Best Capture Card for MiniDV

[susantor]

Hi, I have a question. I just bought Sony MiniDV. Can somebody tell me the best capture card for MiniDV? I am considering Quality, Stability, Price. My budget is around $150-$200, less will be great.

I need the capture card which can connect firewire, s-video and a/v cable.

I don't have a problem with my hard drive, cpu, memory, etc. I have a fast computer and huge hard drive. My OS is windows 98 se. I am planning to upgrade the OS later.

Which OS is good for capturing DV? Thank you. I really appreciate for any help.

[resnullius]

if you want to stay within your budget i'd recommend you buy a a firewire card and a seperate capture card if you really want one. You'll have to go to either win2000 or xp and format your dirve to ntsf if you want to have files that are a normal lenght.

[susantor]

How about dv card? like dazzle hollywood, pinnacle dc30, etc?

Right now, I have ati tv wonder ve. Will I get good result if I use my current capture card and firewire card?

Do I really need to buy DV Card to transfer from my camcorder to pc?

Please tell me what I can do to get good result with $150-$200 budget.

Thanks.

[Anonymous65]

To capture video from your camera, you only need a $15 firewire card. To capture video from an analog camera source or a VCR, you need an analog capture card, like WinTV for $50 to Pinnacle Studio for $120.

[bachkhoa]

Hi Susantor,

I had a Pinnacle StudioPCTV used to capture my VHS movies. The software is easy to use and the result is acceptable. You can use TMPGEnc to encode into MPEG1 (VCD).

I also have Pinnacle StudioDV which came with a firewire card. The only advantage of the firewire card is you can control your D8/DV camcorder from the software (playback, fastforward, rewind, etc.) right from the software.

I like Pinnacle softwares for capturing 'cause it's easy to use, but I use other software for editing and encoding to MPEG.

Hope this give you an idea.

[Martí]

Your goal is to get a good Fireware card (Digital) and forget analog ones.
Perhaps your MiniDV camera can accept analog inputs if you crack it properly (search for "DVin" information on the net).

I use Pinnacle DV200 and it works fine under Windows 2000. DV500 is another good option if you necessarily want analog inputs. Adobe Premiere and Photoshop LE are included in the box, and at a good price!
Take a look at www.pinnaclesys.com

Good Luck!

Martí