Video Capture Guru's Flex your brains in here (_8u(|)

[scm518]

Good morning all,

Well I would like to capture high quality video. In terms of high quality I would like to be able to full-screen view what I capture - and see (and hear) minimal distortion on playback. I would also like to set it like a VCR. My friend brought over a CD that he recorded a TV show on - and it was great (and now he is on vacation so I can not find out how he did it) - I dont want to have to spend the money on an AIW 8500, unless that is the only way to do it. I just want to capture analog audio/video. it can be USB or whatever ( I already have a seperate firewire card) - I have an AGP video card now, so perhaps I do not have to change that.

anyway - thanks for any suggestions that you can offer

(P3-800) 512 megs ram - geforce 2 gts-v ddr - 2 x 40 meg hard drive -

thanks!!!

 

[alexruiz]

Wow, though choices here. I used to have a TV tuner based on the conexat/rockwell bt848 that does a great job capturing. However, you cannot see what you are capturing (I didn't consider this an issue because you usually trim the captured clip later). If your concern is about the best capture possible and great full screen playback of waht was captured, the TV tuner should be enough if you pair it with good codec (they are key here).

The pinnacle Studio PCTV PCI has is a good choice, but it is not for rookies. the drivers are buggy as hell and takes a fair a ount of patiente to make it work properly. The good side is that will take out of your pocket only 40 dollars. Yo make the call.

 

[scm518]

I don't mind tweaking something to death as long as I know that I have the opportunity to get a good capture out of it. That price seems like a bargain! thanks for your post -- gunna do I bit more research now that I know a TV tuner can be used as capture as opposed to just specifically a capture card.

(i do not need to watch the show as it tapes)

Very cool

thanks!!!

 

[NicColt]

>I would also like to set it like a VCR. My friend brought over a CD that he recorded a TV show on

I've been doing this for a while now, I have an AIW Radeon and I set it to MPEG1 at 1.14Mbit/sec, along with the Guide+ I program it to capture shows that repeat at night and and during the day while I'm browsing or doing whatever I burn it to cd-rw, one hour or two 30min captures will fit tight on a cd-rw and it takes 7.5/min per cd-rw (it's not as if I stand there watching it burn). If I happen to record a show that has a two hour span I just winrar (store) it in 20Meg chunks and burn it to two cd-rw's and so on. At work when I want to watch it I just uncompress it to HD and watch it and delete it afterwards, or watch the one hour ones directly from cd.

I choose MPEG1 since it's less demanding on non-hardware accelerated video and specially in full screen, and it's mostly a standard codec on all PC's now, so I don't have to worry if the pc has the codec or not.

 

[scm518]

nic colt - exactly what I am looking for. Do you suggest that I change to an AIW radeon (if so what versions) or is there a card that they make that is specifically for video capture that I do not have to tinker with a new video card with?

Thanks!

scm518!! =) <------ getting excited about this!!!

 

[alexruiz]

MPEG is a good option, but remember that is good for medium bitrates. Also, it is resolution limited at 352x240 NTSC. If you want the best quality possible you MUST capture full size (640x480 or 720x480).

I keep sugesting the TV tuner (by the way, capture with a pinnacle card is possible ONLY under Win98/WinMe)

You set up the TV tuner to the channel you will watching, then use virtualdub to capture, use an MJPEG codec to xcapture, then edit the capture using virtualdub again and convert it to DivX.

 

[scm518]

doh - IM on XP hmmm back to more research -- i will make sure it is full screen...

 

[Peter]

The ATi Rage Theater chip is far superior in TV capture over the Brooktree 8x8 chips. This is mostly
due to its de-interlacer and other filters. Just look at any news or stock ticker horizontally scrolling
text and you'll see what I mean.

So an AIW indeed isn't the worst choice.

regards, Peter

 

[hcarlson]

I just got my Radeon 8500dv and the capturing is great! You have alot of options to tweak it however you want. I captured with the VCD setting and it looks like 1 hour will fit on a CD.

 

[NicColt]

>then use virtualdub to capture, use an MJPEG codec to xcapture, then edit the capture using virtualdub again and convert it to DivX.

do you know how long and confusing that is to do.

like I said in my first post, I use guide+ to record multiple show at different times on different channels, there's just no way you can do that with virtualdub. You need an interactive guide for which comes with the AIW. and then you need to re-encode back to divx ??? that would take hours, no thanks.

Divx is not the best codec by far and is too cpu dependent on non-hardware accelerated cards. At work I dont have a vid card I just have integrated vid. When you play divx compared to mpeg1, the later is by far the better choice even in full screen.

>or is there a card that they make that is specifically for video capture

well of course my favorite is the AIW Radeon, the important things here is the interactive guide that work along with the AIW.

 

[IndyJaws]

Check out this thread in Hot Deals: http://subscriber.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=760245

They seem to really like this card, plus it supports XP!