Video capture - A little advice please...

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..... my old PC used to have an ATI AIW 9000, and I occasionally used it to
capture DVD quality mpegs from my VHS player - It worked well (for my
requirements at least) - I simply used the mpegs to burn DVD's using Sonic
Foundry DVD Architect.

I'm now looking for a similar card for my new PC, however it's already
equipment with a high end nvidia card that I don't want to change.

I know that Pinnacle/Hauppage make TV cards that will allow me to capture
video, but will they let me capture at full DVD quality? (I also want one
without buggy drivers of course - does such a thing exist?)

I have also looked for an ATI TV Wonder (better the devil you know) but as
far as I can see they're not available any more in the UK (ATI cards seem to
be rarer than hen's teeth, and despite reading that the TV Wonder USB 2.0 is
now available in the UK I couldn't find it.

What budget card should I buy that would give me the most flexibility with
regard to capturing VHS?

Thanks in andvance for any pointers

Chris
 
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Afaik the AIW cards always capture in a flavor of mpg. If you don't
see your future as being limited to that (convenient for
quick-and-dirty transfer to DVD, but perhaps limited in quality and
editing capability) consider one of the external boxes that capture to
DV. The right box will require no software other than what already
comes with XP, and will look like a DV camera to the computer. You
capture a high quality data stream, and have no worries about drivers
and such. You end up with a file you can easily edit, but
unfortunately need to encode it back to mpeg. The only box I have
experience with, ADS Pyro A/V Link, has served me well. Note that
older versions had some complaints, so beware if you go looking for
one in the used market.

"Chris Parry" <chris@arsenal-world.net> wrote:

>.... my old PC used to have an ATI AIW 9000, and I occasionally used it to
>capture DVD quality mpegs from my VHS player - It worked well (for my
>requirements at least) - I simply used the mpegs to burn DVD's using Sonic
>Foundry DVD Architect.
>
>I'm now looking for a similar card for my new PC, however it's already
>equipment with a high end nvidia card that I don't want to change.
>
>I know that Pinnacle/Hauppage make TV cards that will allow me to capture
>video, but will they let me capture at full DVD quality? (I also want one
>without buggy drivers of course - does such a thing exist?)
>
>I have also looked for an ATI TV Wonder (better the devil you know) but as
>far as I can see they're not available any more in the UK (ATI cards seem to
>be rarer than hen's teeth, and despite reading that the TV Wonder USB 2.0 is
>now available in the UK I couldn't find it.
>
>What budget card should I buy that would give me the most flexibility with
>regard to capturing VHS?
>
>Thanks in andvance for any pointers
>
>Chris
>
 
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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"John Thomas Smith" <jtsmith@pacifier.com> wrote in message
news:0tse31t5rabbuf7cde20csba95evqtdad0@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:37:56 GMT, "Chris Parry"
> <chris@arsenal-world.net> wrote:
>>I'm now looking for a similar card for my new PC, however it's already
>>equipment with a high end nvidia card that I don't want to change.
>
> Canopus ADVC-100
> Canopus ADVC-300
> http://www.videoguys.com/canopus.htm
>
> http://www.plextor.com/english/products/ConvertX2.htm
> Plextor PX-M402U

Thanks for that John - The Plextor looks to be just what I require, 2
questions though:

1). Is USB2 as good as an internal card for capturing?

2). Would there be any issues using one in the UK bearing in mind I'd be
inputting PAL VHS Tapes?

(Sorry if these questions seem trivial - I'm a little 'technically
challenged'!)
 
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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

> Afaik the AIW cards always capture in a flavor of mpg. If you don't

You would be incorrect. Unlike the Hauppage cards that can _only_ capture in
mpeg, AIW can capture uncompressed avi files, in addtion to lossless avi
compression via HuffYuv and various flavors of mpeg compression as well.
 
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"Chuck U. Farley" <chuckufarleynot@dyslexia.com> wrote:

>> Afaik the AIW cards always capture in a flavor of mpg. If you don't
>
>You would be incorrect. Unlike the Hauppage cards that can _only_ capture in
>mpeg, AIW can capture uncompressed avi files, in addtion to lossless avi
>compression via HuffYuv and various flavors of mpeg compression as well.
>
Interesting. My comment was based on many conversations with a guy at
work who's a big AIW fan. He always uses the (an) mpg mode, and I
would have sworn the admits to no other option. I'm pretty sure he was
thinking about buying an external standalone box like the ADS Pyro for
that reason.
 
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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

> >> Afaik the AIW cards always capture in a flavor of mpg. If you don't
> >
> >You would be incorrect. Unlike the Hauppage cards that can _only_ capture
in
> >mpeg, AIW can capture uncompressed avi files, in addtion to lossless avi
> >compression via HuffYuv and various flavors of mpeg compression as well.
> >
> Interesting. My comment was based on many conversations with a guy at
> work who's a big AIW fan. He always uses the (an) mpg mode, and I
> would have sworn the admits to no other option. I'm pretty sure he was
> thinking about buying an external standalone box like the ADS Pyro for
> that reason.

When researching a video capture card, I wanted an uncompressed option so
that's why I chose the ATI card over the Hauppage. Although the real-time
s/w mpeg encoder included with AIW cards is pretty good, I prefer to capture
to avi and then encode to mpg with a dualpass VBR s/w encoder (ProCoder).
Much higher quality, especially in scenes with lots of movement/action.
 
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