Video capture hardware

[Phillychuck]

Hey there, I've got the urge to encode some shows I've been taping from the tube so I can edit commercials and store them on CDs in Divx format. I unfortunetly bought a Ti 4400 without VIVO support when they first came out ($300 vs $400 was the price point then).

I'm thinking a PCI video only capture card, I don't need a tuner (since I have to tape them first, no cable TV near the computer).

I looked at the offerings from Dazzle's USB/Firewire external devices and the price seems a bit steep for what I want to do. The quality will already be 'poorish' and I don't really need onboard compression since I have 2 pretty fast CPU's I could encode on.

Who makes a card that is cheap and not going to give me a pile of headaches with IRQ conflicts? I checked pricewatch and at the low end they all are called "Generic" and I don't know enough about the video encoder chipsets to make a choice.


Thanks

[OliverRedfox]

Actually it's good you didn't buy a VIVO card. I've held onto my capture card through several video card upgrades. It would've cost me a lot more to buy VIVO video cards everytime. Also, you should stay away from USB video capture. The video quality is quite degraded as a result of the bandwith limitations of the USB bus.

AverMedia makes good cards. It is what I have in my system now. In general any card that uses the BT848 or BT878 chipset will work well. I used to have a cheap little generic card, which worked as well as my AverMedia(I only changed cards to get a TV tuner and remote functions). And you can get a great generic driver for any unknow BT848 or 878 card from generic driver (http://www.iulab.com/index.shtml)

[Shinri Hikari]

Originally posted by OliverRedfox
...Also, you should stay away from USB video capture. The video quality is quite degraded as a result of the bandwith limitations of the USB bus....
Would you be referencing usb 1.x? I have known about the issues of usb 1.x, but I have been told by a tech I know very well, that usb 2.0 is not limited like 1.x. If you are always upgrading than I agree about VIVO cards, too expensive. However, if you are going to stay with the same card for a long time than the slot and money you save does justify VIVO, and I have seen a GF3 VIVO with good quality that I have admittedly envied.:D It really depends on the needs that you have and the $$$ you don't have.:)

[OliverRedfox]

Yeah, that was 1.x USB I was talking about. I don't know what the quality is like with 2.0 devices, but the bandwith issue was fixed it so video capture should work well with it.

I just did a quick search and there are several usb 2.0 video capture devices out there, but they were running for $150+(There might be cheaper, it was a quick search). Probabally a great option if you run out of pci-card space, but with pci capture cards running for so much less, it's a bit of a price leap.

Both Bestbuy and Compusa have the ATI TV WONDER VE for $49.99 in store plus a $10 mail-in-rebate.

[Shinri Hikari]

I get most of my computer parts from here:
http://www.pricewatch.com

[Shinri Hikari]

I can not say that it will help in this case...:( I do not like the large stores that sell everything for big $$$. I generally go online or find the oh so invisible specialty computer shops.:rolleyes: Yes their prices are high, but they have EVERYTHING, from whole pc's to the tiny hard to find screws to the 5 1/4 disk drive no one wants.:D :cool:

[Phillychuck]

Cool guys, now I've got some names to look for! heh. CompUSA has 'DigitialVCR" from creative for $50, its $100 with a $50 mail in, going to check 'specs' first, $50 is really what I wanted to spend.

Regarding the USB devices, I think they get away with the limited bandwidth because they contain MPEG compressors on the device so the actual bandwidth to the PC is within USB spec, but your leaving all the quality control upto this thing. I'd rather take the uncompressed data and work with that (probably quicker for editing as well, but I don't know.. been a long time since I worked with video).

I read somewhere that ATI capture is pretty high quality, going to check if that ATI TV wonder is just basic input and not a video card too.

CHuck

[Phillychuck]

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=296679&pfp=BROWSE

Sounds like a basic card, no tuner but that would just be a wasted feature for me anyways.

Can't see the chipset, going to check some reviews first if I can find some :)

[Phillychuck]

Bought that above card, AveDVD its got a Bt878 chip on it, so far so good :) Now I just have to learn about digital editing, capture formats, color space, editing commercials from source tapes seems like pulling hair out of my scrotum (...).

Some nice sites with info, but no simple 1...2...3...'s.

Friend is going to load me Adobe Premiere to play around with to see if it makes editing easier (well, faster).

VCR is kinda grainy from the tapes.. but really don't matter too much, my cable source sucks anyway. I just want these archived so I can watch em someday, Dr Who.. MST3k.. and anything else I can convert thats been sitting around for the last 20 years (almost 20 years since my 1st VHS.. lol)..

Whats quicker? Editing MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 files? They are going to end up in DiVX anyway.. Sorry to ask so many questions, this is all new to me.

Chuck

[OliverRedfox]

You can use VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org/) to capture and edit. I use it to capture straight to Divx format. It then takes me about a minute or two to cut out commercials. It takes a little while to figure out the ideal settings for it, but it'll let you do everything.

[Phillychuck]

Thanks Oliver, I actually did find VirtualDub and seems to be the trick for me (been reading howto's on http://dvdrhelp.com), none suit my perfect situation yet.

I try to set VD to settings they recommend and it says invalid format, so I have to figure what I'm doing wrong.

What machine you got that will realtime encode DiVX?
or do you post compress?

Chuck

[OliverRedfox]

Well, when I'm recording shows, I do it in real time (Divx encoding at 320x240 at 29.97 fps & Uncompressed PCM sound). But when I post compress, I can compress with Divx and MP3 audio about 2-4 times faster then real. I'm using an Athlon XP1800+ with 256megs of ram.

Of course, I only use single pass Divx encoding. I'd use double pass, but I haven't seen the need. The last episode of Farscape I encoded was only 220mb, which is plenty small enough for me.

As for the invalid format. 2 things spring to my mind for what it could be.
One is the video size -the width must be a multiple of 4 and the height a multiple of 2. You can re-size, or crop the image to be the correct size.
Or the color depth which has to be set for either 24 or 32 bit.