-= NEED HELP: Capture Card or Capture Software =-

[J Crew]

i recently purchased a dvd burner (a04) a few months back. i bought this burner so that i could edit my home movies and record them on a reliable long lasting media. i'm using adobe premiere to capture my video from my sony dv camcorder (trv120). i then use adobe to edit the video... then i export as an .avi. i then use ulead's dvd workshop to convert to mpeg2 and burn to dvd. i'm currently using windows 98 se with a athlon 700 processor. but after x-mas i'm upgrading my computer with a 7vaxp motherboard and athlon 2400+ xp processor. i'll be using 256 pc3000 ddr ram... maybe 512 mb.

anyways, i'm thinking about also purchasing a canopus advc-100 capture card. i really need some info and advice on the benefits of a capture card. i only use my video editing software for home movies with my sony camcorder. will i see an improvement... is the $250 bucks worth it? please point me in the right direction... i've been trying to research this subject, but it is confusing to me. thanks for your time and any help you can provide.

[fmctm1sw]

Please pardon my issue with the "is it worth it?" questions that are always posted I paid $250 for my AUTOMOBILE my friend, so no, it isn't worth it to me But reall, as far as I remember that is a real time MPEG1/2 encoder card. It will save you a lot of time since you are capturing AVI and converting to MPEG. However, it's the general concensus here that capturing to AVI as uncompressed as you can, then converting with a software encoder is the best way to go as far as quality goes. I'll tell you what I tell everyone. If you aren't sure about it, buy it from somewhere you can return it if you aren't happy with it.

[Bondiablo]

1st the advc-100 is not a real time MPEG1/2 encoder, it is an analog to digital converter. the files you get with it are DV AVIs, the difference in quality between that and uncompressed AVI is imperceptable and it's much easier to get set up and working than analog captures.

2nd since you're already transferring your DV cam footage to your computer, unless you want to transfer analog footage as well, you have no need whatsoever for the advc-100. even if you do want to transfer analog material you don't need the advc if your DV cam has analog in and can pass through an analog signal to the firewire output.

if you want to improve the quality of youre finished project you'd be much better off spending $48 on TMPGEnc Plus and using that to convert your footage to MPEG instead of letting DVD Workshop do it.

[fmctm1sw]

wow

ok the advc-100 is NOT a real time MPEG1/2 encoder, it is an analog to digital converter.

Sorry dude, my bust....

[J Crew]

1st the advc-100 is not a real time MPEG1/2 encoder, it is an analog to digital converter. the files you get with it are DV AVIs, the difference in quality between that and uncompressed AVI is imperceptable and it's much easier to get set up and working than analog captures.

2nd since you're already transferring your DV cam footage to your computer, unless you want to transfer analog footage as well, you have no need whatsoever for the advc-100. even if you do want to transfer analog material you don't need the advc if your DV cam has analog in and can pass through an analog signal to the firewire output.

if you want to improve the quality of youre finished project you'd be much better off spending $48 on TMPGEnc Plus and using that to convert your footage to MPEG instead of letting DVD Workshop do it.

sweet dude... this is exactly the info i needed to help make my decision. i think i'll buy tmpgenc instead of going with a capture card. thanks again