any suggest for capture card

[Dr Mordrid]

If one makes that choice I'd highly recommend the devices made by Canopus. Very nice.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

I agree, Doc. From what you've told us, the combination of the forthcoming MSP 7 with a Canopus 2-way bridge (ADVC-100) and a good DV card must produce a practical functionality roughly equal to RT cards costing several times more and with the advantage of not being forced to use Premiere I look forward to trying this combination -- I'm only waiting for one item, guess which?

[Dr Mordrid]

To a degree, yes. The RT.X cards do offer things though:

1. bicubic and anistropic filtering in hardware

2. a batch encoder that works from the timeline. This is more convenient than create/multiple files which needs a project file to be loaded every time you opt for a new output format

3. a more mature and varied set of effects that have more settings for keyframing. One example of this is that on page curls the RT.X uses the A roll as a fill for the curl when going to the B roll while MSPro uses a solid color.

4. what amounts to a built in matte choker for chroma/luma keys

On MSPro7's side is;

1. the ability to use alpha channeled 32 bit video and image sequences in realtime. Premiere has to render these and support is not in the RT.X drivers.

2. the ability to apply an automatic 2D moving path and alpha channel to images loaded to the timeline or storyboard. A plus to this is that once they're in the storyboard you can export them with an automatic overlap and a default transition for instant slideshows.

3. its slow motion looks better (to my eye anyhow). MSPro's new keyframeable variable speed control is also a plus.

4. MSPro7 does not limit how many video and graphics layers can be done in realtime, only the clock speed and the presence or absence of HT and dual CPU's does this. The RT.X is limited to 2 video and 2 graphics layers + effects.

There's more, but you get the idea.

Dr. Mordrid

[keithm]

Here's a spanner. I am doing exactly what this guys wants to do: converting VHS to DVD. I was having lots of problems with any of my video tapes that were sourced from analogue satalite transmitions: with my marvel G400 I was getting lots of dropped frames. I now use a Radeon all in wonder capturing at 720x576 using Picvideo and freevcr to segment the files into 1gb captures. Now here's a tip before you all say I'm mad for using 1gb segments: it's much easier to search an 8 minute clip for adverts! I use ulead mediastudio 6.5 with the new powerpatch 2 and usually a bitraye of around 5600: the results are stunning. I get a little bit of flicker on highlights, but remember the Matrox wouldn't even capture this footage.

When burnrd to DVD the results are almost as good as a real un'. At 5600 bitrate 90 minutes comes in at about 3.8gb which gives a nice margin for not using the DVD to the edge of the disk.

The freevcr software has realtime chroma noise reduction so the DVD copies look better than the original VHS tape.

One last thing: with Ulead DVD movie factory 1 don't forget you need windows 2000 or XP and an ntfs partition to create the DVD image on....Works for me any way..