Which DVD capture card?

[Adem]

Hello,

We intensively capture video cassettes (VHS-Beta-Hi8-VHS-C), which are people’s engagements, weddings, birthdays, tours and meetings, seminars etc. of companies.

We need your experiences about choosing the right card. There are lots of capture cards from various brands in market. We want to use Pinnacle products, which are between 350 – 800 €. We consider important the quality of capturing very much. That’s why we want to learn which are Pinnacle’s best DVD capture cards (PCI) for these prices. We need a professional DVD capture card.

We tried to express the specifications we expect from a DVD capture card below. If you see anything which has escaped from our notices, please warn us. Would you please tell us which Pinnacle product(s) completely provide(s) the following specifications?

·Intensive usage without problems (10 hrs a day)

·PCI card
·Capture from both analog and digital sources
We must be able to capture from digital sources
and analog sources both.
Its capture sources mustn’t be limited with only
dv or only analog video.

·PAL - NTSC support
·Real Time Mpeg-2 (The most important specification
for us). We know that there are both hardware and
software capture cards in market.We want
absolutely a hardware mpeg-2 capture card.
It must have its own processor. It must capture
directly in Mpeg-2 format. It mustn’t use and need
the computer system resources at all. It mustn’t
need rendering after capture.

·Mpeg-1 and Avi capture
We must be able to capture in Mpeg1 and Avi
format when it is needed without any difficulties.

·PAUSE function, which is very important for us
During capturing to harddisk, we must be able to
use pause function to skip unwanted or blank
sections from cassettes.

·Realtime, adjustable preview during recording
We must be able to see the recording from preview
window with sound.

·Composit - S-video In - Stereo Sound
·Capturing in low bitrate for Web page and video
mail without any problems.
·Saturation, Contrast, Brightness, Hue adjusting

Thank you for your interest in advance.

Sincerely yours,


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Adem on 03/04/04 05:19 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Albert_Silver]

I realize this may not enter your list of requisites, but I've been looking around for a similar item, though less expensive, and for personal use, and found one that seemed quite attractive:

KWorld Xpert DVD Maker USB2.0
http://www.kworld.com.tw/products/pro15/vs-USB2800.htm

It is a small external device that connects to the USB outlet and transfers data through it. It is capable of transferring data at a rate of up to 30fps @ 720 x 480 size for video processor and compression over a USB 2.0 connection, and I saw it at NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com) for example for about $47. It is rather odd reading the resolution capacity of NTSC at 720x480 (as if TVs actually displayed that), but presumably the capture is good and smooth. It is even capable, according to the description, of burning the input directly to DVD. All in all, it seems very impressive.

Albert

 

[Crashman]

Hauppauge has their PVR series with hardware MPG1 and MPG2 compression. This takes most of the load off the CPU and increases reliability (system crashes less likely with low CPU load).

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[moodypo]

Hi! as i know pinnacle mostly use the CPU to encoding the movie, especially the low price one (under $300). the card provided in the package is the IEEE card (just for date tranfer), which does not have a on PCB MPEGII processor. Never buy these! Actually, the cost u spended is used to buy her software, not for the hardware. and therefore i suggest u should try a much much expensive one. there may be have the spec you want and should have a MpegII processor on her PCB.
Other tips for you:
The most important is you should buy a Zero-render time (free render time) hardware. [what s that mean?... if you have the expenience for rendering, you wonder why need such long time to encoding (serval hours to serval days!!!). the reason is editing programme now using the CPU (P4). For deducing the time, of course use a higher grape CPU (3.2G Hz). Or simply just use a Mpeg II processor). Don't buy a one without only have the funtion of input encoding, but need the OUTPUT encoding. that means you should buy a one have function of rendering (encoding) by use of the on PCB MpegII processor!! otherwise you would lost time, hours or even days to rending.
if you could find one under the cost of $500, please also tell me, because no one can tell me which capture card has the above i mentioned (free render output time) funtion.
Once again, dont just buy a card only have the input encoding code but also have the OUTPUT one.

 

[exe]

moodypo, I don't quite understand what you wrote, but the Hauppauge 350 card has hardware Mpeg encoding and deconding processor on the card.

 

[stargazer424]

Im trying to pick out a video capture card or USB device too...only problem is everytime I read a review on an item that is good, I get an equal amount of negative reviews...I dont want to spend too much money, but am willing to pay up to $200. Here are the USB ones I have been looking at. If anyone has experience with any of these, any input would be appreciated

Dazzle 150
ADS Instand DVD 2.0
Adaptec VideOH!
Plextor ConvertX

If it helps here is my computers specs
I have a Dell 8300
3.2 GHz
1 gig ram
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
120 gig HD

 

[mattburklund]

I have been looking at this also. From what I have read the two best usb options are the hauppauge pvrusb2, and Plextor’s ConvertX PX-M402U. The hauppuage seems to be about $50 more online. Does anyone know which one of these two would be better? I want to get one that my dad can use, he has a new dell that has onboard video only.

