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Recommendations on a Analog to Digital converter
- Thread starter RaymondY
- Start date
Lord Evermore
Diamond Member
I think you mean a video capture card or device. What would be good for you depends on what your source is, VHS, Hi-8, Digital Video camcorder, et cetera.
Dazzle has several products designed and software bundled specifically for things like that. ATi's TV Wonder line, or Hauppage's WinTV series would also work for you and can be a lot cheaper, though they're primarily intended as TV viewing devices so the software bundle isn't quite as rich for capturing and editing. You can also download several pieces of free software to help with the conversion to SVCD format or compression beyond what you might be able to use in retail software; most of the free software can be compatible with either the hardware directly, or at least can be used to manipulate the raw video the hardware captures with the basic retail software.
You may find several threads about this as well if you search.
Dazzle has several products designed and software bundled specifically for things like that. ATi's TV Wonder line, or Hauppage's WinTV series would also work for you and can be a lot cheaper, though they're primarily intended as TV viewing devices so the software bundle isn't quite as rich for capturing and editing. You can also download several pieces of free software to help with the conversion to SVCD format or compression beyond what you might be able to use in retail software; most of the free software can be compatible with either the hardware directly, or at least can be used to manipulate the raw video the hardware captures with the basic retail software.
You may find several threads about this as well if you search.
So options include...
Standard TV card for capture. $60 range.
Save to uncompressed or moderately compressed AVI. Edit, convert to mpeg. Mpeg on the fly will yield poor results unless you have a very very fast CPU. I wouldn't even consider keeping around any mpeg I can encode on the fly with my 1600+. Results mediocre to excellent depending on quality of card/signal when capturing to high quality format and converting later. For best results take a LOT of space for uncompressed. Will probably work under all new versions of Windows you'll want to use it under. PCI going away will retire a plain TV card before any driver issues.
Better than standard capture card. $100-1500 range
Same applies, but quality of capture improves significantly, how much depends what model.
Drivers may leave it unusable upon your next Windows upgrade depending on model. Likely workarounds for most.
Video card with TV-in. Price varies by model/generation. Like ATI All in Wonders, Geforces with VIVO, etc
See comments for Standard TV card. Most don't help take any load off the CPU, guess some of the ATI's do, but it's only doing part of the work (like 5-20%?) for mpeg on the fly which still requires you to have a fast CPU to pull that off with any quality.
MPEG hardware encoding capture card. $100-? range
Saves to mpeg1/mpeg2 on the fly. Saves a lot of time, just encode in real time, burn. No hours spent encoding mpeg.
Disadvantages - getting video/audio out of sync on edits, any recompression editing will hurt quality significantly since it's already a highly compressed file. Card will be absolutely useless if the vendor doesn't give you new drivers in the future. Workarounds not likely.
DV bridge. $250
Converts video on the fly and encodes it to DV codec video which you transfer on the fly into your computer over 1394(Firewire). Quality is quite good, around the better standard TV card type captures, not as good as professional capture gear. Size is 13gig/hr for DV which is quite reasonable, but capturing and encoding to other formats on the fly can be a problem currently. (Ex: Wanting to do DivX on the fly, I haven't had much luck getting DV to play with the current Virtualdub version, though this should get much better over time) Major advantage are consistent results, ease of use and no driver concerns ever again. Long as DV video is around and supported this will work for you. Route I went. Canopus ADVC-100 highly recommended if this interests you.
Mpeg on the fly USB devices. Price not sure.
Dazzle makes some products like these where it hooks up through USB, other companies too. First generation ones seemed to be pretty poor, but the more recent ones might be worth a look. Especially with USB2.0 around now, actual DVD bitrates are a reality, on paper anyway. Got drivers to worry about again, but long as USB is around the hardware can hook up. Not too familiar with the more recent ones so I don't know if they can do raw AVI capture or not, though I don't think so.
Just some general ideas, pick a catagory that sounds interesting and then go to capture card ratings on DVDrhelp.com (Formerly VCDhelp.com) and read real user comments when you have a specific product in mind.
Lot of people will probably tell you to go with a TV card Newegg has been selling for around $56. Seems like a nice card and really that's a great way to start out. Even if you choose to change later you can still have TV capability in the same or different computer without having put out a lot of money for something you won't use a lot. TV card is what I started off with, a lot of my reasoning for going to the DV bridge was that it requires minimal CPU (I use a Celeron 300a as my 'capture' computer, encode there if I'm not in a hurry or on main if I am) for transfering the DV from it to the computer and leaves you with a smallish file to manage. That's what turned me off to TV card capturing, took a lot of space to get any quality and I tend to have bad habits about leaving a lot of HD space free 🙂.
Hope this helps,
--Mc
Edit: Fixing broken link. I'll drop in and check to see if I can answer any questions. No expert, just a regular guy who dabbles with video.
Standard TV card for capture. $60 range.
Save to uncompressed or moderately compressed AVI. Edit, convert to mpeg. Mpeg on the fly will yield poor results unless you have a very very fast CPU. I wouldn't even consider keeping around any mpeg I can encode on the fly with my 1600+. Results mediocre to excellent depending on quality of card/signal when capturing to high quality format and converting later. For best results take a LOT of space for uncompressed. Will probably work under all new versions of Windows you'll want to use it under. PCI going away will retire a plain TV card before any driver issues.
Better than standard capture card. $100-1500 range
Same applies, but quality of capture improves significantly, how much depends what model.
Drivers may leave it unusable upon your next Windows upgrade depending on model. Likely workarounds for most.
