What's the cheapest way to capture Component video on my computer?

[MasamuneXGP]

Greetings all, and apologies if this is the wrong category for this question.

I'm looking for the cheapest method of getting Component video (red/green/blue jacks) to my computer so it can be recorded. I'm browsing around looking for video capture cards, but they all seem so expensive and loaded with things I don't need, like HDTV tuners and the like. I just want to be able to capture Component video, nothing more. Can anyone recommend me the least expensive route?

 

[xtknight]

I would love to have the same thing. Unfortunately, I don't believe such a product exists (for any reasonable price), either due to lack of demand, or bandwidth concerns.

 

[skriefal]

There are cards available that will do this, but they're costly ($500 or more) and intended for professional or semi-pro use. You'd also need very large amounts of free disc space to hold the captured content, and significant CPU horsepower to compress the captured content into something that you'd actually be able to archive (MPEG-2, MPEG-4/AVC, VC-1, etc). I don't have any links to provide, but you could find more information over at www.avsforum.com.

 

[L00PY]

Cheapest one I'm aware of is the Blackmagic Intensity Pro priced at $350.

 

[MasamuneXGP]

I've got plenty of storage space to store those insanely large HuffYUV files, and I know how to encode media. Are you telling me there's *no* sub-$100 way of plugging component cables into a computer? I was under the impression it was an analog signal. How is that even possible?

 

[Modelworks]

What are you trying to capture from ?
Component is just a means of transferring the signal, what is the source format ?

If your going to transfer from something like a dvd player then svideo would be a good cheap alternative. You can get cheap svideo capture cards for 20.00 or less

The thing is just about every card out there can capture component signals with just a slight mod or two, but its just not done because of the lack of demand for it.