Capture card alternatives comparison...

[AVATAR-X]

I have been looking at alternatives to my Marvel for video capture under Win2K. I was wondering what TV-tuner/Capture cards people would recommend in general or that are know to work under Win2K. I have personally come across two cards at the store the VoodooTV 200 and the WinTV DBX Tv, and I would like to hear some first hand accounts of how these cards handle.

Also what software compression codec would you recommend for high-quality captures, and what requirments are needed to use it.

[Dr Mordrid]

Not that I've used it but the Hauppage WinTV has a good rep. They have also come out with a new model that captures MPEG-2 and has a video output. I understand this one will also be available stateside eventually.

What you want to look for is the ability to capture uncompressed YUV or YUY2 video. This will allow you to use AVI_IO to capture using software codecs. Once you have this ability all kinds of opportunities open up. This is why using the YUY2 capture mode of the Marvel G400 is so handy.

BTW: Win2K drivers are on the way.

As for the codec, this depends on your purpose. For editing I like the Pegasus PICVideo MJPeg codec. It can capture up to 5 mb/sec, is fast as blazes and is OpenDML compliant so you can use NTFS volumes and have unlimited size captures.

Just make sure that after you download PICVideo you also register it. Registration is free and will result in Pegasus sending you serial numbers to enter into its setup dialog. This will get rid of their logo on the created files. Get it here;

http://www.jpg.com/video/mjpeg.htm

For creating MPEG's I prefer to capture raw YUV using HuffYUV as a compressor. Its first advantage is that it halves the size of YUV captures while being lossless. This takes a full frame capture down from ~20 mb/s to only 8-10 mb/s.

HuffYUV also improves the quality of the MPEG's you encode because it doesn't compress its video using DCT compression. MJPeg and DV both use this. So does MPEG.

Because of this captures done with DCT codecs that are then encoded into MPEG's suffer from re-compression artifacting, which can make them look like crap. I'm sure you've seen the symptoms: blocky, noisy and generally hard to watch.

HuffYUV is free too Get it here;

http://www.math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/huffyuv.html

Can't beat the prices, can you?

Have fun....

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 29 October 2000).]

[gibverse]

> BTW: Win2K drivers are on the way.

We know that... we've been hearing that since Win2K came out. And NT 4.0 was the same story. The question is WHEN!

My latest guess is when the G450 ETV shows up, but who knows.

John

[AVATAR-X]

Thanks for the info Doc M. Some further questions about the software compression:

How much CPU power does it take to do Full, Half, or Quarter-Screen compression. I had used a few of the Mjpeg codecs as well as the Huffyuv codec, but they didn't run well. I have a 400mhz PII, 256megs of ram, and hard-drives that reach 15-20MB/s, but I'm not sure if that is enough.

As for waiting for Win2k Marvel drivers, I think I've waited long enough. Besides, I need a new vid card (the G200 series just isn't fast anymore) so I need to get my vidcap card out of the AGP slot.

[Dr Mordrid]

With the exception of HuffYUV I'd not try these with a PII/Celeron/K6-x level processor. Software codec capture is basically PIII, Celeron-II, Duron and Athlon territory.

For half frame with PICVideo you're looking at a 600+ mhz . For full frame you'd need a 750+ mhz processor.

Realtime MPEG encoding is very different due to the temporal calculations necessary. This makes the presence of SIMD instructions essential to do the matrix math fast enough. Using the eTV or the Ligos GoMotion captures present in MSPro6, VideoStudio4 or VideoWave4 you would need an SIMD processor of about 850mhz to do full frame. 600-700mhz would give you half frame.

Of course a lot of this also depends on chipset and mainboard speed so PIII and Celeron-II systems using VIA chipsets are at a disavantage. An additiional step up in CPU should be considered for these systems.

Dr. Mordrid




[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 29 October 2000).]

[wkulecz]

For a bit over $400 you can get a cheap OHCI firewire card and a Sony DVMC DA2 and do your analog captures straight to DV.

This may be the direction I take if w2k marvel drivers don't appear pretty soon.

--wally.

[kkfong]

Doc:

I am thinking of buying RRG to compliment my G400Max.

Is RRG a decent capture card? My needs are small
1) watch/record TV on my PC
2) capture videos from tape/camcorder, and burn them as VCD or small mpeg2 video clips on CD. I prefer capture at 704 or whatever resolution, not the smallish 320...

I am planning to get a DV cam, and I've heard about analog capture of DV video signal will be inferior than firewire video download, but what kind of quality differences am I looking at? MPG1 vs MPG2? I am just amateur, so I don't need absolute best, but I don't want slouch either

Here's my system spec
P3 800 (fsb 100)
BX MB
128M RAM
Win98 SE
G400Max
IBM 75GXP 30G on ATA100 controller
Adaptec 2940UW (should I use SCSI or IDE for video capture drive)?
SB Live! MP3+ 5.1
CSW DTT 2500 5.1
Yamaha 8824S burner (SCSI)

Would RRG fit my need, or I should look at Happague's new MPEG2 hardware capture card w/TV?

Thanks

K.K.

[Hulk]

My PIII550e can do 640x480 huffyuv without dropping frames. I do have a fast Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 40 hard drive though