Video card with TV-in. Price varies by model/generation. Like ATI All in Wonders, Geforces with VIVO, etc
See comments for Standard TV card. Most don't help take any load off the CPU, guess some of the ATI's do, but it's only doing part of the work (like 5-20%?) for mpeg on the fly which still requires you to have a fast CPU to pull that off with any quality.
MPEG hardware encoding capture card. $100-? range
Saves to mpeg1/mpeg2 on the fly. Saves a lot of time, just encode in real time, burn. No hours spent encoding mpeg.
Disadvantages - getting video/audio out of sync on edits, any recompression editing will hurt quality significantly since it's already a highly compressed file. Card will be absolutely useless if the vendor doesn't give you new drivers in the future. Workarounds not likely.
DV bridge. $250
Converts video on the fly and encodes it to DV codec video which you transfer on the fly into your computer over 1394(Firewire). Quality is quite good, around the better standard TV card type captures, not as good as professional capture gear. Size is 13gig/hr for DV which is quite reasonable, but capturing and encoding to other formats on the fly can be a problem currently. (Ex: Wanting to do DivX on the fly, I haven't had much luck getting DV to play with the current Virtualdub version, though this should get much better over time) Major advantage are consistent results, ease of use and no driver concerns ever again. Long as DV video is around and supported this will work for you. Route I went. Canopus ADVC-100 highly recommended if this interests you.
Mpeg on the fly USB devices. Price not sure.
Dazzle makes some products like these where it hooks up through USB, other companies too. First generation ones seemed to be pretty poor, but the more recent ones might be worth a look. Especially with USB2.0 around now, actual DVD bitrates are a reality, on paper anyway. Got drivers to worry about again, but long as USB is around the hardware can hook up. Not too familiar with the more recent ones so I don't know if they can do raw AVI capture or not, though I don't think so.
Just some general ideas, pick a catagory that sounds interesting and then go to capture card ratings on DVDrhelp.com (Formerly VCDhelp.com) and read real user comments when you have a specific product in mind.
Lot of people will probably tell you to go with a TV card Newegg has been selling for around $56. Seems like a nice card and really that's a great way to start out. Even if you choose to change later you can still have TV capability in the same or different computer without having put out a lot of money for something you won't use a lot. TV card is what I started off with, a lot of my reasoning for going to the DV bridge was that it requires minimal CPU (I use a Celeron 300a as my 'capture' computer, encode there if I'm not in a hurry or on main if I am) for transfering the DV from it to the computer and leaves you with a smallish file to manage. That's what turned me off to TV card capturing, took a lot of space to get any quality and I tend to have bad habits about leaving a lot of HD space free 🙂.
Hope this helps,
--Mc
Edit: Fixing broken link. I'll drop in and check to see if I can answer any questions. No expert, just a regular guy who dabbles with video.
Surprised more haven't jumped in, figured they would.
Here, give you a scenerio.
Grab one of these, LeadTek TV card a number of people around here have and seem to like. $56
Grab Virtualdub for your capture process. $0.
Install a MJPEG codec. Various places to download, think demo has a time restriction, some older software had it bundled and uncrippled for free, but can't recall what now (someone else chime in). $0
Grab as described in this guide.
When you're done capturing, open up TMPGEnc and encode. For video under 35 min just use the SVCD preset. MPEG2 encoding is free for 30 days, after that I think it's thirty bucks to register.
Voila, project with cost of 56 bucks for the first month, under a hundred if you enjoy the results and wish to continue after that. Burn the mpeg2 file you create in TMPGEnc under Nero using the SVCD preset, test on your own DVD player to make sure it works and looks good.
Good way to start out, by using MJPEG as the capture format you'll give up some quality, but save a lot of space. After you've made a couple SVCDs then you can decide what you'd prefer to do differently or stay with the same hardware/software if you find the results satisfactory.
--Mc
Here, give you a scenerio.
Grab one of these, LeadTek TV card a number of people around here have and seem to like. $56
Grab Virtualdub for your capture process. $0.
Install a MJPEG codec. Various places to download, think demo has a time restriction, some older software had it bundled and uncrippled for free, but can't recall what now (someone else chime in). $0
Grab as described in this guide.
When you're done capturing, open up TMPGEnc and encode. For video under 35 min just use the SVCD preset. MPEG2 encoding is free for 30 days, after that I think it's thirty bucks to register.
Voila, project with cost of 56 bucks for the first month, under a hundred if you enjoy the results and wish to continue after that. Burn the mpeg2 file you create in TMPGEnc under Nero using the SVCD preset, test on your own DVD player to make sure it works and looks good.
Good way to start out, by using MJPEG as the capture format you'll give up some quality, but save a lot of space. After you've made a couple SVCDs then you can decide what you'd prefer to do differently or stay with the same hardware/software if you find the results satisfactory.
--Mc
They can be had for about $130 now. USB2.0 or PCI variety. here, or here.Mpeg on the fly USB devices. Price not sure.
Dazzle makes some products like these where it hooks up through USB, other companies too. First generation ones seemed to be pretty poor, but the more recent ones might be worth a look. Especially with USB2.0 around now, actual DVD bitrates are a reality, on paper anyway. Got drivers to worry about again, but long as USB is around the hardware can hook up. Not too familiar with the more recent ones so I don't know if they can do raw AVI capture or not, though I don't think so.
Definitely recommended for analog capture and realtime VCD / DVD MPEG2 conversion (save a lot of time and disk space)
I have some material on VHS tape that I would like to convert and burn on DVD, and I did a search on this a few months ago. I found the Canopus ADVC-100 Analog to Digital Video Converter got really good reviews. Works via firewire connection on your PC, but is kinda pricey, like around $270. But the reviews said the image quality was outstanding.