Capturing Analog Video ?

[GUN]

I've been trying to convert some of my old home videos to (S)VCD disks so i can watch them on my TV through my DVD player.

The quality sucks. The problem comes with the capturing, i think ?
I used PowerDirector Pro 2.1 to capture the video with a ATI 8500 VIVO card. This is a el cheepo "powered by ATI card" from powercolor.

I want to capture to PAL resolution to write to VCD or SVCD.

What card should i get ?

 

[Peter]

Well, step one is the capturing. What the ATi VIVO cards get you is about as good as it gets, nothing left to improve there.

Next is the quality reduction and compression required to fit an entire movie onto a VCD. That's where YOU make your decisions about quality vs. file size on the target media.

 

[TourGuide]

I bought the Canopus ADVC-100 and I am really pleased with it. It doesn't come with software, but it has support for locked audio so the audio/video is perfectly synced. It isn't cheap, but I'm glad I bought it.

 

[bocamojo]

I have been doing something similar to this for about 3 years. I would recommend you get Pinnacle Studio 7 or 8 and get the analog capture card that comes with it (the AV version, not the DV). I already had the capture card, so I just had to buy the software. The card I have is the Pinnacle Studio DC10+. It's great for what you're trying to do. I prefer it over my AIW 8500DV any day, when it comes to video capture from my 8mm camcorder. Also, the Pinnacle software is very intuitive and easy to use, and gives you all kind of options for how you want to handle the captured data. It will make the file into MPG1 (for VCD/SVCD), MPG2 (for burning to a DVD), and will even create windows media player and realplayer files, if you want to stream your videos. It's well worth the money, and the end result is quite good.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
I bought the Canopus ADVC-100 and I am really pleased with it. It doesn't come with software, but it has support for locked audio so the audio/video is perfectly synced. It isn't cheap, but I'm glad I bought it.

Audio is "locked" at the when it is first recorded onto tape (assuming the device doing the recording supports locked audio). If "unlocked audio" is recorded you a/v will still be in sync and there is nothing you can do to "lock" it after the fact. Locked audio refers to the relationship between the video and audio clocks during initial recording of the video and does not do anything to do w/keeping the a/v sync'ed while you are capturing footage onto your computer.

That being said the Canopus ADVC is probably the best converter on the market currently.


Lethal