Capture card advice.

[hrlslcbr]

Need your help deciding which capture card I should get. I have read many times that the Leadtek Winfast TV2000 Expert card produces high quality captures and has no problem capturing old VHS. But I have also read that the cards with ATI Theatre chips are great at capturing too, and ATI is going to release a new TV wonder with the theatre 200 chip, which should yield as good quality as any AIW (or radeons with VIVO). The problem is that aside from capturing recently recorded VHS's, I also want to capture very old videos, and I'm afraid the ATI would not be able to capture them (MV problem with the theatre 200 chip). So, for capturing CLEAN sources, which card would yield better quality, the ATI or the Leadtek? And for old videos? Maybe adding a TBC with the ATI would help in capturing old videos, but they are pretty expensive.

Thanks in advance.
(Lordsmurf...Coalman...I'm sure you can help here )

[StarofRadiance]

Either will work well if you use a high quality VCR. For example, I have used a Matrox RTX100 with a consumer deck and have gotten very poor results, and I have used a Panasonic 1980 with a $100 ADS Instant DVD USB Capture box with GREAT results.

For best results, though, you will need a TBC for the old videos. I have converted scores of old stuff that will never be available on DVD, and without the TBC you will be wasting your ime and energy.

[hrlslcbr]

So, you say I should get a TBC to capture old videos even if I get a winfast card? Well, that's easy to say but a TBC is NOT cheap.... It seems I will have to buy a TBC-1000 after all...

[hrlslcbr]

Just want to ask one more question... Today I was looking at the options of one of my VCR's and saw an option that says "video stabilizer"... Is this a built-in TBC??? The VCR is an old 6-head Philips and it gives a pretty good picture (although the video stabilizer was off).
If this is a built-in TBC, will I have problems with old videos and the macrovision problem of the theatre 200 chip, or that is NOT enough?
There is also an option that says "picture" and can be set to Normal, Enhancer or Incredible. I don't want to buy a separate TBC to get the 'best' picture quality, I just want to be able to capture my old videos (with good quality of course).
Thanks for your help.

[mazinz]

a stablilizer and tbc are different. What the stablilizer will do on your vcr is fix (or try to) a shaky picture. I have this now on my current phillips svhs deck. Also some capture cards actually ran into problems with the stablilizer being on during a capture. Whatever that option was doing (internally) to the picture, the capture card did not like this at all. However your best bet is to get a tbc

[proxyx99]

Stabilizer fixes vertical sync fluctuations while TBC replaces timecode with its own and restores sync. Stabilizer may be very effective to address picture roll and frame vertical sync (this works sort of like your TV vertical sync circuit). TBC uses different approach (more like rerecording it in its own memory and the passing to another device).

[SatStorm]

@hrlslcbr: Don't buy ATI in latin America...
Search the other alternatives.

For cheap, try bt8xxx cards. For better try datavideo / canopus.

Also keep in mind that TBC for PAL is not a huge issue, even for VHS tapes.

A low entry Hauppauge card in your case won't be a bad solution...

Winfast TV2000 Expert use the Conexant CX23883-19 cheap, which is a 10 bit one, and that's good. Not a bad choice if you ask me, but I don't know if the drivers can handle all the TV systems today exists worldwide... Neither I know about any Macrovision problems

[thecoalman]

Having had both (ATI AIW 9800 & tv2000) I can give you some pretty good advice on both.

The ATI produces a superior capture to the TV2000 not to say the TV2000's capture is bad. It just doesn't compare to the ATI's. The problem with the ATI as you pointed out is the MV problem which if you have a really good source shouldn't be an issue. The addition of a TBC should eliminate that problem for problem tapes.

Best thing about the TV2000 is the price and the goodies that come with it if you get the expert package. I captured a MV tape with it so MV shouldn't be an issue. The drivers do handle the different TV systems, there listed by type and country region. The TV2000 comes with VS7 or 8 SE which can be upgraded to the full version of VS8 for $50. If you go that route your essentially getting the card for free.

Me personally after reading literally thousands of posts am going with a Canopus ADVC 100 and a DataVideo 1000.

[hrlslcbr]

@SatStorm: Why not???? .
@Coalman: Thanks mate . But, why are you going to buy a canopus/datavideo??? Don't they produce "blockier" captures because of the 4:1:1 DV "problem" (yes, it's a problem to me if they look worse (blocky) than a good capture with Huffy).
Any other advice???
(I'm beggining to think I will end up getting a canopus/datavideo or a Pyro A/V Link....).

