can my graphics card effect capture quality ?

[jman]

I have a HP Pavillion computer from BestBuy with a built in grapics card. The system is a 933 Mhz P3 with 256 Meg of ram. What I would like to know is, if my graphics card was going bad or if it was just a low performance card, could it effect the quality or the playback of my captured video? I have pinnacle studio 7 with a DC10 analog board and I have captured some video through a firewire card and it doesnt seem to be very good Quality. Please help!!!!!

[vhelp]

evening jiman,

no, you grahics card is not CAUSing you any quality loss. The issue
is w/ your cards limitations vs. what your capture cards'
Your current GC is probably 1MB to 4MB in size and you display is
probably set to 256 colors. any higher, and You'll have to lower
your rsolution to 640x480, unless you're already there, and/or
unless your card doesn't go to 32bit colors, etc.

In short, you simply have to get a NEWer graphics card, and all your
quality issues will go away.

You don't need to go all out and spend $$$ on the GC w/ gaming and
stuff unless that's your bag. But, a decent 16MB will do, but always
go for higher memory, like 32MB or 64MB or higher, if they go that
way. This will help in the page swaping on these devices, and maybe
it helps in your capturing as well.

If you get a new GC, get one for AGP. This will def. help in your
capturing, and reduce your FRAMEdropping to almost zero. Well, that
all depends on your system. Mine is an ECS K7S5A, w/ XP 1700+ and
I have 5 to 10 drops an hour at 720x480. But, even at 352x480 I drop
the same amount cause it's something to do w/ the timming or IRQ
in my MB.

-vhelp

[jman]

Thanks for the reply! I cant get an agp card my computer only has PCI slots (3) so I am limited. I bought an ATI 7000 64MB but I couldnt get it to work, my system wouldnt boot with it. I am sort of a newbie when it comes to computer hardware. The reason I think my graaphics card might be goin bad is my captures used to play in media player pretty good but latley they look badly interlaced and jerky and when I make a SVCD it seems to carry through. I hope this is the problem?

[vhelp]

jman,

then try a low-end PCI card. If you just want to be certain about it (quality)
than just go out and buy a cheap one, ie $69 or less, and try it out.
If you quaity issue is fixed, then, yes it was your card's limited hourse
power and features, ie on board ram etc.

But, you can at the very least, try this:
* put cursr on deskop (blank space / free area of icons)
* right click desktop
* properties
* click on Settings tab

Read what the Colors box is saying, ie
1, - 16 colors
2, - 256 colors
3, - True Color (16 bit) ** recommended for quality (starting point, and below)
4, - True Color (32 bit) ** recommended, but better (but may be slower)

Now, if the above is not showing line 3 or 4, then it's your GC's
limitation, and you have to go out and splirge

That's about it for me here.
-vhelp