What To buy?

[mlanierjr]

Greetings,
I am planning to transfer some old family VHS tapes to DVD in the next few days. Some of the tapes are damaged and many have been watched alot. I have purchaed one of the 19 micron JVC VCR's. Now I need advice on the capture device. My pc is setup as follows:
Win XP Pro on a 40 GB Drive, a Giga-byte 8INXP motherboard with an intel P4 @3.06GHZ, 4GB RAM, 300GB drive for storage, and a 160GB 8mb cache drive to use for capturing.
What capture device under 2000.00 USD would you recommend. I have been reading for a several days and believe I have narrowed it down to:
Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme Pro, Canopus ADVC 300 or 500, or the Canopus DVstorm2Pro+.
Any suggestions or user comments are appreciated.
Mlanierjr

[yoda313]

Hello,
I can't comment on those options you listed but the hauppauage wintv pvr250 is an excellent choice (and under $200 US to boot!). It only records in mpg so if avi is a consideration you'll want another card. Happy hunting.

Kevin

[mlanierjr]

Thanks, but I have a pvr-250 and it is indeed a great, stable card especially for the price, but on several of the older home movies it will not capture correctly. In areas where the tape is damaged or worn it simply does not accurately capture what is imput from the VCR. Color as well as brightness are skewed.
Mlanierjr.

[yoda313]

Hello,
Well the colors can be adjusted to an extent during capture. Go to the setup screen and there are color/brightnes sliders there. Of course, I can't help if there are essentially dropped frames. Best of luck on the card hunt.
Kevin


EDIT - Another option is to get an svhs with tbc - a super tracking control in essence. I've read in other posts it helps stabilize old tapes. Don't expect miracles though.

[mlanierjr]

I decided to purchase the ADVC 300 and can tell quite an improvement in the quality of the captured DV. I am impressed with the quality of the ADVC 300, but I should be for $ it costs. If you have to have one of the best capture devices around I highly recommend it.
Michael

[Marvingj]

The Canopus DV Storm 2 Pro is the Best, Nothing comes close. Hail to the King!!!