Recommendation for video capture

[videohelpuser]

I am a newbie into the video capture world. I have captured video from my camcorder using firewire but have not captured analog devices like VCR. I use a software by NTI systems that seems to do the job quite well (titles, chapters, transition etc.).

I have Pentium 4, 3GHZ, 2gb RAM pc. The capturing of video just takes forever at a time. I would like to buy either a video capture device or a video capture card (not sure if it should be PCI or something else) that has a encoder built-in the hardware. Apparently there are quite a few devices that can do the job but I have read that people have complaints like audio synch etc.

I did quite a bit of research on this website and others too but more research I do, more confused I become

Can somebody recommend if I should buy a internal card or a external device? if so, which one should I buy? My budget is < 100$ USD.

Thanks

[JohnnyMalaria]

The capturing of video just takes forever at a time.

Do you mean after the video has been captured, it takes forever to generate a useable file? The capture should be realtime....

If you want to capture analog video from a traditional source (e.g., TV, DVD, VCR) you might want to consider an external DV converter and then capture the DV.

Your camcorder could serve the purpose, too, depending on what model it is. Some DV camcorders let you feed in an analog source and the converted DV signal comes out...

[videohelpuser]

Thanks John for your reply. The capture is in real time, but after that it does some encoding at PC. Utilization of CPU is very high and I cannot use it. Unfortunatley my camcorder cannot pass through, it is a old one.

I was thinking of either a internal card or external device that will have hardware for encoding so that I can still use my PC.

I saw cards Hauppage 150 that seems to have encoder, external devices like Plextor that has the encoder. Also, Internal cards always seem to be cheaper than external devices. As I said, there are so many options available, that I am unsure what should I go for. Sometimes I wish there were only a few options so that decision-making is easier

[JohnnyMalaria]

You can get external DV converters but they run about twice your budget.

As a temporary measure, you could record onto DV tape from the analog source then play the tape back to capture the DV (not exactly ideal but at least you could be capturing something!)

You can sometimes get a steal from eBay. I recently got a Sony TRV50 for $200 (I needed it just for the swing-out LCD unit to fix a more expensive Sony camcorder - the LCD unit would have cost $400 new) and it works flawlessly. You might find a bargain - even if the mechanism is shot, you only need the electronics to be functioning. You never know!

If MPEG2 is acceptable, you could also consider a standalone DVD recorder (within your budget) to record the video on to DVD. You can then use the DVD in your PC...

(All a bit off the wall)

[SingSing]

You should first check your camcorder, many of them have analog video capture and pass thru.

You should look into a DVD recorder, they let you real time transfer your video tape to DVD. Many of them have firewire input, that let you transfer and mixed analog and miniDV video. It is cheaper and easier than PC video capture. Those with noise reduction and time base correction can make your old video look good too.

[jman98]

I've had real good luck capturing video (but note that I don't have a camcorder) with the Hauppauge PVR-350. If you don't need TV out, the PVR-250 is a little cheaper. I never have sync problems with my captures. Hauppauge cards use a hardware chip on the card to encode and you can capture in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video. Hauppauge is not a good choice if for some reason you need to capture in some other format. Both cards I mentioned are PCI based. You can't get the PVR-350 for $100, but you might find the PVR-250 for that price.

Years ago, I had an ATI All-in-Wonder card and I sometimes had horrible sync problems with it. ATI cards all do software encoding, which is part of the reason there can be sync issues on some systems. Apparently the cause of the sync issue has something to do with certain soundcards not behaving well and ATI also doing some things during the recording process that maybe it shouldn't that magnify the sync problems.

SingSing's suggestion is also quite good and might be a very good solution for you, but I'm not sure your budget is high enough for this.

[INFRATOM]

Also consider dvd recorder, like Polaroid $220 at walmart does a very good job.