What is a good entry level analog capture card?

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

for a friend - wants to convert his VHS to DVD. Not even sure which
software to recommend. I was thinking Adobe Premiere Elements or
Pinnacle Studio. His computer also support USB 2.0. I think a PCI
capture card will get the job done reasonable.

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

"Mark Burns" wrote ...
> discussing on another link:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt [...] d7fd150406

Why go to all that trouble capturing/compressing to MPEG2
on a computer. And especially trying to edit MPEG, yuck!

Just get a standalone DVD recorder and copy straight
across. The kind with a built-in hard drive will allow
you to do basic assemble editing.

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

"Ken Maltby" <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:ErCdnf1SPOvhX5HeRVn-3A@giganews.com...
>
> I can agree with most of that, for some and as a reflection of the
> current situation. But, at the level of editing that most people
interested
> in "rec.video.desktop" would be doing, MPEG is no longer the uneditable
> format it once was. The idea of it doesn't deserve a "yuck" anymore.
> As the industry gets into it, HDV is bound to improve and will force
> additional improvements in compression/encoding technology.
>

I kinda see it the other way around. If manufacturers develop MPEG data
systems for video then developers have little choice but to implement them
somehow. it ain't pretty.


> It may be more accurate to say MPEG is in transition. There is
> certainly big differences between MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.
> and the current HD versions. (DivX HD and WMV HD).

That's true.


>
> As this progress unfolds there will be further adaptations by those
> providing editing tools. We already see plug-ins being added to a
> number of the traditional editing packages. It is only very recently
> that those working on such tools have themselves started to put the
> MPEG Editing "yuck" dogma aside work on the issue.

I still feel it is a nasty format to work and edit in. I feel they should
have gone the other way with it and stuck with frame based compression and
higher data rates. I would gladly buy new gear to accomodate that but after
doing some HDV work , dealing with Cineform and the like.. I'll wait.

You're probably correct about the market though. It will certainly be
swamped with MPEG editing for the forseeable future. It is a little hard to
see into that future cause of the blockiness of the compression..




>
> Luck;
> Ken
>
>
>

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

"Martin Heffels" <biz@thisproductworks.com.> wrote in message
news:b9hpg1d697m1g8qgvr8bi39t0q97oamv1n@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 13:54:47 -0500, "Ken Maltby" <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
>>It is only very recently
>>that those working on such tools have themselves started to put the
>>MPEG Editing "yuck" dogma aside work on the issue.
>
> Ken, maybe you should check the specs of those packages. Most work by
> transcoding the MPEG material to an intermediate-codec. Thereby skipping
> the problem the delay trying to find an image in a GOP, and to prevent
> multiple re-compressing of frames, when cutting in GOPs.
>
> cheers
>
> -martin-
> --
>
> "Beer is life!"

Yes & No, most traditional "non-destructive" editors do that, and
most of the newer "Smart Encoding" editors do that for the preview
and to apply effects. When it comes time to write the final output
however, only the effected GOP(s) are transcoded ( using data
derived during the rendering of those GOP) the rest are simply
copied.

Of course if you were to apply an image altering effect to the
whole video, then all the GOP would need to be altered and the
whole thing would be transcoded. Fortunately, most edits are
applied to only a very small percentage of the GOP in a clip.

Luck;
Ken

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

Any WinTV or ATI all-in-wonder card will do. Used ones on ebay for <$50
will do fine. Add VirtualDub for the video capture, and you'll be doing
D1 resolution 720x480 30fps/29.97fps captures to the HD at any time w/o
any problems.

You can easily take any video stream and drop it into the PC this way,
dirt-cheap, and reliably all the time.

Use Huffyuv or PicVideo MJPEG video codec if you want higher capture
quality; otherwise, any ol' DV AVI video codec will do fine.

www.videohelp.com for more help on codecs, etc. in the forums.
www.virtualdub.org for more help on VDub.

---

TV-Top DVD recorder, like that 1 Tetrabyte (1000 GB) DVD/HD model just
out in Japan would easily take care of any problems archiving most videos.