Forget using a TV Capture Card

[widemouth]

For years I have been using a BT848 chipped TV capture card for capturing all of my home videos etc. and thinking that the quality was good.

I recently bought a Pinnacle DC10 and only now realise how bad the capture quality of the TV card was! I was using the PICVideo and the Huffy codec but the quality was still average compared to the MJPEG capture from the DC10.

The accuracies of the colors where the biggest change.

Interestingly the MPEG2 codec in TMPGEnc much preferred the MJPEG source and needed a far lower bitrate for the same quality when making an SVCD. The TV card capture had much more 'snow' expecially in low light situations.

My suggestion to anyone looking at archiving analog footage is to buy a decent capture card and not waste your time with a cheap TV card.

The Pinnacle DC10 is under $100 US ad I'm sure there are many other capture cards that are worthy of the investment.

[vhelp]

evening all..

yes, widemouth.. I've ben plauged by this Noise issue for a very long time.

I've even posted a thread on this issue. Inludes cards such as, in no
particular order:

* pc pvr (i/o magic)
* ati-tv wonder
* ati all in wonder
* ati rage fury pro
* wintv go
- - - - - -
* DC10+ (the BEST, especialy for VHS)
* ADVC-100 (THE BEST, but not so good w/ VHS, but still testing/debat on)

The last two above proved the cleanest (no Noise)
* ADVC-100 produces very steady video (VHS: no jaggies or wiggles)
* DC10+ produce good quality video (VHS: have jaggies or wiggles but
.. though final quality comes out better than ADVC-100 ..IMO)

-vhelp

[dlbott]

well, i have an avermediastudio.. unfortunately there support it non existant.. i wanted it to use for like makeing my own dvd's of tv episodes

problem is i dont know how to set it for best setting and how to take out the commercials of the mpg's

it should be sufficient for this purpose i would think if i can just get a little help...

thanks

[vhelp]

hi dlbott,


about the best I can do/recommend for ya, is to capture to AVI and then
open it in VDUB and do your "commerical" cutting, then frameserve it
into TMPG and finally, encode to whatever you wish.

I don't have avermedia or whatever it's called. If it only captures in MPEG
format, than you may have problems w/ exact frame cutting, else go w/
AVI capturing instead. And, enjoy much better accurate frame cutting.

-vhelp

[dlbott]

vhelp:

i have used vdub to capture to avi and it works, although the audio was messed up last time i did it, not totally sure of all the settings, it is really easy to capture with the avermedia program to mpg though, but vdub wont open the mpeg to let me cut in there, vdub is the only software i know how to do the cut and edit, i am sure there is other programs for the mpg just dont know it..

also, explain the frameserv step before incoding with tempenc plz.. not sure what u mean there..

[flaninacupboard]

the new versions of TMPGenc has cutting in the source range selection. it's easy to use

[NightWing]

Been using Avi_io for capture from the DC10 for a long time. Then into VDub to "temp" stitch all the file for the capture as one as a framed served into Tmpeg using the Source range to remove the nasty ad's and clip in nice chunks to feed to the batch file section.

Also tried the "remove section" new add on in that same section to make one file. Very nice feature!

[ChrisX]

This really depends on the video card used and the computer. I wouldn't use WinTV for really good home videos into the computer. The resolution is usually poor and the size small.

I do find WinFast PVR as so much better using my capture graphics card WinFast A250 in a Pentium 4 computer. So much better resolution, bigger and great color now.

You're right to invest a superior card and don't get a cheap one.

[LSchafroth]

I've been using a Pinnacle PCTV card. I use teh composite input.

I am using XP Pro so I use IuVCR for capturing. I don't think I've ever dropped a frame yet. None that I've noticed anyway.

I use VD for filters, resizing and etc and TMPGEnc to encode.

The capture quailty has always been perfect with no noise of any kind.

Just my 2 cents...
Lannie