Anybody that can and have done this please describe your card and system, especially if your using a Winfast TV 2000 XP. Thanks
There are a Few Tricks to Captureing Full resolution video without Dropping Frames... You generally need a Fairly Fast PC with a second Large fast defragmented Hard drive to Capture the Files to and Make sure your Drive has the Highest supported DMA Mode enabled... Some Capture Software will drop frames intentionally so the Video can keep Sync with the audio but as soon as you encode these captured files to another format they go out of Sync...To avoid this it is good to use a Capture program that Properly compensates for the Time Lag between the audio and Video capture..Most Programs do but you have to set it up properly...The setting you would be looking for would be a "Master Stream" setting and you would set this setting to "Video"... I don"t have Problems with Dropped Frames at any resolution or Framerate, This is my System: Intel 2.5ghz CPU Albatron PX865 Pe Pro Motherboard Zalman CNPS7000A Heatsink Moded with 50CFM Fan 1024mb Dual Chanell DDR Sony DRU 500A DVD Burner Lite-On DVD-Rom Drive 120GB Maxtor ATA/133 Drive 160GB Maxtor ATA/133 Drive Digital Thermal Controll Unit Saphire Radeon 9600SE 128mb Via Firewire Card Sound Blaster Sound Card PixelView X Capture 10Bit Capture Card RaidMax Scorpio ATX Case 5 Cool Mod case Fans Cheers
minion, if i remember correctly you used to use a Radeon 8x00 (not sure of model #) video card for analog capture. how does the little pixelview card you got now compare to a video card with an onboard decoder chip?
Hi, Yes I used to have an old Radeon 7200 VIVO card that used the Old Rage decoder chip and the Quality was about the same as those old BT878A Cards so it wasn"t that good.... I actually just got the Pixelview XCapture card and Have noticed the Quality is quite a Bit better the only problem is that the Capture Driver Takes about 2 minutes to load but that is a Minor problem..... Cheers
would you say it is better all the way around just to have a dedicated capture card or are the ATI onboard chips still a good option. i guess i'm not a fan of little cards taking up an extra PCI/IRQ slot... oh, and just so we don't ignore the point of the original post; what do you think of those Leadtek Winfast TV cards. seems like lots of people are buying them.
Minion, how would using the Canopus ADVC100 decoder compare? I have 'weeks' of analog video that I need to edit and transfer to DVD later on?
I have been using the canopus ADVC-300 and haven't suffered any dropped frames as yet. My system is: 512MB RAM 200GB HDD - capture to 80GB HDD Pentium 4 - 2.8GHZ CPU Radeon 9000 128MB Graphics Card Pioneer DVR-107D writer. From my limited usage (about 1 week!) of this so far, the canopus seems a great product!
everglade: You shouldn"t drop frames with the ADVC-300 because it uses onboard compression so the Size of the Files being written to the Hard drive aren"t nearly as Big as when Captureing Uncompressed AVI... siber: How would the ADVC-100 compare to what?? All of the Canopus ADVC models are great devices which are superior to Most other capture devices in the same Price range...If you want to get the Same Quality as an ADVC-100 but don"t want to spend $250-$300US then I would suggest getting the "Canopus ACEDVio" which uses the same High Quality DV Encoder Chip and has the same Audio Lock Technoligy as the ADVC-100 but it is an Internal PCI Card and Not external Like the ADVC Models, The Canopus ACEDVio can be found for as Low as $169 US on ebay from Licensed Canopus Resellers which is allmost half of what you would pay for the same device if you got it directly from Canopus..... Cheers
The best way I've found to capture your VHS videos (or any device with a video out) is directly to MiniDV. You get a nice smooth 720x480i AVI without any dropped frames. You do need a MiniDV recorder, such as a camcorder. You can get MiniDV "VCR" like console units, but last I checked they cost more than the top of the line camcorders. Most $600+ camcorders come with firewire (or USB may work), so you can download the AVI on your computer without any lossy for perfect editing. It also takes 60min to download a full 60min tape though. It can be the most time consuming method, but it produces better results than using a capture card. I also use this method for capturing the screen to make videos of my games. MiniDV is a perfect format, AVI with a slight JPEG compression. You can simply store and archive your video back on tape if you're low on disk space. I just made my first DVD with 5.1 sound using this method. Vegas Video to edit and Adobe Encore for DVD design & burning. Awesome results!
