I'm New to Video Capturing...HELP! =) Voodoo3 and AIW Radeon Question...

[junthin]

Before, I begin...I just want to state that I'm a super newbie to video capturing. (So no flames or anything. )

The first question, I'm running a Voodoo3 3500TV and I'm trying to capture something from cable (I'm in a dorm..so "cable" being whatever tv stuff they give us there. ), and I can't seem to get the sound to work/capture but I do get video in .avi format. How do I get the sound to work? Is there anyway to capture in .mpg? and is .mpg better than .avi? And if I wanted to capture something and convert it to DivX...how hard will that be?


Second Part: I'm also looking into buying a AIW Radeon, but I heard that it can't capture from cable? Is this true? Also, is the quality of a AIW Radeon better than my Voodoo card now?


Any helpful posts either with information or links to url's with information will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!


Here's the rig that I'm trying to capture on, let me know what you think it can handle (as in resolution/compression/whatnots...)

PIII 600Mhz Processor
256 MB PC100 RAM
Voodoo3 3500TV Video Card
9 gig 10k HD - Seagate Cheetah
18 gig 10k HD - Seagate Cheetah (this is the hard drive I'm going to capture on, since I think 9 gig is too small)

I think that's all that should be relevant to capturing video. Oh, and I'm trying to capture re-runs of "Mad About You"...I always liked the show, but never had good enough equipment to digitally capture it.


Let me know of what you people think!

 

[SendTrash]

I own a AIW RAdeon. I only get cable also and I have no problems recording TV shows or clips I like. The avi option given in the AIW is uncompressed, so a minute is like 100 megs or something crazy like that. MPEG-2 recording is not smooth and doesn't work for me (although I am well over the min req.) Thus I record in MPEG-1. I know you can convert to divx using Flask, but I haven't been able to get it to work.
Can't compare to VooDoo since I don't know anything about that.....

 

[junthin]

Thanks SendTrash for your input on the AIW Radeon. It helps a lot! So about how much hard drive space would you need to record a 30 min show (In .avi and mpeg1?) Thanks!


Any help from other people? Or how bout a site that teaches this stuff? Let me know!

 

[SendTrash]

well.. I have record a one hour show in very low quality mpeg 1 in 471 MB. So , mpeg is kinda large. No clue of guides....

 

[junthin]

Thanks SendTrash for your helpful response.

Anyone else care to help a newbie here?! Thanks!

 

[chickenugget]

i am using a Dazzle Snazzi to capture from a VCR and convert em to video CDs. The Dazzle captures in mpeg1 format ~ 600Mb for 1 hour (352x288 PAL VCD format). I also use a Soundblaster webcam, which can capture video like a camcorder, in AVI format. AVI quality appears to be much better but the file needed is huge, like almost 1 gig for 5 minutes (352x288 PAL). I convert the AVI files to mpeg and store em in CD. The converted mpegs appears darker than the AVI but way smaller in size. I hope this helps.

 

[junthin]

Thanks chickenugget for your input! Helps a lot! Btw, how much did your Dazzle cost you? Because I'm also looking for other means of recording stuff in digital format.

Anyone else care to help me out? Thanks!

 

[chickenugget]

How much is the Snazzi video capture? hmm need to convert to US dollar., won't work that way. I bought it almost year ago and cost me about the price of the ASUS Geforce 2 GTS today. I don't know, do a search for the stuff. It can do input from VCR and camcorders but none of those digital firewire stuff, u need a diferent hardware than those. One thing to take note is that mpeg1 quality is inferior to the VCR quality. Since most of my source comes from camcorders, quality is better on the VCR than the VCDs i created. The thing is VCR are becoming obsolete here in my country and almost all homes have VCD players. Also the fungus on video tapes, it is good to convert all those memorable tapes into digital immediately before they rot!

 

[junthin]

Fungus on tapes...are you for real?! Hmm..better hurry then...
I have some super old tapes that need to be converted then...

Thanks for the info too!

Anyone else want to help me figure out how to do this? I'm totally clueless..
*sigh*

 

[RobsTV]

All these capture file sizes are using small resolutions.
I thought every time capture cards come up, most people complain
that the minimum resolution must be at least 640x480 at 30fps,
with no dropped frames, yet no one is mentioning this??? People
have been raving about the ATI's resolution for capture, so show
the resolution and color you are using to get you file sizes, so
we can correctly compare.

With an El-Cheapo Avermedia TV'98:
Capturing 30 seconds of 640x480 at 30fps, 24bit, with no dropped
frames, using *.avi, takes up about 530megs. That's about a gig
a minute. Haven't tried other software that does mpeg compression.
Any good free or cheap mpeg software recorders that migt be compatable?

 

[WhiteMouse]

Minimum resolution must be at least 640x480 at 30fps?

For those people capture video from cable or VCR, the source resolution is not even that high.

 

[CQuinn]

Sendtrash,

AVI is a container file format, you have to specify the type of encoding that
you want to use for your saved file. So, yes the AIW can save avi's with
compression, as long as you have installed an avi codec (Cinepack, Indeo,
DivX, Microsoft) that you can switch to for the save.

The AIW also lets you adjust the settings for your capture... for example
you can choose a lower bitrate on your MPEG-1 capture and get smaller files
as a result. You have to balance the bitrate, compression, and quality to
get a good capture in a small space. I am still tweaking my AIWR for this,
but on my old AIW Pro card I was usually getting around a 30-min capture in
about 300MB; that is my goal for base captures.
For permanently saving files, you will probably want to recompress to a
smaller format.

Check the forums at Rage3d.com
They have separate forums for the AIW and TV Wonder cards, and lots of threads
on tips and tricks for capture and compression.

Whitemouse,
you're right that the source resolution for PAL and NTSC is not
that high - it is around half that for actual viewing. BUT, people who do
"professional" level video capture consider it best to capture at a higher
resolution to maintain the quality of the material as they edit and reprocess
the input video. Even if you lose a little quality at 640x480, when you output
the video at 320x240 it still looks great.

For everyday captures (TV watching, Digital VCR, low quality movies and personal
videos), you really don't need to run at higher than 320x240 (or 352x240 to meet
NTSC spec) - and that does save on file size for your captures.

Most capture solutions (AFAIK) even allow you to capture at even lower resolutions
(176x144) but most people would only consider those for "view once" captures.
I grab some TV shows that way, when I'm not planning on saving the files later.

 

[junthin]

RobsTV: Hey, haven't seen your posts around in a while. Thanks for the help! I was actually going to ask about captures in 640x480 at 30fps and the size it takes.


WhiteMouse: Thanks for your input as well. Yeah, the source isn't usually that high, but I want to record some TV episodes that I'm a die hard fan of, so I would want the best quality. (Aiming for best quality at 300 MB or 600-ish MB so I can either put one or two episodes on some good 700MB CDs. )



CQuinn: Thanks for a very informative post. I'll be checking out Rage3d.com for more information on capturing.


Any more information, keep it coming. I'm all ears...so to speak.

EDIT: typo...

 

[Floyd]

junthin, here are a couple of threads which would be good reading:

thread 1
thread 2

Best regards,
Floyd

 

[junthin]

Floyd,

Whoa, those are some good threads there. Hehe..sorta of similar to my situation. Also, saw you in there somewhere as well. Thanks for the help. I suppose I should give my system stats to see what my box can handle, huh?

EDIT of the original post: Added system stats so you guys/gals can gauge what my box can handle. Thanks!