Needs advice

[AlejandroCP]

I am considering buying my first capture card, with a budget of around a 500 dollars, what is the best i can buy? I have read about not getting crazy about the capture card itself but on the software with which you are going to encode the video file, how true is this? Is the Pinnacle Studio 8 deluxe a good buy? or there are some other products i should be looking into? Thanks for any help.

[snowmoon]

You can go one of several routes...

1) Cheap a$$ bt8x8 PCI capture card ( there are several dozen on the market ). If you have an external video source with an external stereo tuner this will get you into the game on the cheap. With free mpeg-1 encoders availible you can be cranking out decent VCD's in a day or two.

2) Decent bt8x8 PCI card. This would have a built in TV tuner WITH STEREO TUNER. Add free software for mpeg-1 and volia.

3) Some sort of ATI/PVR card with built in encoder. This will jump your price by at least $100 for hardware. Most will encode to either mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 some have built in templated for VCD, SVCD, DVD, and various PVR settings. These cards may be more convienient, but many do not allow 3rd part capture software to run.

Software...

mpeg-1 - TMPGenc hands down winner in VCD creation.
mpeg-2 - TMPGplus is great, and not that expensive, going up from there there is MainConcept ( beta ), LSX, a fre others, and CCE ( $2500 ).

Audio encoding is easy enough with either the one built into the video encoder or seperatly with toolame or besweet.

Multiplexing ( combining video and audio into a valid .mpg file ) can be done easly and quickly with TMPGenc or bbMPEG.

Authoring and burning - VCDeasy hands down easy and powerful.

[AlejandroCP]

What if i get my budget up to $1000. And should i really consider buying a very good capture card or the software will do all the trick?

[snowmoon]

Well do you want convienience or the best possible quality output?

Convienince can be bought, get run out and get any of the PVR solutions availible ( with research first ). Hauppauge PVR, DVC2, some ATI cards. Most PVR solutions are not the jem of quality, but are more than palateable and are designed for ease of use.

The best possible quality output is something that takes time and refinement and as long as you can capture full frame video and stereo sound everything else is software.

So choose your poision.

[snowmoon]

Personally I would take and inves that money into a decent cap card, dvd burner, lsx or tmpgnec encoder, and alot of HD space. If your CPU is not up to snuff I would work on that too.

[AlejandroCP]

Well of course, i am after quality, i am thinking that i'd rather do it one time. What i mean is that i'd rather buy the good stuff now than do a lot of experimentation and then end up buying the good stuff anyway. To me it's a waste of money doing it that way. And thanks for taking the time giving me these advises.

[snowmoon]

What are the specs on your PC?

[AlejandroCP]

I am using Windows XP with 1 Ghz cpu, and I am using Abit KT7-Raid mother board. With regards to memory i've got around 384 MB.