Recommend a video cap card

[mubs]

I'm mulling buying one of these. Most products seem to be kinda hit-and-miss, everything I see seems to get bad reviews by a good proportion of users. I checked out videohelp.com as well.

Features:

1) Interface: no preference, and in no particular order: USB2, Firewire, PCI, PCI-E

2) Must support both NTSC and PAL inputs

3) Must support both analog and DV inputs.

4) Must have hardware MPEG-2 encoding. HW MPEG-4 and DivX would be nice to have

5) Nice to have "clean-up the signal" features.

Merc has previously indicated that DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter and Nero is all one needs for sw. I'm not sure if that holds true for vid-cap as well.

The highest rated device on videohelp is the Canopus ADVC-100. This seems to be discontinued, and I can find only its successor, the ADVC-110, which runs $250 shipped, much more than I'd like to spend. No reviews on the new model. No sw included for this price!!!

The Plextor PX-M402U seems to have several frustrated users.

ADS has two that are interesting, but it's unclear that they have hw encoding; they don't say.
a) USBAV703: Instant DVD+DV $150 with audio-lock
b) API-555: PYRO A/V Link with Premiere Elements 2.0 $160 no mention of audio lock

The Hauppages - WinTV PVR-350, WinTV PVR-250, and WinTV PVR-150 don;t have DV input. They range from $93 to $135. I don't really need a tuner; if there's something that has a PAL tuner I might be interested.

Leadtek products don't have DV in.

Comments, suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[CityK]

mubs, I don't do DV (no current need ... i.e no DV cam to play with), but extracting the knowledge I have from other areas I can provide some insights...just bear in mind that my ignorance to DV editing may mean I'm subject to error in spots. But anyways:

2) Must support both NTSC and PAL inputs..... if there's something that has a PAL tuner I might be interested.

I'm curious on your need for PAL inputs .... are you taking this device to a PAL using region , or are you going to attempt capture from a PAL DV device?

In any respects, the hardware on capture card devices should support A/V inputs from either standard ... its the drivers, on the other hand, that will need to be able to differeniate between the two.

If your capturing from your DV cam via 1394/firewire, you're not really even capturing -- you're just trasnfering the digital stream from the tape on the cam to your hdd. You then perform your edits etc., and re-encode to desired format. In this sense, if your source was PAL material, it is your editing software that will have to be aware of how to deal with it -- i.e. if your saving your finished project in NTSC format or PAL (and sending it back to the "ol'country" to your Great Aunt "mubsamia" )

Must have hardware MPEG-2 encoding.

Aren't you planning to buy a dual core 18GigaHertz system in a few weeks? Besides, Software solutions are so much more flexible.

HW MPEG-4 and DivX would be nice to have

Off hand I can only think of the Plextor unit. BTW, DivX is Mpeg4. In particular, its an implementation of the Mpeg4 Advanced Simple Profile. Xvid is another example of an Mpeg4 ASP codec. and so on.

Nice to have "clean-up the signal" features.

That would largely fall into the realm of running filters in a software suite before you re-encode .... if your capturing from the cam via A/V cables to a hardware encoding mpeg2 card, then (while some of the encoders, like the ATI Theater550Pro are pretty advanced in trying to reduce the noise in a signal) you don't really have any "clean up signal options" to speak of ... what the hardware encoder gives you is what you get....unless you want to suffer yet another generation loss of editing/filtering the captured mpeg2 and re-encode.

If you're going to be capturing from A/V inputs (as opposed to using 1394), and you want the best quality, I would suggest capturing to a "loseless" format first, perform your edits and filtering, and then encode to your desired target format.

Capturing straight to Mpeg2 is really just the "less hassle approach" ... particularly if your going to create a DVD out of the material.

Merc has previously indicated that DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter and Nero is all one needs for sw. I'm not sure if that holds true for vid-cap as well.

Not particularly. DVD Shrink and Decrypter will only help you for ripping and backing up DVD efforts. Nero Burning ROM, amoung many other programs would be fine for burning your finished projects to disc....(in fact, DVD Decrypter can do that too)....However, they do nothing for your editing and authouring (if your going to create a DVD) needs.

I'm not sure what your intended target format is either (as you've listed Mpeg2 but then state interest in Mpeg4 ). If you want to create DVDs that play in set top machines, then you want mpeg2 format .... some/maybe-many-now standalone DVD players also have some limited support for other formats too (like mpeg4)....but (although I have access to such a player) then you get into a whole other ballgame that I've never ventured into (i.e. I'd have to figure out how to setup menus, chapters etc etc...or is it just a data DVD holding mpeg4 files? Actually, I don't even think many are compliant to mp4 (i.e instead of being mpeg4 content placed in the mp4 container format, the material must be placed in avi containers ...on top of that, I believe that some (ie. like the slightly older Philips 642 model) don't even work if you've enabled some particular encoding features that are available to the ASP codecs). Anyways, I'm rambling. But, what I am trying to stress is determine what your target storage format and media is.

PS. I'm not sure if Nero has a suitable editing suite. Look into whether Nero Digital would do it or not. (The real forte with Nero Digital is their MP4 ASP and AVC codecs .... I'm not even sure they have an Mpeg2 codec (although likely) ....

