Upgrading from BT848, can only spends upwards of $50. Help?

[trueg]

I currently have a BT848 capture card that was intended for use with some kind of camera. It only has composite because the s-video port was replaced by a proprietary connector. Anyway, I am not happy with the quality from my camcorder using the composite connector (Huffyuv codec). I can spare about $50US max on a new capture card.

These seem to be my options: (average going rate on eBay)

AVerMedia DVD EZMaker PCI: $15 - $20
Pinnacle DC10+ PCI: $35 - $50
Pinnacle AVDV w/bluebox: $50 - $65 (A little too expensive)
Pinnacle Studio 8 PCI (Zoran chipset?): Not sure on price, may end under $50

Or I know a guy who will sell me a Pixelview Xcapture for $35 shipped

Is there anything else? I only have about 18GB of free space, so I can't use Huffyuv for my project. Mainconcept DV and picvideo (quality 19) seem to produce files of about the same size which should work with my free space.

I'm leaning towards the Xcapture as I read the capture quality is pretty good.

Anybody have a better idea?

[NightWing]

I think the DC10+ and the Studio 8 PCI { AV card } are the same card.

It not a bad card. Can get a bit tight on Via chipsets. Does 640 x 480 well. Its a MJpeg Zora chipset. So you will need to convery its output for a DVD or VCD. It has Composit and SVideo in and out. Uses your sound card as audio in. Would recomend using AV_IO for capture. It both cures the 71 minut limit on capture and audio sync problems.

What OS are you running. That does have an bearing on your choise.

[SatStorm]

What about Hauppauge winTV cards? They based on bt878 or later...
Also search for Kworld entry cards.

[lordsmurf]

Find a used card on eBay for $50, either an ATI AIW card, or a Hauppauge 250 card.

[trueg]

I'm running a P3 1.4 (i815 chipset) with 512MB of RAM and Windows XP. I am happy with my Nvidia Ti4600 for my main graphics adapter and want a stand alone card (no AIW's). I also do not want to bother with a TV tuner, I would rather the money went towards a better card.

Your right about the Pinnacle cards, I looked a bit closer at the pictures and the DC10+ and the Studio 8 PCI cards are the same. I would like to capture at 720x480 for DVD production though.

Would an upgrade to a BT878 be a worth while investment? I am already working with a BT848.

[lordsmurf]

All the BT cards equally suck. It won't be an upgrade.

[winifreid]

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=14-122-180&DEPA=1

[Alfer]

Just my nickels worth....I've got the Leadtek and it's doing great so far.

[trueg]

I agree that a BT878 would be a waste of money over a BT848. That's why I was leaning towards the Pixelview Xcapture. It has a much newer processor (Conexant CX23881) with a 10bit ADC. And I would think it would be compatible with more video capture programs than a DC10+.

As far as a DV capture card, if I could get a Pinnacle AVDV with bluebox for under $80 shipped, would it be that much better than anything else mentioned here.

[Anonymous65]

Actually, the TB8x8 chip performs the best of all the cheap capture cards I have tested. It gives the sharpest image with the least amount of video artifacts and ringing.

http://steve.kittelsen.com/cx2388/

[lordsmurf]

I still say to buy a better card, but used.

[BrainStorm69]

I have an Avermedia DVD EZMaker PCI that has the Philips SAA7130 chip and I'm pretty impressed with it. I'd point you to the thread in which I posted some screen caps from the three different capture cards I have, but unfortunately, since the site went down the pics have not come back, and I have already deleted them from my hard drive.

If you decide to get a DVD EZMaker, be aware that the earlier ones had the BT878 chip rather than the Philips. I also have an AverMedia AverTV Stereo with the BT878 chip, and I'm more impressed with the Philips chip at the moment.

[NightWing]

Slightly rotating the world for a moment. In the initial post you said they removed the SVideo for a property connector.

Could it be possible to bypass or jumper and put a SVideo connector on that board? If there are holes for a SVideo you may be able to add a connector. Hey cost of a connector solder and some midnight hacking could save you a few bucks!

I will say this for the old DC10+ Its cranky on some MB but does a good job. Been using one since 98 and hard to get something that does well for the price. And its looking like it actualy may beat the output from the ADS Pyro A/V Link!

PS: There use to be a hack of the registry to enable the DC10+ to do more than 640 x 480. I think the old DC30 had the same chipset but been a while.

[BrainStorm69]

Also FYI...if you watch the ads, you can probably get the DVD EZMaker cheap. I have bought two of them brand new in the past three weeks for $10 a piece after rebate ($40 cost - $30 rebate). Got this deal at both Fry's and OfficeMax.

