Analogue capture card

[bill2]

I'm still trying to design my new machine and ask for your help.

I have no experiance with analogue capture cards (although I have some experiance with DV editing) and I would like to purchase one in order to combine VHS footages in my dv films.

could you please recommend on a good card which cost upto 200 GBP. (it could be a bit higher if it's really worth it)

the most important thing from my point of view is to get the best possiable quality !!! (yes ... I know it is analogue ....)
I do not really looking for features like TV tuner and so on, only quality analogue in/out.

oh, yes, it sould support Win XP.

please point on reviews or comparison resources.

Thanks

[Patrick]

Why bother with an analog capture card?

Assumming you have a DV camcorder, why don't you simply copy your analog tapes onto DV and take it from there? A whole lot simpler than messing about with analog capture and you'd have playback device control from your computer as well.

[bill2]

I would love to do that however the only way I could figure is to play the VHS films on the TV screen and picturing the TV screen with my DV.

I'm just kidding. Most DV camcorder including my particular Panasonic one do NOT have analogue in feature, I assume the reason is related more to TAX issues then to technical ability.

Therefore, the only way I know to translate analogue footage into a digital form (AVI for example) is to use a capture card.

I spent the whole night looking for one on the Internet. Unfortunately I started realise that it might cost more than I initially planed.

I would appreciate some comment regarding the following devices: Maxtor G450, Maxtor G550, ATI all-in-wonder 7500, and Pinnacle DC30 (which is twice the price)

Thanks
Bill

[Patrick]

Oh...

Didn't notice you were from the other side of the pond. We don't have those kinda problems with our DV camcorders over here.

Too bad you want to use XP. Otherwise I'd suggest you find yourself an old Mystique or Millennium card with an attached Rainbow Runner. Lots of people at this site have used (and/or still use) those cards!

[KuroNeko]

I'm no expert by a longshot, but I'd go with the ATI. Matrox has abandoned the low end vidcap market, so there's not much support for their products. The DC30 afaik won't capture any codec but its own hardware MJPEG, which is a considerable limitation.

The AIW series will allow you yo use any software codec, from lossless compressed HuffYUV to MJPEG from Picvideo to realtime MPEG2.

If your budget allows, I would however choose the 8500 AIW. I'm told the vidcap capabilities/quality is slightly better, and it does have a functional firewire input as a bonus. Not to mention this card has a good 3D chip if you need such things.

Alternatively, there are some low noise BTxxx chip based cards, that are PCI 0add on capture cards (you can choose any graphics card with them, e.g. a Matrox G550 dual head DVI, whereas the AIW is a capture card/graphics card combo)

Neko

[Sciascia]

I agree, for WinXP your best bet is to go with a comany that is actually producing drivers for it. ATI has been the only company to continue producing the consumer level analogue capture combo card. I know that nVidia has the personal cinema, but a few reviews have hammered it. nVidia makes great gaming products, but they are several years behind Matrox and ATI in the video department. I would not want to go back through the driver development process all over again.

I have a G400 TV that I just can't seem to part with and it works great. Only problem is that it is discontinued and does not work in WinXP. Some people have gotten it to work, but it is not a reliable combo, a real hit and miss type of thing. I did manage to get it to work fairly well in Win2k, but it was made for Win98 and it really does itself proud in that OS.

WinXP is also a real resource hog which is not a good thing for an NLE. Personally there are not enough useful bells and whistles in any OS to justify slowing my computer down that much. An OS in my opinion is just a tool to integrate my HW with my applications. WinXP just tries to do too much and from what I have heard from many it is trying to be too many things. If I want an application I wil buy it from who I want, not be hamstrung with something that MSoft wants me to use. There are far too many compatability issues with HW and SW to make me want this OS. These include drivers, CD burninng apps and pretty much whatever you can think of. Win2k is the best OS out in my opinion. Matrox just didn't provde good enough drivers for it. I would seriously consider Win2k with a good card before WinXP.

[dsp]

I'd personally lean more toward a seperate capture card/TV Tuner as when driver development stops, you just need to spend money on a new capture card and not on a whole video card/capture card. I'd recommend a www.hauppauge.co.uk for an analogue capture card and it has XP drivers (at least mine did). Of the cards you mentioned I'd look more at the ATi only.

dsp

[Frank Marshall]

Hey DSP,

With a Hauppauge card for capture how does one facilitate output to say a VCR or other analogue equipment such as a TV monitor? Is there such a thing as a Hauppauge-like card with video-in and -out?

Ta.

[Indiana]

Well, you just use the TVOut of your gfx-card.
I captured with my Hauppauge instead of my ATI Radeon64DDR VIVO, cause the hauppauges captures were sharper/crisper.

[fberger]

Is the Hauppauge multi standard compatible (PAL and NTSC) for captures? Can you capture at width of 480? I am looking for an analog capture card to transfer PAL films to SVCD. Thank you.

[Indiana]

Yes, it supports PAL, NTSC and AFAIK SECAM. It can capture at Full/half PAL and NTSC resolutions but can't do 480 width captures. This is not a big problem as you should not use realtime mpeg2 compression for quality reasons anyway, it's better to capture to HuffYUV or high bitrate MJPEG and then recompress the vidcap to SVCD with Tmpeg, this will also convert the size.

[level]

ATI and 8500

bill2, I would suggest that you visit http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/ and read the probems that they have with 8500 and XP, and the problems with drivers from ATI. That said ATI, is their current favorite for DVD on HTPC. There are capture cards mentioned. use the search function.
level

[Frank Marshall]

dual-head and TV-out (3-screens)

@Indiana,

As with my "Triple-screen" thread I actually had a dual monitor + TV editing set-up in mind. I apolgise for not mentioning that, I was just hoping someone could name a Hauppauge-like card with video-in and -out 'cause I don't have big bucks to throw at this computer-based video editing bizo.

Using the TV-out on a dual-head card at best seems to allow mirroring of the second monitor on the TV, hence some other configuration needs to be arrived at. This would either be a cheap second graphics card or a cheap analogue ViVo card. It seems the latter doesn't exist.

Cheers.

[Eddy]

I'm also looking for an affordable analog capture card (preferably with TV tuner) with good capture quality. My main uses would be to turn my PC into a VCR, and get the possibility to mix analog video to my own DV recordings.

From the things I read, I would prefer a separate PCI card, as most of the video cards with integrated capture seem to get less frequent driver updates. And most of the time, the second monitor (or TV) output is replaced with a TV-Out only, for no good reason. The ATI 8500 AIW also has lesser specs than a normal 8500, and the extra cost is almost as much as the price of a Hauppage WinTV PVR PCI. The hauppage site also mentions that the WinTV PVR has a hardware MPEG2 codec, which might come in handy sometimes, als long as it is also possible to capture with a software codec. A separate PCI capture card also makes it possible (and cheaper) to only upgrade the video card.

It would be nice if the card has a good TV-Out, because my experience with the TV Out of a Matrox Mystique G200 is not a very good one. But maybe the TV outputs of the current cards are better, and this is not really an issue (although you lose the second monitor when using the TV out).

If someone has experience with good analog capture cards, I'm very interested in information about them.

Thanx,

Eddy.

[bill2]

well,

I have made some research in the last few days. lots of forums and newsgroups.

my conclusion, so far, is not to touch ATI AIW 8500 becouse of some architecture and drivers problem, however, the AIW Radeon 7500 is seems to be good. there were lots of recommendations and not a single complaint. together with a price tag of 160 USD it is probably the most attractive card in the market this days.

I would be very happy to have more comments from those who have such a card.