Tuner with MPEG capture?

[mikerwpi]

I would like to be able to capture TV (cable to be exact) to MPEG or preferably MPEG2. My computer is a Celeron 733 with 384meg of ram running Windows 2000. All the MPEG capture cards I've found don't have tuners, and all the tuner cards I've found don't have hardware MPEG encoding.

I could go with a All-in-Wonder, but in general they seem to require more horsepower then I have, and on top of that just kinda suck in terms of quality.

The WinPVR apparently has good quality, but doesn't support Windows 2000 properly.

Anyone have any suggestions short of wating for the mythical Videoblaster Digital VCR?

[spiderman2k1]

I can only think of three thing that you can do. One do a dual boot with win98 and if you still want Win200 then you can have the WinPVR.Make two partion's. Second if you went with the ALL IN WONDER get the Radeon it does 480*480 and you can set the setting for super VCD. You can get the Dazzle 2 there is a time that is shareware. record ever day or one time only, And you can get a Tivo to change the recording time on it it will also out put for the dazzle or if you have a good VCD some can change station's on a satilite dish, or cable box so you can recorde what you want.

[Buck9419]

Creative Labs has finally released the Creative Labs Video Blaster digital VCR. Check the review in the capture cards of this site. Then go to their web site and check it out. Card has hardware mpeg2 coding and a tuner. Card got an outstanding review here, in the capture card list, buy a guy who had the card months ago before it's release. I was looking for a card and after reading about this one I was hoping it would be released soon. Well it's here now.

[SHS]

Buck9419 where did you see the Creative Labs Video Blaster Digital VCR at?.

[SHS]

I be damm they did and it only cost $99 hehe.
http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?Product=222

[Roginator]

That does look pretty cool, but there's almost ZERO information at Creative's site. No FAQ, no specs, etc.

Does it also record in MPEG-1? AVI? What quality?

[craiggen7]

Anyone got a link for that Creative card in the UK ?
Visiting Creative's Europe site says nothing about this promising card.
Thanks
Craig.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: craiggen7 on 2001-12-07 12:47:44 ]</font>

[Bud]

This was on the Creative Web Site:Technical Specifications

High-quality MPEG-2 recording for crisp colors, parkling audio, and smooth frame rates Live TV automatically caches to your PC's hard drive for pausing and rewinding live TV Captures and plays back full-motion 640x480 NTSC video full-screen or in a window Record, play back, or watch TV in a window while running other applications Onboard cable-ready TV tuner - use with antenna, analog or digital cable, or satellite dish Also works as a video capture board. Accepts input from camcorders, VCRs, and other video devices with S-Video or composite output Supports stereo audio recording and playback Variable recording quality settings Infrared remote control for complete control: changing channels, scheduling recording, playing back recorded programs, and activating on-screen menus*

*The included infrared remote can be used to change channels with broadcast television or basic cable. If you have a satellite or cable box, you may need to use your existing satellite/ cable remote to change channels.

Hardware Connections:

Composite/S-Video input
Stereo audio input
Antenna/cable/satellite RF tuner input
Infrared I/O connector for infrared receiver

Hope this helps.....

Bud

[sracer]

I was in the same boat. I wanted something that could suppliment my Dazzle DVC. I didn't find anything for a decent price. I ended up with an I/O Magic PC PVR card ($40). Although it does MPEG capture via software, I found that using the higher bitrate capture settings and then re-encoding yielded as good a results as one can expect from a cable TV signal. The PowerVCR II software is pretty decent and offers some very nice features.

I'm currently recording "Land of the Giants" off of SciFi and I am extremely pleased with the results.... My VCDs are coming out BETTER than if I had recorded the show on videotape.
YMMV.

[amgqmp]

Sracer,

Thanks for that feedback on the I/O Magic PVR card. I'm going to ditch my annoying ATI TV Wonder PCI card and give the I/O magic card a try. Might I ask why it was necessary to re-encode?

Cheers,

AMG

[Roginator]

Ok, my impulse shopping gene got the better of me. I just ordered one of those Video Blaster Digital VCRs. Sure hope it works!

$99 is just too good to pass up.

[sracer]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-07 13:06:07, amgqmp wrote:
Sracer,

Thanks for that feedback on the I/O Magic PVR card. I'm going to ditch my annoying ATI TV Wonder PCI card and give the I/O magic card a try. Might I ask why it was necessary to re-encode?

Cheers,

AMG
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Although the I/O Magic card offers VCD-compliant MPEG1 capture settings, the software encoder isn't the greatest. There is signficant artifacts visible (even on my Pioneer DV-434 player which usually does a great job playing ANY VCD). So I capture at a higher bitrate to eliminate the blockiness. Since I want to create "standard" VideoCDs, I have to re-encode the MPEG using TMPGENC.

[Buck9419]

SHS,

Well I first read about it in the capture card list here. Check out the comments by the guy who had it months ago. He was real impressed with it.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Buck9419 on 2001-12-07 15:00:53 ]</font>

[SHS]

Buck9419 I kind of fig that.
So did I in fact I even talk to him.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SHS on 2001-12-07 15:51:07 ]</font>

[PatMar]

If you can read German then check this link out
http://www.pinnaclesys.de/de/frameset_id.asp?product_id=651

it's about the Pinnacle Bungee that is capable to capture directly into MPEG2 format that you can burn directly with Nero or any other Svcd burning program

[Tony Yip]

I was gonna order the Provideo PV233 for $80 US but with this Creative Video Blaster Digital VCR for $99, I'm not sure which one to order.

