nikki

Hi guys
I'm buying a new computer and was wondering if its better to capture video
(usb & composite)with my video card (old ATI All In Wonder 64 meg) Or
should I purchase some kind of capture device and use the USB or firewire
port on the computer. If anyone has had some experience or first hand
knowledge with this and could help me out.
Thanks Guys
Nikki

graham mayor

Your old video card may not be up to matching the performance of a recent
PC. FWIW an external device will provide greater flexibility for the future.
Plextor's USB2 ConvertX capture device produces excellent results (at a
price) especially when capturing to MPEG2 rather than DIVX format. The
latter can have a tendency to jerky playback when converted to DVD.

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Graham Mayor
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nikki

Thanks Graham
I take it that you have used one of these at one time. I found this one I
hope its the one that you are talking about
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...s.asp?EdpNo=88
2297&CatId=1428
This coming weekend Ill order it and give it a try
Nikki

graham mayor

It was actually http://www.plextor.com/english/products/ConvertX2.htm that I
was referring to. I have no experience of the alternative you have found.

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Graham Mayor
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jm

Another option is an MPEG-2 encoder card, like the Hauppauge PVR-250/350.
It's probably more than you are looking for, but it allows you to timeshift
and record television better than a card that relies on the CPU.

nikki

These devices are getting close to $200 dollars Canadian. Are you guys
using these and are they giving you good results. My question would be
(since I know nothing about this yet) If I'm going to spend $200 would I not
be better off in investing in a Video card that has video in. Or when I buy
my new computer reuse my 64 meg video card and purchase one of the capture
devices that you have mentioned. I don't really want the time shifting (
not really interested in watching TV on my Computer) but the Plextor's
ConvertX PX-M402U sounds interesting
Thanks
Nikki

fyrfaktry

I highly recommend the Canopus ADVC100. It cost me $233 US but it is
well worth the investment if you have lots of old VHS tapes to
convert!

ken maltby

And a whole lot of time to do the conversion!!

A real-time capture + the time it takes to do an encoding to
DVD Compliant MPEG. If you want to take advantage of
the improved quality this process can provide, then you are
talking about multi-pass encoding with filters. That can take
20 to 40 hours in addition to the 2 hour real-time capture.

Luck;
Ken

billy joe

Thanks for that Ken. I was beginning the think I was alone in
believing that on-card, real-time analogue conversion to DVD
compliant MPEG2/MP2 is a great choice when compared with ~30
mbps DV, which then requires additional (perhaps massive) effort
to produce the stand-alone playable files.

With the former, the opportunity to do a multi-pass conversion
is lost but one pass, multi-frame MPEG2 conversions should be
roughly the same quality for both processes, no?

Unless the source material is in need of filtering and the
result is clearly an improvement over the source, what's the
purpose??

Given that DVDs, at their highest compliant quality, hold less
than a 2 hr VHS/BETA tape, we just KNOW that the final product
is going to be produced at less than BEST compression anyway!!

BJ

jm

The hardware MPEG2 capture device allows real time MPEG2 encoding with no
load on the CPU (you can use the PC while you capture to MPEG with no
dropped frames). If you use a TV Tuner card or a Video card with a Tuner,
you will be capturing in uncompressed AVI format, which consumes about 13GB
per hour of video. To transcode AVI to MPEG takes considerable processing
time, even on the fastest of PC's. That's why I capture directly to MPEG2
format... High quality, fast, reasonable file size.

I guess no has asked what kind of analog are you capturing, and what do you
intend to do with it once you have it on your hard disk?