 

[Mindwarper]

Hi ,
You might look at the matrox rt.x100. It does everything you want. It is expensive 999$ with a good software bundle. It has specific system requirments, so check their website. It has realtime tv preview and realtime color correction. It can capture in avi or mpeg2. It can render avi files to multiple formats at one. ( mpeg2, streaming video, mpeg4 ) Note you can't easily edit mpeg2. So you might capture as avi, edit, export to mpeg2, author dvd, then burn dvd. Good Luck

Asus p4533c 2.53,4x512 1066,40gb system ,240Gb RAID A/V Drive,80 Gb Export,Radeon 9800 Pro,Matrox Rt.X100,Santa Cruz Turtle Beach,Aardvark Aark 20,Ricoh Mp5125a,Samsung 40x cd,Antec w/400,Xp pro

 

[mattburklund]

Thank you, I want to keep it under $200 though.

 

[Mindwarper]

Hi,
I researched it for over a year and couldn't find a capture card that was pro enough for cheap. I had a hard time justifying the cost, but at the time there was no alternative. I purchased and built system in dec 2002. Much has changed since then, but I still think the low end cards are not going to give you proffesional results. If you are planning on using it 10 hours a day, make sure you get plenty of hard drive storage. You need to have at least 2 drives, if not three. I use a system drive, an a/v drive for capture ( avi files ), them an export drive when ripping avi to mpeg2. I am constantly filling up drives. I thought 240 gb would be plenty, but I was wrong. When you decide which one, let me know how it goes. If you are doing editing, make sure it has realtime tv moniter preview. The matrox also allows realtime color correction and many other things. It also has premeire and reeldvd. Both are expensive prorams that can change the equation. Do you already have programs? If you are planning to purchase premiere and reeldvd, the cost of the card is almost less then 200$ . Good luck

Asus p4533c 2.53,4x512 1066,40gb system ,240Gb RAID A/V Drive,80 Gb Export,Radeon 9800 Pro,Matrox Rt.X100,Santa Cruz Turtle Beach,Aardvark Aark 20,Ricoh Mp5125a,Samsung 40x cd,Antec w/400,Xp pro

 

[mattburklund]

no, I dont have the software yet either. You kind of answered my other questions already. I was curious as to what drive to put the software on, main c? What drive to put the ripped files on d? and finally what dirve to put the converted and final product on e? Do I really need 3 separate hard drives? As far as the software is concerned I would need something simple as I would be letting my dad use it to convert vhs to dvd's and he is not to up on computers. He has a dell dimension 2400 with 512mb shared onboard ram, no video card and I think the mb has no agp slot, so would a pci video card be worth it? These are the reasons I was thinking he needed a usb2 external card llke the plextor or haupauge.
Thanks
Matt

 

[Mindwarper]

Hi,

There are some pci slot capture cards. My matrox is one. There are others. I'm not sure what to recomend. I'm also not sure what programs to recomend. I've got my mom trained on photoshop 7. SO it is possible. I tend to go with main programs like word , photoshop , etc, instead of the offshoot programs like photo elements . The two main programs seem to be adobe and the ulead. I guess I should list avid as well. I would at least stick to those companies and not get some crappy software.
I use my c drive as system only. I put on applications, but no saves or files go there. I use d drive as my a/v drive. This is where the captured avi files go. ( actually I have a raid that I capture to) And then I edit avi in premeire 6.5 and export the mpeg2 file to drive e. I then take mpeg2 file and use dvdit pe to make menues and chapter points. And to burn the dvd. It is a time consuming process with a steep learning curve.
The other method is to get a stand alone burner ( prefer one with 80 gb harddrive like the panosonic dmr-e80h. ) and hook it directly to vcr. They are about 349$ and they work fine. You can't edit with it, and the menus are basic, but it familiar and easy to do. Almost like dubbing a vcr tape. You don't say if the dell has a dvd burner. I can tell you that getting familiar with capture and burning is hard for anyone at any age. But it is worth it. Good Luck

Asus p4533c 2.53,4x512 1066,40gb system ,240Gb RAID A/V Drive,80 Gb Export,Radeon 9800 Pro,Matrox Rt.X100,Santa Cruz Turtle Beach,Aardvark Aark 20,Ricoh Mp5125a,Samsung 40x cd,Antec w/400,Xp pro