MPEG capture card for Mac?

[kiwi]

I see more and more of these Personal Digital recorders (PVR or DVD etc) available for windows (where you can schedule recording of TV shows etc) and mpeg 1, mpeg 2 hardware encoder cards for capture too but none so far for Mac. Only DV or MJEP, uncompressed video capture and firewire for Mac.
At least not in the US. I found two so far in Japan, one high quality mpeg 1 encoder PCI card but the company is now bankrupt. And another USB based mpeg1 and mpeg 2 capture device so maybe I'll have to get it from Japan and get my friend to translate the manual.

Now there is a new one that captures and burns in real time mpeg 1 and mpeg 2

http://WWW.ESBUY.COM/usbinstantdvd.html

It's USB but still only for windows..sigh...

I'll either have to purchase a standalone VCD recorder like the Malata (nicer then the Terapin and not much more costly) or a Pentium 4.

[paulhagstrom]

That seems like kind of an intriguing device. Is all that stands between it and Mac-compatibility the drivers? If so, I think writing to ADS to support the creation of Mac drivers might not be a bad move. We know they can do Mac drivers, since they sell USB Instant Video for both Mac and Windows.

Despite all the time I've sunk into playing with software encoders, if this little cheap thing does a good job in real time, I'll abandon it all and just use this. The extra 15-30 hours of encoding that it seems I'll need with software solutions may just be too steep.

The actual product page is at
http://www.adstech.com/products/USB_Instant_DVD/intro/USBInstantDVD.asp?pid=USBAV-700
but it has all and only the same information that the previously posted link had.

[Ross]

I am a bit confused about this product. From the spec sheet:
Video Capture:
½ D1 MPEG2 (352 x 480 NTSC / 352 x 576 PAL)
Is this SVCD compliant?
Output:
DVD on CD
Is this the same as burning a VIDEO_TS on CD then playing the .VOB file?

[paulhagstrom]

I think SVCD has to be 480x480, you're right. Problem or typo? And, I think the "DVD on CD" they refer to is probably the "MiniDVD" format (just a regular DVD file structure, but stored on a CD, as I understand it). So, I think it's supposed to just act like a short DVD as far as the DVD player is concerned. The compatibility list includes information about what set-top players play MiniDVDs; my impression is that it isn't a large proportion.

[paulhagstrom]

Let me add a postscript: Although SVCD (again, AFAIK) needs to be 480x480, I noticed that on the description of the Desktop Video Recorders (click on the navbar on the left here, look at the Datavideo recorders), there is a footnote about SVCD that says that they record at 352x480. What this suggests to me is that probably many/most set-top players that can do SVCD can handle this deviation from the standard, even though it is a deviation from the standard.

[paulhagstrom]

I got email from ADS today indicating that they don't have plans for Mac support until there is Mac software that can edit MPEG-2 files. This seems a fair enough assessment, since they can't really claim "Mac-compatible" if you can't manipulate the captured files before you burn them to CD/DVD.

Next question is: What's out there that can be ported to Mac OS X fairly painlessly?

[Ross]

It could be as simple as QUICKTIME!

From: Apple Discussions > Multimedia > QuickTime > QuickTime for Mac OS > MPEG2 support
Sept 04,01 post.....email reply from quicktime@apple.com

"There are licensing issues behind the MPEG 2 file format that need to be handled before QT can playback that format."

How many feedback request for features would it take for apple to move on this? Mpeg2 is not new, the technology is built into dvd player (possibly already in QT, just not accessable) soon in OS X 10.1.