All In Wonder a good choice?

[darren]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I am currently shopping for a video card for capturing video and
playing back to tape. I have read some favorable posts for this card
and was wondering if anyone has any input as to whether or not this is
a good card. I will just be using this to do a wedding for a friend
and possibly editing some of my own videos so at this point speed,
power, and to a certain extent quality are not high on my list. I
just need something that will get the job done so I dont mind if it
takes a little longer or the quality isnt super high (I will be
capturing from hi8 so I would like it to be maybe on the same level as
that. I plan in the future to get a better card, well a better
system, for editing on but for right now just adding a card to my
current setup is whats in my buget. My current setup is p3 633mhz
(yeah I know), 192 ram (again, I know), an about 70gig of free space.
I will be using Premiere with it if anyone has any experience with
this combo. I have been looking at the ATI All in Wonder 128 Pro Rage
PCI 32MB models that are going on ebay for $40-$50. Is that too much
to pay? Is the PCI version ok? I dont have an AGP slot so PCI is my
only option. THanks for any input that you can give.

Darren

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I'd recommend a Canopus ACEDVio card. I just exchanged my AIW Radeon 9000
Pro for the ACEDVio and it's a huge improvement in quality. The only
advantage to the AIW, AFAIC, is the ability to watch and record TV, but I
don't do that on my computer.

Plus, the AIW captures as MPEG-2. Premiere can't edit MPEG-2 files (w/out
crashing, at least). The ACEDVio captures as a Canopus DV AVI directly
within Premiere. From there, you can export to DVD-compliant MPEG-2's after
you apply edits, transitions, etc.

- f_f


"Darren" <echodarren@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7c69841e.0408012226.7eeec567@posting.google.com...
> I am currently shopping for a video card for capturing video and
> playing back to tape. I have read some favorable posts for this card
> and was wondering if anyone has any input as to whether or not this is
> a good card. I will just be using this to do a wedding for a friend
> and possibly editing some of my own videos so at this point speed,
> power, and to a certain extent quality are not high on my list. I
> just need something that will get the job done so I dont mind if it
> takes a little longer or the quality isnt super high (I will be
> capturing from hi8 so I would like it to be maybe on the same level as
> that. I plan in the future to get a better card, well a better
> system, for editing on but for right now just adding a card to my
> current setup is whats in my buget. My current setup is p3 633mhz
> (yeah I know), 192 ram (again, I know), an about 70gig of free space.
> I will be using Premiere with it if anyone has any experience with
> this combo. I have been looking at the ATI All in Wonder 128 Pro Rage
> PCI 32MB models that are going on ebay for $40-$50. Is that too much
> to pay? Is the PCI version ok? I dont have an AGP slot so PCI is my
> only option. THanks for any input that you can give.
>
> Darren

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 1 Aug 2004 23:26:55 -0700, echodarren@yahoo.com (Darren) wrote:

>My current setup is p3 633mhz
>(yeah I know), 192 ram (again, I know), an about 70gig of free space.

Here is where your problems begin. I use an AIW with an Athlon XP
2200+, and it works fine. But may be your computer is not up to the
task of capturing with a card that does all processing by software.
For instance, my PC can capture with Huffyuv compression without a
glitch, even with no compression at all, but doesn't yield good
results when capturing with mpeg-4 codecs. I believe you should be
able to capture with Huffyuv, though. If you go to the Huffyuv page,
http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html, you'll
see some benchmarks which are quite old, so they should apply to your
CPU. How do you "play it back to tape", I don't know. The alternative
is a DC10, which captures by hardware encoding, and plays back to
tape. It works very well in low strength systems with Win98 and
DirectX 7.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"faster_framerates" <nothanks@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:celmv1$r30$1@news.tamu.edu...
> I'd recommend a Canopus ACEDVio card. I just exchanged my AIW Radeon 9000
> Pro for the ACEDVio and it's a huge improvement in quality. The only
> advantage to the AIW, AFAIC, is the ability to watch and record TV, but I
> don't do that on my computer.
>
> Plus, the AIW captures as MPEG-2. Premiere can't edit MPEG-2 files (w/out
> crashing, at least). The ACEDVio captures as a Canopus DV AVI directly
> within Premiere. From there, you can export to DVD-compliant MPEG-2's
after
> you apply edits, transitions, etc.
>
> - f_f
>
>
> "Darren" <echodarren@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:7c69841e.0408012226.7eeec567@posting.google.com...
> > I am currently shopping for a video card for capturing video and
> > playing back to tape. I have read some favorable posts for this card
> > and was wondering if anyone has any input as to whether or not this is
> > a good card. I will just be using this to do a wedding for a friend
> > and possibly editing some of my own videos so at this point speed,
> > power, and to a certain extent quality are not high on my list. I
> > just need something that will get the job done so I dont mind if it
> > takes a little longer or the quality isnt super high (I will be
> > capturing from hi8 so I would like it to be maybe on the same level as
> > that. I plan in the future to get a better card, well a better
> > system, for editing on but for right now just adding a card to my
> > current setup is whats in my buget. My current setup is p3 633mhz
> > (yeah I know), 192 ram (again, I know), an about 70gig of free space.
> > I will be using Premiere with it if anyone has any experience with
> > this combo. I have been looking at the ATI All in Wonder 128 Pro Rage
> > PCI 32MB models that are going on ebay for $40-$50. Is that too much
> > to pay? Is the PCI version ok? I dont have an AGP slot so PCI is my
> > only option. THanks for any input that you can give.
> >
> > Darren
>
I have used my 9600aiw to capture direct to mpeg/dv stuff.