[thecoalman]

@SatStorm: Why not???? .
@Coalman: Thanks mate . But, why are you going to buy a canopus/datavideo??? Don't they produce "blockier" captures because of the 4:1:1 DV "problem" (yes, it's a problem to me if they look worse (blocky) than a good capture with Huffy).
Any other advice???
(I'm beggining to think I will end up getting a canopus/datavideo or a Pyro A/V Link....).

I don't think it's a blockier capture issue but a color issue, isn't it? Anyhow some will argue the point the anyway. There's a little blue guy around here that I'm sure would argue for the ATI :P Ease of use comes to mind too, I've worked with a lot of DV and plugging the cam in, hitting the record button and coming back in a hour is a treat. Especially when you know you can do it 300 times with the same result. For instance I did a vhs on my VIVO card, did 3 captures first two were perfect, 3rd one was so out of sync it was ridiculous. Why? I don't know but I do know I had to go back and redo it. Maybe I'll hate it who knows.... I'm still exploring other options. I'm in no rush.

If i didn't have all the trouble with the ATI I probably be right next to LS.... Since I got no response from them I'll never buy another one of thier products on principal alone.

[hrlslcbr]

...a little blue guy around here that I'm sure would argue for the ATI...

[SatStorm]

hrlslcbr, what system your country use today? If it is NTSC then ATI it might be solution. If it is PAL B/G then latest ATI cards do a good job (only the latest models).

But if your country use something like PAL-N, PAL-M or who knows which local PAL / NTSC variation, then the ATI drivers could be a problem.
That's why I suggest you other alternatives...

[lordsmurf]

I disagree SatStorm. I've handled a lot of PAL tapes recently, and many more to come, and they are not much better than NTSC, in the stability department. I don't have chroma issues to worry about, and the PAL colors seem nice, but the tapes themselves are far from perfect.

ATI in South America is fine. I've even helped (or tried to) a few in Spanish, even! I've only met two that were unhappy, both because of problems with the timer recording (and in both cases, I blame the AMD systems). It has all variations of PAL in the driver chipsets. Just be sure you get a tuner for your country. The composite/s-video works worldwide.

[SatStorm]

I don't talk any more about hardware LS, since the latest ATI models are now more than a year in the market, so they are mainstream now. You don't find any more earlier models first hand, only second hand.

Now, I'm talking about driver problems and the ATI drivers are not the best to handle stuff like PAL M, N, or even PAL 60, which is the "Standard" on the non USA VCRs today.
Composite and S Video is the same worldwide, but this by itself doesn't solve all the issues.

BTW, Spain use PALB/G , which is the PAL standard. So, there are no issues there for ATI.

But: Have you ever convert PAL M from Brazil or PAL N from Argentina with ATI? Did you ever deal with PAL60? If yes and if you have success, then I would love to see instructions for those who interest about it.
Especially for PAL 60 which is the great question those days. I can do perfect PAL 60 captures only with BT8xxx cards and btwincap drivers. If there is a ATI solution for this, I'll be glad to be informed about it

Also, wanted or not, AMD systems and the VIA chipsets are the most popular solutions on countries less rich than West Europe / North America. From my point of view, if ATI don't handle the AMD / VIA combo correct, and other manufactures do, it is not AMD / VIA 's fault, is ATI's fault.
Why the others don't have issues and ATI has issues?

The bottom line is that ATI somehow fixed most issues of the past but not all the issues. The latest ATI products deal better with standard PAL (B/G even UK's PAL I) but not all the PAL variations.
Also, still don't like some AMD / VIA combos. Less than before, but still not all. I read issues with ATI and NForce 3 too (but only once, so it might be a very certain thing...)

[hrlslcbr]

@SatStorm: I am completely sure that the system used in my country is NTSC (I have watched DVD's bought in North America in all my TV with no problems, made DVDs from MPEG files encoded as NTSC too, so that "problem" with ATI won't be an issue to me). And I have a pentium 4 system with an Intel chipset in my motherboard.

@Coalman: In what things do you see a difference between the 2 capture cards?

I have always heard the ATI cards produce great quality captures (mostly from LordSmurf), but if they can't capture old or bad quality sources, then a winfast card would be the second choice (because a TBC is too expensive and I can't afford to buy one now), and the suggested price for te ATI "device" (it is not a card really... it's a box) is much more than the price of the winfast card (but this is not really an issue, they are not that expensive ).

I was also thinking on buying a Pyro A/V Link if the captures won't have bad quality (it is cheaper than the canopus and has more features. Don't know if the quality is different), but the "colour" issue (at least using the pass-through of a MiniDV camera) makes the picture a little blocky, but seeing how many people have bought one of these units (or canopus/datavideo) and are happy with the captures, I'm beginning to think that the blockyness my captures had were actually a problem of the canon camera I used (which is not mine, I had just borrowed it for a while) and not a problem of the DV format.
Any more help?
BTW, I also want to thank all the people who have answered in this thread and are trying to help me.