[trueg]

I could probably tap into the plug and get s-video but I don't believe it would make that much difference. I believe it's just because it's a low end card.

I have seen the AverMedia DVD EZMaker go for as low as $15 on eBay.

So basically I can choose between the following chipsets:

Conexant CX23881 (10bit ADC) about $30
Philips SAA7130 (9 bit ADC) $15
BT878 (8 bit ADC) $10
or a Zoran based MJPEG card $35

Man I don't know what to do.
p.s. I live in Canada, no Fry's or OfficeMax where I live.

[SatStorm]

BT878 based cards are limited but they have great support everywhere.
Philips SAA7130 are the best for now. Today.
Conexant CX23881 are promising. Not better Philips today, but in theory is superb.

Zoran? ZORAN? (.......)

[BrainStorm69]

I have seen the AverMedia DVD EZMaker go for as low as $15 on eBay.

That's not a bad price for the DVD EZMaker. If you decide to go that route, I would suggest that you make sure to ask the seller which chip is on the card before you buy it.

[Wilbert]

If you want to cap with VDub (full size), you should NOT buy this one:

Conexant CX23881 (10bit ADC) about $30

doesn't work to well with the wrapper.

[SatStorm]

w2k no problem so far with CX23881 & Virtualdub. I applied the hacks I read at virtualdub's homepage, and works excellent.
With WinXP I read issues. Mostly because of the drivers. Also I read that today's drivers not do any use of the 10bit ADC capabilities: I read that is the reason Philips' picture looks better.

[BrainStorm69]

Also FYI...I don't know if the software that comes with the DVD EZMaker (neoDVDstandard) is any good or not. I've never even installed it. I use VirtualVCR (Freeware) with very good results. I haven't tried capturing with this card using VirtualDub, so I'm not sure whether there are any issues or not.

[xxiangg]

Based on your description, it is probably a little bit hard for your
P3/1.4G machine to do capture with BT8x8 type card at its maximum
resolution. Because these cards need CPU to do software encoding in
real time, it needs a some CPU power. DC10+ type card does capture
encoding in hardware on the card. It puts much less stress on the CPU
during capture. So you can use it with older slower machines.

I have used both DC10+ and BT878 card. If you have a faster machine,
I would suggest your to pick the least expensive one.

[NightWing]

If you do go with a DC10 make sure you can get the Xp drivers. If it comes with Studeo 7 to 9. 8's better it includes the W2k/XP drivers.

[trueg]

Well it may be the source (8mm Sony Camcorder). I just captured from my DVD player at 720x480 29.97fps, Huffyuv codec. I can capture just fine without any dropped frames. It looked OK on my monitor (a bit of noise and interlacing), but after encoding to SVCD in TMPGEnc it looked pretty good on my TV. I don't know, I only have 150min of footage to encode so maybe I can just live with what I've got. My camcoder only has composite out anyway. Thanks for all of the reply's. I'm sure if anyone else has a similar question they will be able to use this thread for some great info.

As for my system, it's actually a 1Ghz chip overclocked to 1.43 so performance isn't a problem. I am short on HD space though. =(

[NightWing]

Good luck on the capture!

[trueg]

For anyone who is interested, the Xpert DVD Maker PCI uses the Conexant CX23883 (basically identical to the CX23881) and is available for less than the Pixelview Xcapture.

[trueg]

Although I decided to keep what I have, that DC10+ that was labeled as a Studio 8 PCI card ended at $16.01 on eBay. What a steal!

[NightWing]

Its an old card and can be a pain but does produce pritty good output. And at 16>01 dolalrs its deffently a steal!

If you have lines in the capture. Holler. There is a fix for that.

[trueg]

Sorry, I didn't mean I won the auction. It ended today while I was out, but I didn't even bid because I had decided to keep what I have. Had I known it was going to end so low I probably would have bid on it.

[NightWing]

That was a steal!

The one thing you may want to think about is a 2nd HD for video work.

[trueg]

That's actually what I did. After deciding to try and just work with this BT848, I had a problem deciding on which codec to capture in. I had a limited amount of space, and Mainconcept DV and PicVideo Mjpeg both produced decent results. I ended up putting a 120GB HD on my Best Buy card so that I can just capture in Huffyuv and not worry about it.

Though I realize now for the same amount of money I could have gotten a Pinnacle AVDV instead. Oh well, my MP3 drive was running out of space and I'm always having to clear off room for new stuff. 80GB just didn't cut it anymore. =)