Need Advice on Capture Card

[Mr. Burn]

I’m going to build a new computer and need to decide on what to use for video/capture but want to stay under $150. I haven’t looked at capturing HW & SW in a few years but last time I looked AIW was one of the best (especially the software). I'm been using an ATI AIW Radeon 8500. I’m wondering if AIW is the way to go in my new system or if I should get separate video and capture cards. The AIW in my price range is the X1300. I can do a lot better for $100 video cards than the AIW but to get both video and capture the X1300 might be the best deal. I want to capture Hi-8 off of my camcorder and record TV show in both analog and DTV signals from an UHF antenna. Thanks.

[redwudz]

You might visit lordsmurf's site for AIW information. http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/index.htm I prefer a hardware encoder, such as a ADVC or similar to DV or a Hauppauge encoder card straight to MPEG-2.

[dj4monie]

I haven't had a problem with my AIW that I didn't create myself. The software that it comes with is somewhat buggy, but that's something you expect with ATI and you live with it I suppose.

I have considered a hardware solution, but I still keep coming back to the AIW I installed almost 3 years ago.

Until somebody comes out with an all inclusive capture software and/or hardware that includes control for a D* TV box, I don't have to shell out another $30 for IR blaster, takes at least 480p inputs (my rare RCA D*TV has component out) and is available for less than $200, I'll stick to what I got...

I can't say enough about Lord Smuf's writeups and walkthroughs!

[Mr. Burn]

Thanks for your replies.

I learned a lot from Lord Smurf's site when I read it a few years ago. That's why I went with AIW on my last computer. The main reason I wouldn't go with AIW on my new computer is that I can get a better video card than the X1300. However, what would be the best (low cost bang for the buck) capture card and software? How much would it cost? How would it compare to the AIW?

[Mr. Burn]

bump

[FulciLives]

I suggest the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 as it is a capture device that uses hardware MPEG-1/MPEG-2 encoding on capture. It also comes with software that makes it very easy to use it as a PVR plus it works with a lot of popular 3rd party PVR software like BeyondTV and SageTV etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Abbadon]

If you could get a hardware mpeg encoder TV card like the one I show below, you could transfer videos without CPU utilization, or just switch to software capture. I am using ChrisTV Pro, the card comes with the Conexant CX23416.