Video Card Advice/Help

[cpholmes]

I just bought a new PC. It came w/ a 64MB DDR GEFORCE4 TI 4200 video card. While this seems to be a good card for graphics, after reading this forum, it appears that I am going to have to get another card to capture DV (via Firewire) to burn DVD's.

Questions:

Do I buy an All-In-Wonder card and get rid of my GEFORCE TI 4200?

Do I buy a pure capture card and keep my video card for graphics?

Is there any benefit in having TWO video cards?

I don't want to spend more than $200. Any advice would be appreciated - the geeks in the stores don't seem to know anything.

Chris

[ItsMe]

I don't see the point in wasting a perfectly good video card. I would buy a dedicated capture card.

If you only intend capturing DV then any cheap Firewire card will do the job. Software is another matter though. I personally use Pinnacle's Studio 7 to capture and edit my DV films and then use Ulead's DVD Workshop for authoring DVD's.

As to your third question, probably not.

[cpholmes]

Thanks for the reply.

After further reading, it would also be nice to capture 8mm film (old home movies) as well. After reading a good thread on this, it seems that firewire is still the answer - show the 8mm film on a screen, record it using DV camera, then capture via firewire.

When you say a cheap firewire card - do you know what the difference between a $50 & $200 firewire card is? Anything?

[medievil]

SoundBlaster Audigy has a built in firewire connector and you can get the OEM version very cheap now that the Audigy 2 has been released. Plus the added benifiet of a very good Audio card!

[ItsMe]

Although not perfect, filming the 8mm films using the DV camera does work fairly well. I did a load of stuff like this for my father who is really pleased with the results.

When I say cheap Firewire I mean just that. The cheapest one you can get your hands on. I paid about 50 euro's which is rougly $50 for mine. You can pick them up for less.

Don't expect top notch software with a cheap card though, they tend to come with program's like VideoStudio, VideoWave etc. Although such program's are ok, you will probably outgrow them.

There isn't much difference in the different firewire cards that are available although some of the more expensive ones have s-video connectors so you can capture from an analog source and/or output to an analog source. I use a dedicated card with tv tuner for capturing analog stuff which does hardware mpeg encoding and transcoding.

I have a Dynalink firewire card, its cheap and cheerful. There are three external and one internal Firewire ports on it along with an internal power connector so it will power external devices as well. I connect my Panasonic DV cam to it as well as an external 80GB Firewire hard drive which is where I capture to. Btw. Firewire cards don't actually 'capture', they 'copy' it from the camera to the PC.

[cpholmes]

Thanks for the advice -

One last question - I went out to buy a Firewire card, and noticed that one of the differences between the $50 & $250 cards seems to be the software. I ended up buying an ADS Pyro ProDVD card ($179), which came with Ulead Media Studio 6.5 Director's Cut. The software appears to be more than I need for now, but the card stinks, so I may return it and just use the S/W.

Another difference is, some cards capture avi only, while others capture directly to MPEG2 (realtime).

The guy at the store said that capturing to MPEG2 was better b/c when you go avi, you lose frames converting to MPEG2 for DVD burning.

I have read a lot of posts here regarding capture, and it seems the consensus is, that it is better to capture to avi, edit, then convert using TMPGEnc.

Should I return the card and get a cheap one, then use S/W I already have (VideoWave Movie Creator) to do the captures to avi? Will any S/W work with ANY firewire card?

Chris

[ItsMe]

Are you sure that the Firewire card you bought is 'crap'? I ask that as there is little that can go wrong with Firewire cards. If it installed alright and windows recognises it then you should be okay.

I looked at Media Pro some time ago. It looks grat although I think it will have a fairly long learning curve. Still, its supposed to be one of the best, the other being Premiere (premiere always crashed for me).

All DV cards will capture to DV-AVI. Thats the native format of DV. The ones that also capture to MPEG convert the DV stream on the fly do so using software. Although this sometimes works it does have its limitations depending on CPU speed etc.

I do not agree with the guys at the store. For one thing MPEG files do not lend themselves to editing. Also each time you edit/save/reload you will loose some quality as the MPEG files get recomressed each time you save them. In fact they do nog get 'saved' as such, they are re-rendered. Its much better to do ALL your editing in the native DV-AVI format and render the final film to MPEG.

Its difficult to say if you should exchange your card for a cheaper one, I bought the cheapest one I could find and am really pleased with it but the software that came with it was soon outgrown. If you were to purchase Media Studio separatly it would cost you as much as the bundled version you have. Also doesn't the card come with DVD Workshop? If so its a bargain as Workshop costs an arm and a leg and is a must have if you are going to create DVD's.

If you do decide to take the card back and buy a cheaper one, you can maybe spend the money you save on a better editor when you outgrow VideoWave or just move up to Media Studio. Pinnacle Studio version 7 is a good choice. I know that version 8 is out but version 7 works really well and you can probably pick it up cheap now that version 8 is out. The Hollywood FX transitions that come with Studio are great and its maybe also worth upgrading to the Pro version of Hollywood FX. Also Studio is really easy to use.

Any software that can handle AVI files will work with any Firewire card as long as you have a DV-AVI codec installed on your system which you will have if you installed MediaStudio or VideoWave.

Here is a list of some of the programs that I have tried that work:
VideoWave
VideoStudio
MediaStudio
MyDVD
DVD Workshop
Premiere (expensive crap in my opinion)
Pinnacle studio 7
TMPGEnc

[cpholmes]

Regarding the card I bought being "crap" - It didn't see my DV camera until I unplugged/plugged in the cable several times. I am sure it is a good card, but at $179, it is expensive, and the box says it only captures to MPEG2 - Not AVI.

[quote="ItsMe"]Are you sure that the Firewire card you bought is 'crap'? I ask that as there is little that can go wrong with Firewire cards. If it installed alright and windows recognises it then you should be okay.

Thanks for all your help. Think I am going to go buy a $50 card, and try it out w/ the various s/w I have on my PC from all the other cards I have tried and returned.

Chris

[ItsMe]

This can happen with other cards as well. Best to fully boot your system, plug in the cable and then turn on the camera. I sometimes have problems with Windows XP not seeing my Firewire hard drive.

About it being expensive, you are paying a premium for the software.