I haven' found one review on this Creative product yet
Seems almost too good to be true according to this guy who wrote the review on this web site.

SHS, did he say anything else about this card since you talked to him about it?

[SHS]

Sorry Tony I can't talk it something I don't do unless he give and OK to do so.
You may went wait a bit long Tony in tell a few other or I get one to see what we think about it after $100 is still damm good deal even if you where just to make TiVo box out it.

[BillTheKatt]

I also got one of those cheap ($40) capture cards. Mine is made by a company called Maxron (no info on them anywhere) and uses a standard Conexant (Brooktree) BT878 chip.
Looks just like the Creative Labs and has the same features, I can record MPEG-2 at 640x480x30 fps on my Duron 900 using 1% CPU. Thing works great and looks good.
IMHO the Problem with PowerVCR II is that it will either record to MPEG-1 (crappy quality) or MPEG-2. But I prefer storing stuff in DivX AVI, and ever converter I have fails with PowerVCR recorded MPEG-2's.
I've taken to recording in MPEG-1, but I'm on the prowl for a better recorder that will let me save in any codec I want. MPEG-2 looks great, but impossible to covert to DivX.

[Tony Yip]

If the Video Blaster Digital VCR uses the BT878 chip,
then it's not a hardware MPEG2 encoder. I guess we'll try
to find out more abut first before passing judgement on it.

[SHS]

No Tony it has dose have real hardware encode chip on it.
I give you hint on where it is look at the back side of the card see the chip with the big white dot on it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SHS on 2001-12-08 10:50:53 ]</font>

[SHS]

BillTheKatt you full of it PowerVCR II it softencode and eat CPU usage for dinner at MPEG-2 640x480 at 30fps.
Sorry I can help you with your MPEG2 covert being it dose use a standard MPEG2 format this same problem with WinDVR softencode other then MPEG1 which by the way is free and should be a in standard format encoding but need less to say MPEG2 format it not free.

[matt-o]

roginator

I NEED feedback! did they ship it yet? I am thinking of ordering one too it looks too good to be true! I sure would like to hear about it ASAP.

[Roginator]

Ordered on 12/7 around 2pm Eastern...

"Order placed, item(s) not shipped" on Tuesday night 12/11

grrrr

[geniv]

just wondering, do this thing have template for VCD, SVCD or DVD recording. from reading the site's info it seems to have hardware MPGE2 compression. but it dont' really say anything about mpeg1 compression..

hope for some reason it don't creat it's own propiertory video file format.

[dood]

Does the 640x480 capture size bother anyone? DVD is 704 or 720....

[Macros746]

First of all, it actually doesn't do any good to capture at higher than 640 x 480 since that is the highest resolution a TV is capable of....in fact, I have found the best results from capturing at 320 X 480. BillTheKatt, you should try capturing to MJEG in Virtualdub and then converting directly to Divx in VirtualDub. It is incredibly easy and takes almost no time and it edits much easier than MPEG2.

Mark

[dood]

But will the captures be "DVD-compliant"?

[Buck9419]

Ok the Blaster video digital vcr came today. Lots of hard drive activity while the software is running. Installed under Windows XP. XP complained about no Windows certification on the drivers. Software says 38 meg/minute on highest quality. More later.

Edit: Hard drive activity seems to have been the high settings on the space alocated on the hard drive for recording. Lowered them and the high activity is gone.

Seems to be a problem with the tuner on the one I got. I can only get it to work on channel 5 & 6 for cable or antenna. Sent support request to Creative.

Software isn't very straight forward. Took me awhile to figure out how to find settings and control locations. There is a custom setting for resolution, bit rate of comprssion and bit rates for sound. Going to try capturing/encoding a video input next.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Buck9419 on 2001-12-17 19:08:27 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Buck9419 on 2001-12-18 07:08:15 ]</font>

[Dano]

My friend wrote that review. He actually had the card way before it was publicly released. I trust his judgement. He rated it a 10- I don't know why it came out a 7.9. He is going to bring in a copy of the quality to me on Wed.
This is real-time MPEG2 without any artifacts! I'll keep you posted.

[Roginator]

I've had the Videoblaster VCR for a while now. My reactions:
1) It has a crappy tuner. I have to use my VCR to get a good picture on most broadcast channels. This makes channel changing by the software impossible -- since the VCR is locked at channel 4.
2) On a clear channel it can yield very impressive results -- particularly on animations. With minimal noise reduction and inverse telecining, I can get almost-DVD quality from broadcast animation. Other shows are also better than my old AVI capture card.
3) Great price
4) very few useful configuration options.
5) not very useful for watching live tv on the computer due to piss poor controls and tuner. It's surprising the captured files are so much better.
6) MPEG-2 files seem to be non-standard -- especially above 6MB/sec. Incredibly complicated trying to convert them to another format like MPEG-1. Audio and video eventually become un-synced using most standard methods.
7) Goofy method of setting the software to record future shows. And I thought some VCRs were weird.
Best audio is 32khz. An odd choice. You can crank up the sound to 384kbps though.

If they had thrown in a decent MPEG-2 editor, this would make an excellent capture card. It's not much good for anything BUT capturing video. I haven't yet examined how captured shows playback on my TV, but I expect they are quite good.

I can't foresee going back to my AVI capture card and am fairly satisfied with the card. I surely hope they improve the software to add some configuration capability.