Why do they call them capture cards?

[David97]

I plan on buying a Sony MiniDV camcorder soon and was reading on what all i need to buy to put movies on CD's etc. The first thing i need a is a firewire card so i was wondering why do you call them capture cards?

All it really does is move data from the camorder to your PC? I plan on buying this one this will work right?

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&cat=%252fTechnology%2...odkey=AFW-4300

Thanks for the help

[ryanreko]

Because in that section they actually have capture cards not just firewire cards...

capture cards actually capture video, they encode it too usually to mpeg 1 or 2

[David97]

so will this card work or not?

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&cat=%252fTechnology%2...odkey=AFW-4300

[RexEscape]

Most likely (99.9%) it will work. Firewire, or IEEE 1394, have been standardized to "move data from camcorder to computer." Your camcoder is a firewire device and so are some hard drives, digital cameras, and other firewire devices. The point is, there is data that is stored on that device and it can be transferred by means of IEEE 1394 connection. Why is it called a capture card? It's really just wordplay. You are "capturing" or taking data (video, audio, photo, etc.) from one device and storing it to another. They could have called it Video Copy Cards, or Video Recorder Cards, or Video Catcher Cards...whatever it is, it captures, and it doesn't only capture video. It captures data!

So, when someone asks you, "Do you have a Video Capture Card?" Say, "No, I have a firewire card!" and stand proud! "We are fried!"

[David97]

I just thought it was funny when i heard it called a firewire capture card. When i first heard that i thought the firewire card captured the video itself but after more reading all it does is move data from one device to another that's why i wonder why it's called a "capture card" when the camcorder did all the capturing. :P

[easydvd]

it's called a capture card because that's what it does with all your freetime and money after you buy the first one...