I just press pause button and fast/forward my sony camcorder/for the shots I
want.

Then burn the capture, directly to dvd. Unlead studio se, came with the
pioneer.

Usually takes a half hour for 20 minutes of junk. Pioneer 4x dvd recorder

my 2 cents

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

If you want hours of frustration, get an AIW. I've had an AIW Pro and and
AIW Radeon and both have been very unsatisfactory...for many many reasons
first under 98SE and then under XP., the least of which is video quality.
On top of that ATI tech support is hopeless at helping you out if you have
a problem. I'm looking for an alternative.


"Darren" <echodarren@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7c69841e.0408012226.7eeec567@posting.google.com...
> I am currently shopping for a video card for capturing video and
> playing back to tape. I have read some favorable posts for this card
> and was wondering if anyone has any input as to whether or not this is
> a good card. I will just be using this to do a wedding for a friend
> and possibly editing some of my own videos so at this point speed,
> power, and to a certain extent quality are not high on my list. I
> just need something that will get the job done so I dont mind if it
> takes a little longer or the quality isnt super high (I will be
> capturing from hi8 so I would like it to be maybe on the same level as
> that. I plan in the future to get a better card, well a better
> system, for editing on but for right now just adding a card to my
> current setup is whats in my buget. My current setup is p3 633mhz
> (yeah I know), 192 ram (again, I know), an about 70gig of free space.
> I will be using Premiere with it if anyone has any experience with
> this combo. I have been looking at the ATI All in Wonder 128 Pro Rage
> PCI 32MB models that are going on ebay for $40-$50. Is that too much
> to pay? Is the PCI version ok? I dont have an AGP slot so PCI is my
> only option. THanks for any input that you can give.
>
> Darren

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

faster_framerates wrote:

>I'd recommend a Canopus ACEDVio card. I just exchanged my AIW Radeon 9000
>Pro for the ACEDVio and it's a huge improvement in quality. The only
>advantage to the AIW, AFAIC, is the ability to watch and record TV, but I
>don't do that on my computer.
>
>Plus, the AIW captures as MPEG-2. Premiere can't edit MPEG-2 files (w/out
>crashing, at least). The ACEDVio captures as a Canopus DV AVI directly
>within Premiere. From there, you can export to DVD-compliant MPEG-2's after
>you apply edits, transitions, etc.
>
>- f_f

Sigh. The AIW captures with any codec of your choice, provided you
use software other than the supplied media center. VirtualDub works
perfectly with AIW cards and captures to many different formats.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

It'll be decent, but you'll have to test to see if the AIW and computer
is fast enough on your system for full resolution captures (D1, 720x480
30fps).

Here, you'll definitely need AVI_IO (pay) or VirtualDub (free) to
capture the video.

Also, you may need PicVideo MJPEG codec (pay) or Huffyuv (free) codec to
capture the video into something that can be edited easily.

You can expect close to about 10-15GB per hour of D1 resolution video in
this format, and you'll need 2x that to write out the edited video copy.

---

Here, you may consider a minor upgrade to a Digital8 camcorder or DV
camcorder (the cheap ones <$300). Here, both would encode to DV video
directly, so you only need a <$10 firewire card for the PC and not have
to worry about the speed of the CPU for video captures (as would be the
case with the analog AIW captures). Also, the video quality would be
higher than the Hi8 camcorder (see www.bealecorner.com -> TRV section ->
DVD vs. DV vs VHS vs SVHS etc. comparision pages).