The highest rated device on videohelp is the Canopus ADVC-100. This seems to be discontinued, and I can find only its successor, the ADVC-110, which runs $250 shipped, much more than I'd like to spend. No reviews on the new model. No sw included for this price!!!

Honestly, I think you can get by with some pretty pedestrian hardware...even a built in firewire port on your mother board! The key is to figure out how your going to be importing the material from the cam. On top of that, there is bound to be several useful freeware software packages available (if you don't want to go for a suite type package .... I'm much more of a dyi type person..I like to know how things work, and how everything fits together...It is my experience that suites in Windows just tend to bug me cause they are usually bloated with a gazillion things I'm not interested in, have annoying wizards that obfusicate what is going on (and I like to know/understand what is going on, not to mention be in control of the processes), and have GUI interfaces that frustrate me.

Leadtek products don't have DV in.

IIRC, I'm pretty sure there is a Leadtek tvcard with a hardware mpeg2 encoder and also a 1394 input

Hopes this gives you some food for thought.

 

[CityK]

Leadtek products don't have DV in.

IIRC, I'm pretty sure there is a Leadtek tvcard with a hardware mpeg2 encoder and also a 1394 input

Sorry, I was wrong...What I remembered was the Winfast DV2000 model, and while it does have DV/1394 input, it is only a software encoding card...as well, I kind of doubt its still available anywhere.

 

[mubs]

Thank, CityK. Your post clearly points out how much I don't know about this stuff!

First, I don't have a DV cam. Yet. I wanted the ability down the road to cap DV. That said, the PC will have FW ports (heck even the 5+ year old system I'm using now has an add-on FW card). I have Nero 6.6, is that all I need for capping DV? The need right now is to cap analog.

PAL: yes I will be capping some PAL-B homemade videos that will come from abroad now and then (I have the equipment to play them). This seems to be a moot point because almost everything I've seen seems to cap both NTSC and PAL. As far as the tuner part, I might end up taking this to a PAL-B region; don't know yet. The tuner's not a big deal, though; can live without it.

If i'm buying an internal unit, my new 1024-core 36 PetaHertz CPU can handle the encoding. If I'm buying an external, I'd rather it have hw encoding; that way I can use it on any machine (like me laptop) regardless of the CPU horsepower. So a preference emrges for an external unit.

You have a point about lossless capture. Maybe that's what I should look at. I have no idea how much disk space, say, a 2-hour SVHS tape might need if capped and stored without compression.

Any pointers on editing and authoring sw? Like I said, I do have Nero 6.6 Ultra.

As for MEG-4, that's only icing on the cake; I don't really need it.

 

[Mercutio]

You don't need anything else to capture DV, except 1394 ports. For that matter, if your DVd camcorder is nice enough, it'll have inputs on it, and you can use those to handle your analog sources as well.

I have two or three of the Plextor hardware divx encoders. They're kind of flakey hardware. I was pretty happy with them initially, but the limitations of the WinDVD Creator software became apparent pretty quickly. Not too long ago, Plextor added support for Ulead's DVD authoring packages, and that make them somewhat better IMO.

My HTserver is presently using an AverTV PVR150+, which is a hardware-based MPEG2 encoder. I've had several different video capture cards in that machine, everything from $20 Leadtek cards to high end Hauppauge and ATI models. The drivers are less fussy than ATI's. The quality is better than Hauppauge's, and unlike an analog card, it doesn't drop frames.

Anyway, if you'd like to try before you buy, let me know. I can probably fedex you an assortment of devices.

 

[Sol]

Virtual dub is a nice free program for capturing and encoding in various formats. Although you won't need it for just chucking the contents of a video tape onto a DVD it is handy if your going to want to apply filters in an intermediate stage and it has some basic editing capability.

 

[Mercutio]

... and it can be scripted.

 

[mubs]

Thanks Sol and Merc.

On their website, the AVerTV PVR 150 is listed as a white box product, and comes without software; OS required is listed as WXP MCE; only PAL M/N are supported (that won't work for me, I need support for PAL-B).

Thanks for the offer to let me try out your gear; I'll have to decline, I'm running out of time to finish up on several things.

 

[Mercutio]

The AverTV works with anything you care to capture with, once you install the drivers (there's a note in the box that tells you the URL on the AverMedia site), and I assure you that it's not PAL only.

Just looking around, what I have available for vidcap is:
Leadtek WinFast 2000: bt878-based software capture
Plextor MU-420: ??? hardware MPEG2 and divx5
AverTV PVR150+: Conexant CX23416 hardware MPEG2
ATI Radeon 9700AIW: Rage Theater 200 quasi-hardware based capture

If there's something you'd like to see, at least I can probably manage to post some clips or something.

 

[mubs]

Gaaah! I screwed up writing my previous post! The AverTV definitely supports NTSC (good, because I need that), but I also need PAL-B support and it has only PAL-M / PAL-N support. That's a deal-breaker for me.

So this raises the question that if all the other guys say they support PAL (without qualifiers), which version of PAL are they supporting? I am stunned to find a bare minimum of info on most manufacturers websites, whether it's vidcap cards, video cards or whatever. Many vidcap makers don't even say if encoding is done in hw or sw. How much more bare can the info be?

Buying parts for this new system I'm putting together has been tremendously frustrating. I think all these companies lack a marketing department that can produce collateral that will help sell the product.