max777, I have actually done that, I believe. Ran my old beta tapes through my Sony DV camcorder to the computer HD. I didn't care too much for the results. I thought the horizontal lines were so much more obvious than on watching the beta tape on a TV. Now I noticed the same problem with original DV video transferred to the HD. Playing my DV directly on my computer screen showed very good quality video. Once transferred to the HD and played back, there was significant loss of quality. With digital media that was surprising to me. I have actually delayed working with my home video's until I can figure out how to do this better.
siber: You really shouldn"t go by what the file looks like on your PC Monitor, especially with Interlaced Material Like DV AVI files because a PC Monitors Display is Progressive so when Displaing Interlaced Material on a Progressive Monitor you will Notice the Interlace Lines are very Prevalent because it Displays Both fields of a frame at the same time were your TV set is Made to Display Interlaced Material so it only Displays a Field at a Time so there are no Interlace artifacts....The only way you would see these Lines on your TV set is if the Field order is Reverced...That is why it is good to have an Interlaced TV set hooked up to your PC so you can preview Interlaced material Properly and get a better Impression of what the video will look like when Played on your DVD Player through your TV set... Capture Devices Like the ADVC-100 have Outputs so you can Preview your material on TV before you author it to DVD so you can get a true representation of what the Video will look like ....Cheers
ok, the canopus products are great but lets get back to the original point here... 720x480 analog capture w/o dropped frames el-cheepo style. of course this depends on the input source to a great degree but is it better to have a dedicated capture card or are there advantages to video cards with onboard decoder chips?? the added cost of an onboard chip is comparable to the cost of a dedicated capture card except you don't take up extra PCI slots or IRQs (please refer to my previous post).
I'd be interested in some info on this also -- even though I tend to go for the VCR to Camcorder (MiniDV). It would be great to know which $100 capture cards or built in chip on my next uber gamer video card I need to keeep my eye our for. I plan to upgrade my mobo/cpu/ram/hard drive (hopefully a nice inexpensive 10k rpm serial HD) before december. It would be nice to know I can be able to do some realtime capturing with my next setup, with some onboard encoding too so I don't have to eat up hard drive space with 2hrs of uncompressed video. 2.5Ghz WIntel/533FSB/7k rpm drives/Gf5900 with capture, also 2 other lowend PCI caputure/turner cards. One is the $100+ Pinnical card. The software sucks. I always get dropped frames and the analog conversion is faded and not as sharp as using my $1000 MiviDV Panasonic 3CCD camcorder.
HI THERE. just reading max reply re transfer analog to mini dv tape b4 capture to pc. heres a reply i posted in another thread earlier, might be helpful. i am a professional videographer, and as part of my work i do a lot of vhs conversions to dv tape and to pc. i will give u a simple run down of how i do this work and u can try it yourself. firstly, u have to bare in mind, i do this for a living ok, and i keep copies of everything i do and store them in an archive in my safe. 1. i transfer all vhs analog tapes onto mini dv tapes first by connecting my analog vhs player to my mx500 dv camcorder using s-video cable (these mini dv tapes are then given to my clients as a replacement "hard copy" of the videos to replace the older vhs tapes, which reduces storage space) 2. i then capture the new video from the dv tape onto my pc (via firewire) using a program called sonic MyDVD, which automatically captures the dv image in high quality 720x576 mpeg2 (pal) format. 3. i then import the mpeg2 video to arcsoft SHOWBIZ (basic editing) or adobe PREMIER 6.5 (top class editing) do any editing to the video, then save it back to my project folder on my h/drive. 4. i then use sonic MyDVD again to create the final dvd project ready to burn to ritek G04 dvd-r disc. MyDVD is also the dvd burning program i use as well, this is a great program for auto capture to mpeg2 and saves having to capture your vids in AVI, then have to re-encode to mpeg2 b4 burning to a dvd. you have to convert any video file to mpeg2 b4 u burn to dvd, so why people on here tell u to capture in dv (avi) format i never understand, cos then u need to recode it anyway. this way u only need 1 program to capture in mpeg2, and create/burn your finished project. top quality mpeg2 720x576 PAL, or 720x480 NTSC will give u 65 minutes maximum of excellent quality mpeg2 video on a dvd-r disc. good quality mpeg2 352x576 PAL or 352x480 NTSC will give u up to about 130 minutes of reasonable quality video. u also need