digital camcorder or capture card

[inperson]

My computer has 2 built in firewire ports. My understanding is that ieee-1394 is a standard therefore all of them should be about the same. Ive heard a number of times, people having trouble with one type but not the other and so on. I want to get either a real (better) analog capture card to use with my analog camera, or get a new dv or d8 to use with firewire. Has anyone tried to use the built-in firewire on a Compaq Presario?

Anyone have any other suggestions?

[Bansidhe]

Re: digital camcorder or capture card

Originally posted by inperson
My computer has 2 built in firewire ports. My understanding is that ieee-1394 is a standard therefore all of them should be about the same. Ive heard a number of times, people having trouble with one type but not the other and so on. I want to get either a real (better) analog capture card to use with my analog camera, or get a new dv or d8 to use with firewire. Has anyone tried to use the built-in firewire on a Compaq Presario?

Anyone have any other suggestions?

I've been using the built in firewires with my TRV520 for about a year with out a problem. The only thing I've run into with this is
that I can't see what is being captured through the software. This problem, though, is not with the firewire card but the editing
software and the camera.

[Peter B]

If you’re serious about video and have a high quality analogue camera (s-vhs or hi-8 at least) and you want to out put broadcast quality, do composting etc then get a high quality analogue card. There are some technical aspects, which make analogue useful in certain circumstances.

Otherwise upgrade you camera to a DV or D8 model. It will remove a lot of potential headaches with analogue and provides excellent quality for most things (videotape, CD, web, even broadcast and films etc). It is so much easier to import, export and render than analogue and if you’re upgrading from vhs the quality improvement is huge!

[Dr Mordrid]

Peter is right. I find it VERY useful to have both analog and DV capabilities in my editing systems.

DV can be very problematic when adding effects, doing keyed effects (bluescreen/greenscreen) or even adding animations or titles.

Capturing the footage from a DV cams S-Video port to a higher quality format (PICVideo MJPeg/HuffYUV etc.) for compositing the effects can make the difference between a good and lousy result. In a studio setup taking a direct feed from the cams S-Video port to the analog capture card is even better.

This doesn't have to be an expensive proposition. The better WinTV cards (#495 or $401 are very nice) + a TI or Agere chipped IEEE-1394 card is more than enough for most users. Combined they would run well under $200 USD.

But, as Peter intimated, the sky's the limit. You can get some very high qulality cards capable of uncompressed analog captures, which is the highest quality way to go.

Dr. Mordrid