Dazzle DVC II vs all-in-one cards

[gw14]

I learned a lot here and yet NO one responded to the Asus question. My local PC guy is reccomending the Asus 7100 to me. After reading all of this, It sounds like Dazzle is for me.

[Anonymous65]

I know most of the video capture devices out there, but I have never heard of Asus 7100...

[Greg12]

i have a 350mhz p2




am i gonna get decident quality mpeg with ati all in wonder radien

[patrickm]

doubtful. you might be able to do some realtime MPEG-1, but the quality will probably be real bad.

[Greg12]

[Freddie100]

I also have the Dazzle II. Nothing like it. I had a problem with the grounding on the cable line also. When they connected the ground line from the meter box to the ground lug on the cable coming into the house, They didn't scrape the paint off and had a poor ground connection. Your cable line should be grounded coming into your building. Capture TV all the time using the tuner on the VCR. You should be able to get the same quality on the capture as you see on the TV with no loss of quality. If you don't you still have a mismatch someware.Try just a cable grounding block. A general rule. Every time you split a signal, you lose signal strength and quality.

[cdr12468x]

Hi all,
This thread is turning out to be a goldmine for Dazzle II related info!
I'd like to throw in a new twist:
I myself just bought a Dazzle II to replace an ATI AIW Radeon. After I went through the obligatory IRQ conflict troubleshooting I got it to work. I downloaded MovieStar 4.23, and I'm able to watch (and record) movies off a connected VCR (acting as a tuner).
@ questions at this point: (1) MovieStar puches my CPU (P4 1.5Ghz) usage to 99% all the time even when I'm simply watching TV and not recording it. (2)I read about a Audio-video sync problem some folks have experienced with the Dazzle II, and I'm having the same problem. Even while simply watching TV real-time the audio through my soundcard is about 1/2 second ahead of the video. It's like watching a
foreign language film that was dubbed to English (the lips and the spoken words out of synch).
As far as hardware I opted for what I thought was the tried and tested: Intel mobo, P4 1.5Ghz, and 256MB Rambus mem
(+ fast HDs, RAID, etc.).
Does anyone have any suggestion regarding these issues?
I'll appreciate any feedback.

BTW regarding the ASUS vs. ATI vs. DazzleII question: I've been searching for the holy grail myself for the past several month, and spent endless amount of time, and several hundred bucks on testing all 3 solutions (plus the Matrox Marvel e450TV card). My conclusion so far is that there is no perfect solution. There are trade-offs with either of these cards. Check the forum postings for articles on each of these cards, and see which of the many compromises you are willing to put up with (i.e.: compatibility issues, re-encoding captured files for 15 hours, limited functionality, operating system support - or lack thereof - etc.)

[Freddie100]

You do have a audio sync problem while watching TV. The card was not made for it. I run a p4 1.4g and my hard drive flashes amoust every second which indicates to me that it is not working that hard. Once in a while I do have a 100ms audio sync problem when capturing a two hour CD. I take care of this by demux with TMPeg and then mux and cut with BBmpeg setting the delay in sound to 30ms instead of the default 180ms. Works like a charm. i have to do this for my Apex to play the cd, but have no problem either way with my Pioneer. Demux and then mux only takes about 8 min and then you are ready to burn a DVD quality CD with Nero.

[SHS]

That good to hear lxu2001 if you like a better gound loop method I can post that to.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SHS on 2001-08-16 22:47:20 ]</font>

[iparout]

OK. I think I'll buy Dazzle DVC II but there's still one "small" problem. Where can I purchase the DVC II from here in Greece ? I e-mailed Dazzle one week ago asking for a retailer but haven't replied yet -and quite frankly, I don't think they will. Can someone help me out here ? All on-line sites do not ship products overseas. HOW CAN I BUY THE CARD ??? (yelling out desperately)

[aldus4]

You should have checked the "where to buy" link on their website:
Greece

FAST Hellas S.A.
36 A Kanari Str.
GR-153 43 Ag.
Paraskevi / Athens
T +30-1-600 46 62
F +30-1-600 42 58
http://www.fast.gr

[lxu2001]

@SHS
Please post it if you know a better way to gound my cable. I truly appreciate your help!

[patricia3470]

The DAZZLE DVC 11 is brilliant,excellent quality and no re-encoding,works like a charm.SUPER VCD.practically the same quality as your source materiaL.VERY GOOD FOR COPYING DVD'S. PAUL. also great on V.C.D.

[SHS]

Ok lxu2001 first thing first you need check your income cable line see if it got and 75-ohm grounding block if there is one make sure it not connected to a aluminum gounding rod and also check the ground lead wire it to should be made of copper.
If you all ready have copper ground rod and lead wire you my need just clean it up a bit with sand paper.
Note: If the houes older 7to10yrs and your cable been install that long to in the house you may install new ground rod.

Things you need
8-ft copper ground rod (15-035) $17
Grounding Block 75-ohm (15-909) $3
Package of Weather boots (278-1658) $1
Coaxial Cable Cutter (278-244) $6
Hex Crimping Tool (278-238) $16
Coax Cable Stripper (278-242) $12
Crimp-ON Ends RG-59 (278-222) but if it RG6 you need (278-223) for 10 package (RG-59 278-230 or RG-6 278-231) $1 to $4
3ft or more in need it of 8 gauge soild copper wire $2to3
5lb slage hammer (Leave about 3"to4" on top of the ground)
Mid size Diagonal Cutter (Use for cutting only soild copper wire)
Hack Saw (After pounding the ground rod in to ground you hack the end off so you can reinstall the lead wire clamp)
6" crescent wrench or adjustable wrench.
Took a Good look RadioShack 2000 Book on page 211 on how to install the f-connector on 75-ohm coax cable


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SHS on 2001-08-17 08:48:03 ]</font>

[DavidY]

There's an excellent review of the DVC II at Tom's Hardware at:

http://www.tomshardware.com/

Look for Building a Digital Video Capture System, Part 2.

[Iview]

ATI AIW and DVC II owner, haven't done any capture with AIW since DVC II was installed in the beginning of the year, I don't need the headache.
Unlike the DVC II, iparout, you'll need a more powerful computer in order to run with AIW (drop frames).
In Europe the Dazzle DVC II is call by the name of Fast DVD-Master.