[hrlslcbr]

Just cheched ATI's site and their new chip seems excellent; 12-bit Video Decoder, 5-line 2D comb filter, Hardware Video and audio encoder, hardware MPEG-2 encoder, etc...
Maybe I should wait for that

[vhelp]

Try not worrying about the 4:1:1 too much. I think it's only an issue for those
of us that have ben doing this Capturing process since the good old days of
VCDHELP. (for me, thats March 2001) ..anyways.

My thoughts on the "little confusion" going on w/ 4:1:1 and ADVC-100 device...

I believe that the 4:1:1 issue (after many hours (over a year) with the
ADVC-100) that it doesn't really suffer from the 4:1:1 color space issue as
I thought. That's specifically aimed at DV cams. The color space you get
from your captures from (ie, Cable; Satellite; Antenna; VHS; Laserdisk; etc)
are in 4:2:0 color space, though there both are very similar in quality, you
probably won't notice too much difference (unless you are experienced in
the eyes, (like me) )
.
So, when you capture whatever source (see above list) your source should
look just as you captured it

If you truely don't want to contend w/ any issues such as Audio syn and Frame
drops,
then go with the ADVC-100 device. You won't regret it
And, as long as your source is good quality to start with (ie, commercial VHS
movies; Cable; Satellite (even Antenna)) you'll get great resutls every time,
and enver having to wonder w/ doublt.

So, if you don't want to start out w/ a rough road ahead (drivers installations;
tweaking your cpu system and capture card; IRQ contension, etc etc etc)
then go with the ADVC device.

Me, I still use Ananlog capture cards (in addition to my DV devices) but
that's my hobby. I use whatever my mind sets me in motion to.

Good luck,
-vhelp

[lordsmurf]

vHelp, analog signals are 4:2:2.
DVD MPEG MP@ML is 4:2:0
The first and second numbers are most important.

DV native shot at 4:1:1 is fine.
But converting VHS and analog signals give an extra loss you don't see as compared to DV for shooting (not converting).

DV 4:2:0 for PAL is fine, as is DVC50 and DV50

Some people don't notice. Some do.
Just like we still see people that love deinterlaced VCD, and cannot see the errors.

[thecoalman]

@Coalman: In what things do you see a difference between the 2 capture cards?

It just looked better, seemed like it had deeper colors if that's the correct way to explain it. Unfotunatley I no longer have any video left from the ATI. the only one is on my site and that's a very low resolution clip and one that isn't exactly a huge selling point for the AIW

http://www.nepadigital.com/mv/example/atiaiw.mpg
http://www.nepadigital.com/mv/example/leadtek2000.mpg

[hrlslcbr]

...a very low resolution clip and one that isn't exactly a huge selling point for the AIW...

While watching THAT video some days ago, I saw a difference in the colours between the ATI and the winfast, and that difference was the reason I was asking about the quality "differences" between the two cards YOU have in this thread.
Thanks for clearing that up.

[SatStorm]

hrlslcbr I searched and yes, your country uses NTSC. So, you won't have any issue with the ATI cards.

[thecoalman]

...a very low resolution clip and one that isn't exactly a huge selling point for the AIW...

While watching THAT video some days ago, I saw a difference in the colours between the ATI and the winfast, and that difference was the reason I was asking about the quality "differences" between the two cards YOU have in this thread.
Thanks for clearing that up.

I have said many times before and on the webpage those clips come from the ATI produced a better capture. It just looks better for lack of better way to put it. Keep in mind those two clips were captured as is. I made no adjustments to the contrast, brightness etc. I'm pretty sure both were captured using the Huffy codec.

It's not that the ATI won't capture at all without a TBC I was able to easily capture a brand new VHS-C tape. If your in the market for a graphics card (BTW the 9800 is superb) the AIW and a TBC may be the way to go. I didn't try it but you may be able to eliminate the false MV detection using a cheapo Sima color corrector.... Hell who knows maybe your tapes are in good enough shape that you won't have any trouble at all.

"Roll the bones" Rush --- Good Luck!

[hrlslcbr]

Thanks coalman, that's exactly what I needed to know.
But after reading a little bit more about the new Theatre 550 Pro, I've decided to wait and buy that card. It will be released later this year and for $99 USD I can't be wrong, it has too many features for that price, but if it really works the way ATI claims, it will be a great card (I hope...).
Thanks to everyone