Recommendations for best-value, commercially available video capture card

[dud]

I want the capability to capture video from a non-DV (no firewire) 8mm camcorder, a VCR or possibly satellite (coax input) and store that viseo in MPEG 1 and/or 2 format. Please provide your recommendations for a best-value solution. By "best-value" I mean a relatively inexpensive (cheap is my middle name) and one that is easily procured either through a retail store or on-line retailer. Video quality and ease-of-use is important but should be considered somewhat secondary to prive/availability. Thank you ...

 

[joinT]

I had some problems getting a Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP actually working on my GF's uncle's XP computer - but I got it working ok in 2K. It was pretty cheap (around $90 cad - actually $450 HK$)
His Chinese ver. XP was kinda screwy though

 

[AAman]

go ati all-in-wonder, newegg usually has the old 32mb sdram agp for $70 refurb, and has
the newer version (7500?) for just over $100 when you can catch them.

I've heard that all nvidia capture cards have had driver probs, but those may be
taken care of by the latest drivers.

 

[Brian48]

I'm using an ATI TV Wonder VE. Only costed me $40 at BestBuy.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: Brian48
I'm using an ATI TV Wonder VE. Only costed me $40 at BestBuy.

Me too, but the MPEG2 capture is crap with the bundled software. I don't know why but the format is 640*240 or something. at least it looks like that. The capture-to-VCD format works but looks crap.

 

[dud]

Brian and Frustrated, OK, so the software that was bundled with the card is crap, have you tried it with any available 3rd party software? If so which and what were the results?

 

[Stutz]

Hi, Dud!
I use an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 Pro 32MB AGP card to do the same sort of captures you describe. I can take output from a VCR or analog camcorder and easily capture it to disk in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or AVI format. The clips can then be edited with VirtualDub or VideoStudio (the AIW came with VS 4.0). The edited clips can then be burned to VCD or SVCD format and played on many DVD players. This is the most cost-effective solution I've been able to find, as the 128 Rage Pro AIW is an old GPU and is available quite cheaply, comes with decent software and has a break-out box for convenient equipment hook-ups. This on a Celeron 566/850 256MB 40GB HDD system.

Best,

Stutz

 

[AAman]

in addition, ati is supposed to drop prices quite a bit on monday, newegg
has the aiw 128mb for ~$220 refurb right now as well

 

[TheBlindMan]

I'm also currently looking for a video capture solution too. From what I've been able to determine the best value is an older ATi All-in-Wonder 128 or 128 Pro (not the new Radeon AIW with 128Mb of memory). If your priority is video capture, not gaming performance, the AIW 128 offers identical quality to the current 8500 series GPU's (not including the DV which you're not looking for anyways). Just be sure you have a processor capable of real time (30 FPS) captures, that means better than a Pentium II 450Mhz. Here's an FAQ link at ATi.

You can find them new for $70-80 or on ebay for half of that.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: dud
Brian and Frustrated, OK, so the software that was bundled with the card is crap, have you tried it with any available 3rd party software? If so which and what were the results?

I tried the demo version of WinDVR and got much better results. It's $60 thou. :frown:
But basically any capture software would work. Try some stuff from Pinnacle if you can. There discontinued Pinnacle DC10+ with software was a great capture card.

 

[ProviaFan]

What about an Osprey 100 video input card. I think they sell for around $150 or so.