USB Video capture devices?

[rhacquer]

Just got my new company laptop--Dell Precision, Pentium IV (mobile) 2.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 60 GB HD, yada yada. I would like to digitize and edit video from our analog camcorder, and I'm thinking a USB 2.0 device would be the way to go. Couldn't find any after a brief stroll thru CUSA and BB though--anyone have any recommendations? Could I capture any amount of video without having to turn pages on the calendar? 🙂

 

[DaveSimmons]

www.dvdrhelp.com might have some comments on 2.0 devices.

 

[SearchMaster]

Originally posted by: rhacquer
Could I capture any amount of video without having to turn pages on the calendar? 🙂

Capturing video will be realtime (obviously; your hardware can't instruct your analog source to "slow down, I'm getting too much data". What you would need to look for is a device that can capture at the resolution you're wanting without dropping too many frames (given your hardware).

Your laptop's hard drive will be a limiting factor. It probably spins at 4200 (maybe 5400) RPM, and it will thus struggle to store data fast enough to keep up. Your processor is fast enough. I would guess that you'll be able to capture at SVCD resolutions (480x480) without problems, but it may struggle to do 720x480 without dropping an unacceptable number of frames. Dropping a few frames per minute isn't too bad, but if you start dropping a few frames per second the video will be jumpy.

Rendering video is very processor intensive. This is basically when you are using a video editor, and create a finished product in some format. Some codecs are faster than others; meaning that some formats will be rendered in real-time or better (if the video is 15 minutes, it will take 15 minutes to render), but some may be slightly slower than real-time depending on the quality of output you choose.

Hope this helps, and definitely check the dvdrhelp.com link provided above.