What capture card? and Software?

[moddenmania]

I'm considering purchasing a new capture card. What sould I get i've currently go an at aiw 9600xt so i've heard some good stuff about haupage (or however you spell it) also i would like to get some good software that could preferably record tv and mostly mpeg video. I really don't think I would like snapstream beyond tv. Please make som recomendations. Is there any way I can capture to avi?

[redwudz]

If you don't need to do extensive editing, the Hauppauge cards do a good job: http://www.hauppauge.com/

If you need to do a lot of editing, maybe a DV converter. The ADVC-55 may be one to look at: http://www.canopus.com/products/ADVC55/index.php

[moddenmania]

hey what i'm thinking is that it would be great to have something like that canopus. Are there any compaines that make something similar for a lower price?

[redwudz]

Take a look at the ADS Pyro DV converter: http://www.firewire-1394.com/pyro-av-link-api-555.htm It does about the same thing as the Canopus unit, but priced lower.

Also most any DV camcorder with A/V composite in and DV and FireWire 1394A output will do basically the same thing. A new or used one may work. You will need a FireWire card in your computer and a FW/1394A cable for both types of solutions.

DV is nice for editing. The audio and video are locked in sync and that helps in eliminating sync problems. Also every frame is a key frame, so frame accurate editing is standard. Xvid, for example, has a keyframe every 300 frames by default, so without re-encoding, frame accurate editing is very difficult. DV does take about 13GB per hour of video, so you do need a fair amount of hard drive space.

[jman98]

Hauppage comes with good software for recording. Please note that Hauppauge cards only record MPEG-1/2 video. For most people, including me and probably you, this is fine, but there are a few people who want to record directly to AVI and I must warn you that Hauppauge cards can't do that. I would certainly agree with Redwudz that you will need a video editor with Hauppauge. I suggest either VideoReDo or MPEGVCR. They're both great. I have nothing that can record DV, so I can't comment on the merits of that as opposed to a Huappauge card, but I have the Hauppague PVR-350 and I think it's a terrific card.

[FulciLives]

The DataVideo DAC-100 is a clone of the old Canopus ADVC-100 and the Canopus ADVC-110 is just an updated version of the Canopus ADVC-100.

The Canopus ADVC-100 can no longer be bought brand new (although you might try eBay) but the DataVideo DAC-100 can still be bought brand new and is cheaper than a brand new Canopus ADVC-110.

BTW the DataVideo DAC-100 totally ignores any copy protection the source may have whereas the Canopus ADVC-110 will not copy a copy protected source (i.e., such as Macrovision).

All of these devices are external "boxes" that can convert analog A/V (VHS, LaserDisc, DVD player, cable/satellite TV etc.) to the DV-AVI format which is a high quality digital video format that is easy to edit but it must be converted to MPEG-2 DVD spec using software such as CCE or TMPGEnc Plus etc.

The nice thing about these devices is that they have perfect A/V sync (as long as the source quality is not "bad" but generally speaking it has to be very bad to screw these things up) and they all support both NTSC and PAL formats and have an IRE BLACK setting missing from other such devices which is key if you capture "normal" NTSC which is the format used in the USA and Canada.

Also these devices work with Windows based PCs as well as MAC computers.

The Canopus units also have a high resell value on eBay so even if you only need it for a short time (to convert say some home video stuff) you can still get a pretty penny for it afterwards.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

Hauppage comes with good software for recording. Please note that Hauppauge cards only record MPEG-1/2 video. For most people, including me and probably you, this is fine, but there are a few people who want to record directly to AVI and I must warn you that Hauppauge cards can't do that. I would certainly agree with Redwudz that you will need a video editor with Hauppauge. I suggest either VideoReDo or MPEGVCR. They're both great. I have nothing that can record DV, so I can't comment on the merits of that as opposed to a Huappauge card, but I have the Hauppague PVR-350 and I think it's a terrific card.

I agree that the Hauppauge cards are excellent if you want to record directly to MPEG-2 format but please note that some are "buggy" and it is best to stick with the WinTV PVR-250 or the WinTV PVR-350 which are both PCI models OR the WinTV PVR USB2 which is an external USB 2.0 version.

The WinTV PVR-150 is very buggy and to be avoided. I would also avoid the WinTV PVR-500 since it is just two 150 models on a single PCI card.

The most popular is the WinTV PVR-250 because it has a proven track record and is the cheaper than the 350 model (which has also proven itself). The USB2 model seems to work nearly as well but I have heard of some people complaining about issues with it that seem to stem from a bad batch but I think that was long enough ago that there shouldn't be too many of those left if any.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Nelson37]

What problems are you having with what you are currently using? Not a whole lot of quality difference among AIW, Hauppage, and DV-transfer, depending on source.

You may simply have the same issues with another card and be $100 poorer. Or if you are capping VHS, you really need a TBC.

[redwudz]

Thanks, FulciLives, I forgot about the DataVideo DAC-100: http://www.datavideo.us/products/dac_100_main_page.htm

I use one of the older ADVC-100s and it's worked well for several years.