---

Anyways, as long as the CPU is fast enough, then you will get as high of
a quality as you can expect (even vs. items like a Canopus ADVC-100).
Basically, a solid AIW setup will match a DV converter box in resolution
and quality (tested both here), and it's only a matter of convenience
and setup that makes the difference (eg. easier to get the DV going; AIW
requries setup of VirtualDub + codec + etc.). But both are solid
options and you can capture 2+ hours continously w/o any problems on a
solid, fast-enough system.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

> Sigh. The AIW captures with any codec of your choice, provided you
> use software other than the supplied media center. VirtualDub works
> perfectly with AIW cards and captures to many different formats.

True, but capturing is limited by the rest of your computer hardware with an
AIW. It was the same case with my old Matrox Marvel G200 running on a 400
MHz AMD K6-3. In Darren's case, he doesn't exactly have the most robust,
modern machine.

The Canopus card may be a little pricey for his taste and budget, but for
analog captures it is well worth the price. The Canopus DV codec is about as
good as you're going to get for analog captures with consumer equipment.
Plus, you get FireWire connectivity for future DV equipment and other
peripherals (scanners, HDD's, etc).

My 2¢,

f_f

 

[Shez]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

In the faraway land of rec.video.desktop, Darren <echodarren@yahoo.com>
said:
>I am currently shopping for a video card for capturing video and
>playing back to tape.

Your problem here is that the TV out of the AIW is rubbish.

I used to use a Matrox Rainbow runner which captured to MJPEG in
hardware at full resolution even on a P233 machine, and I could edit and
re-output to videotape with no discernible quality loss.

Then I got an AIW because of the promise of MPEG & MPEG2 encoding, but
even with a 500MHz machine it struggled to record at more than 1/2
resolution unless I used I-frame only, which is basically nothing more
than MJPEG. Also I tend to get various weird artefacts on captured video
that the Matrox card never suffered from, e.g. flickering chroma,
stripey artefacts, etc., which mean I have to heavily post-process the
video in VirtualDub with temporal smoothers etc to get something
acceptable. Outputting back to tape, the TV-out refuses to fill the
screen of the TV, I end up with black borders top and bottom, and every
time I want to output to tape I spend half an hour just getting an
acceptable image, messing around with gamma, brightness, saturation, etc
etc. The Matrox card just worked, the ATI card is in contrast a botched
job. In my version at least, the AIW also sets the aspect ratio wrongly
in the MPEG and MPEG2 videos it captures.

If you do get an AIW, never ever try to upgrade the drivers or media
software unless your life depends on it, as they are a real bastard to
do, often you have to deinstall everything back to the bare metal and
then work in some prehistoric 16 colour VGA mode whilst you install the
new stuff, and then reverse the whole process when the upgraded software
fails to work. You should allow at least two days & lots of
tranquilisers to wrestle with a ATI software upgrade IMHO.


--
______________________________________________________

WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
Firings will continue until morale improves.
______________________________________________________
Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe: http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/
Reply-to address for email: mailreply AT xerez.demon.co.uk

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

> Your problem here is that the TV out of the AIW is rubbish.
>
> I used to use a Matrox Rainbow runner which captured to MJPEG in
> hardware at full resolution even on a P233 machine, and I could edit and
> re-output to videotape with no discernible quality loss.
>
> Then I got an AIW because of the promise of MPEG & MPEG2 encoding, but

Here, simply avoid using the AIW software for capturing to MPEG-2.
It's great for timeshifting TV shows to watch later, but for the
specific task of editing wedding videos, better to go the VirtualDub +
Huffyuv route.

---

In any case, I've snapshot captures from both the AIW original, 128,
and 8500DV I used, compared them to the Canopus ADVC-100 I also have,
and in all respects - resolution, quality, detail level -- they're
basically the same (naturally, you'll have some color variations because
the analog tuner is setup differently vs. the DV capture, but nothing
that'll make a difference in the final color correction for posting, nor
anything wierd).

I would bet money on using a <$40 ATI AIW 128 PCI card today to be
able to edit a full wedding video just fine on my 2Ghz P4 machine, and
as long as it captures fast enough on someone else's machine, it should
work just the same.

With my testing of both systems, there's really no reason why you
can't get it done using either an AIW or an ADVC-100.

---

If someone is considering an ADVC-100, also consider simply going to
a Digital8 or DV camcorder with analog passthrough. Essentially the
same thing, but you get a camcorder as a bonus rather than just a box
that sits there converting video.