need good video capture card recommendations

Chatterjee

Senior member
Nov 16, 1999
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Hi,

I'm interested in buying a nice (but affordable) video capture card.

Any recommendations?

-S
 

qacwac

Senior member
Oct 12, 2000
408
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I got my ATI rage fury pro VIVO for 75 shipped after rebate at compuplus.com
Don't think they have the rebate going now though.

If I had the money I would want the ATI Radeon 64MB VIVO. That card would rule. But it's a couple hundred so don't know if that is cheap enough for you.

But anyway I am happy with my fury but haven't had a chance to do much with with it and really see what it can do. Only captured some video from a family video. Pretty fun though. And my benchmarks aren't that great, 2226 in an original Athlon 700. I wouldn't expect much more than that with anything.

But I am in no means an expert.
 

Ryan

Lifer
Oct 31, 2000
27,519
2
81
Hauppage's are pretty good at capping. I use it all the time, and the quality is p[retty good. They are pretty cheap too. Hmm, a good one is around 60 bucks.
 

jmcoreymv

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,264
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Hey can you capture a clip and send me it at the highest qual possible? I wanna see how good they are.
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
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You need to define a bit better what affordable and nice are Chatterjee. For $60 you aren't going to get anything that good. You will really get shortchanged on the software.
 

atlas101

Junior Member
Nov 7, 2000
18
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not get anything good for 60? if your gonna go firewire i just got a maxtor OHCI card ~45 bucks, and am running it with premiere 6. Professional quality combo more features then you will ever need, and ya can't beat the price...if your broke like me, some searching on the net definitly pays off...
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
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Firewire and analog are 2 completely different animals atlas. The only thing firewire is useful for is if you have a DV camera, which carries a price premium over standard camcorders. If you want to capture from anything else, a firewire card is useless. I also highly doubt Premiere 6 came with your DV card, considering the card costs $45 and Premiere 6 hasn't been released yet. Nevermind, I just reread your post and realize you pirated it. That's your decision, some people actually feel software is worth paying for.
 

jmcoreymv

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,264
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Ya the reason I cant use a firewire card is that I primarily wanna capture cable tv.
 

atlas101

Junior Member
Nov 7, 2000
18
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sorry, i didn't realize he specified wether he was capturing analog or digital, i think thats because he didn't. But he asked for a cheap solution, and i recently found my self in the same boat when i needed to learn Non linear editing capture ect. fast and was on i tight budget. Thats the best option i came up with, figured i'd pass it on.
 

ques

Junior Member
Jan 24, 2000
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With any of these cards, can you add different sub-titles on different scenes?
Do you know what kind of software allows input of sub-titles?
 

Chatterjee

Senior member
Nov 16, 1999
855
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Hmm... let's see.. I guess my limit is about a 100 bucks but that's a number I picked out of the blue.

I'd like to use it to transfer home VHS tapes to a digital format

-S
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
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81
Pinnacle Studio DC10+ is probably your best bet Chatterjee. Nothing revolutionary, but should serve you well for what you are doing.

So long as your editing software can handle subtitles, you can add subs ques, it is hardware independent. Most software has at least some crude way to add subs. Obviously, the more you spend the more sophisticated it gets.
 

NOX

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
4,077
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Well, I ordered Studio DV this past Wednesday for my Sony Digital8, (TRV-320) and found out it doesn?t support Win2k (so they say anyway). I was really hoping not to spend more then $200.
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
20
81
Don't use pricewatch, use shopper.com. The companies on shopper.com are much more reliable. It looks like most of the big companies (onvia, buy.com, and egghead) are all out of stock. Mwave is very good, and they have it for $80. I didn't realize how cheap this card has gotten, was around $200 a year ago. Skip the Studio DV, it's not what you are looking for.
 

NOX

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
4,077
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Pariah,

Doesn't Studio DV do video capture? What do you think about the Matrox G450eTV, I was holding out for that card, you think it'll be any good?
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
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Studio DV is not an anolog capture card, or really a capture card at all for that matter. DV cards are at their lowest level a firewire card. Firewire is an interface, nothing else. Every DV card no matter how much or little you spend on it, "captures" the exact same video quality (it's a straight digital transfer) at the exact same speed (3.6MB/s). The extra money you spend on the card goes to software and any additional real-time hardware editing features.

I owned a Matrox Millennium II/RainbowRunner combo back in the day, and it performed very admirably. It was unmatched in its price range. For basic capturing chores the G450 will probably do very well. I don't know how much it costs, that may effect it a little bit.
 

NOX

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
4,077
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Have you ever seen the Sony TRV-320 Digital8 Camcorder? Is there another way to transfer video from my camcorder to my hard drive without using the DV interface? Though if I use anything other then the DV interface will I lose quality?

Sorry, I?m such a newbie at this video editing stuff. All I really want to do it copy what I record on my D8 camcorder to my hard drive and burn it to CD-R. The burn it to CD-R part I know how to do, but the rest of it I don?t.
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
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I do own a DV camcorder, not the model you have, but the premise is the same for all of them. You shouldn't have to use the DV connector, most I have seen do have S-video out. However, if you have no need for analog capture, it is strongly recommended you get a DV card. DV carries many benefits over analog.

You won't be able to straight burn your footage from your DV cam to a cd, or at least you won't want to. You'll only be able to fit 3 minutes of raw DV footage on to a CD, which is obviously not really useful. You'll have to compress it some or switch to another format, mpeg for example.
 

NOX

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
4,077
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Yes, I do have the S-Video out located on my camcorder. No, I wasn?t going to copy it from my camcorder, but to hard drive and compress, or change format to some thing smaller so it?ll fit on a CD-R. I didn?t expect the whole video to go on a CD-R, but just the parts I want to keep.
 

Chatterjee

Senior member
Nov 16, 1999
855
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I've been looking at the DC10+ and it looks like it can only do MJPEG? Is there a way I can convert them to mpeg format?

-S
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
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Yes, the DC10 only captures in MJPEG. This is a pretty standard capture format that most higher end cards use. It's an AVI format with freeware codecs on the net so anyone can watch them. They are easily editable and converted to MPEG if you want to, using an MPEG software encoder.