Capture Card, and made Captures Instead of Ripps