to understand that vhs quality (compared to dvd) is only referred to as "good quality" image, and the image u get from your original vhs tapes will only be at best, as good as the original vhs image, your not going to get dvd quality from analog video, although i have some outside footage from vhs tape on dvd now and the image looks better, could be because i transfer to dv tape first. if you really want to transfer your analog tapes to dvd and want to keep the original vhs quality, u really need to capture in the highest resolution i mentioned b4, but u will only get 65 min max of video on the dvd. i never capture any vhs video less than top quality, its not worth losing all that quality for the sake of having to put a 2 hr video on 2 dvd discs, the image quality has to be the main criteria in preserving the quality of your videos. thats it for me, if u want a simple, and easy solution (but a bit time consuming) this is how i do it, but remember also that u should never throw the original video source (like my dv tapes) away, if something happens to your dvd you still got the hard copy, plus the original captured mpeg2 video file on your pc or backed up on a dvd somewhere, like i do. good luck.....GLEN BTW, never dropped any frames in any of my projects doing it this way, and the dvd picture and sound is always insinc
Glen, I'm new at this game but liked your detailed response of 31/7/04. I use MyDVD to capture and burn DVDs - well I'm trying to. I keep getting a distortion along the bottom of the screen - not much but enough to ruin the video. I have tried different VHS machines and a camcorder each with the same result. I have an ATI Radeon All in Wonder. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Delboy: the distortion/interference on the bottom of captured video from VHS is normal, do a search of this forum and you'll find a lot more information about it. TO ANYBODY: with respect to the original post, i think it would be important to have a discussion about "720x480 capture w/o dropped frames"... whether you think it is recommended or not, people are still going to try to capture good quality video as cheeply as possible. excluding expensive capture devices like the canopus products and digital cameras are there sub-$50 devices that can do a decent job??? are there advantages to video cards with on-board decoder chips vs. dedicated capture cards/TV cards??? does hardware even matter... is the quality really dependent on the software you are useing??? let's assume the capture source is somehow magically flawless and the quality and performance relys completely on the capture setup. opinions???...thoughts???
I'm also interested in knowing what lower-end cards will give good captures. The higher-end cards have a lot of features and software that you would never use, that's why I wouldn't buy a high-end card just for capturing. What I would recommend as far as the rest of the hardware, look at: 1. hard drive - your slowest device, and main reason you get dropped frames. Look into a 10k rpm, SATA (serial) should be fine... around 7ms or so access times or lower. You can go with a SCSI, but you end up spending a lot of money with only a slight performance boost compared to the new SATA 10k rpm drives. You can also try RAID (multiple drives), but you still only get about a 10% to 20% faster drive system. 2. CPU and motherboard chipset - the Intels with 800fsb are great. Not sure about hyperthreading. My HT Intel notebook is twice as slow as my non-HT desktop, but I'm 99% it's the slow notebook hard drive. The advantage I see with HT is it helps my next point which is other apps interfering with your capture. 3. Other apps, services, and drivers running in the background. Most capture apps do not work well with others. It's mainly due to the app and its drivers which is not much you can do about it. Just try to disable as many things as you can, making sure you KNOW what you are disabling. 4. Be Bill Gates. Not required, but it's a big help when running Windows. Oh just a quick edit: you might look at a console DVD burner. I hear they are VERY nice for copying your VHS tapes onto DVD, which can be moved to your computer editing. Of course, you lose some quality in the MPEG compression. Oh ya, RAM -- give yourself two 512MB chips! RAM IS CHEAP! 1GB is the standard now. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Jason Honingford Web Developer / Designer http://www.framescale.com Florida, US[/small]
Well I"m useing a Sub $50 Card and it captures Full resolution Good Quality Files without Dropping Frames and I don"t have to use a very fast Hard drive either.. I capture to my 5400rpm 160gb ATA/133 drive and I haven"t dropped a Frame yet even captureing to Uncompressed AVI... I"m useing a Cheap 10Bit PixelView X Capture card... The Quality of the Captures is directly related to the Quality of the Capture device and software has very little to do with it when captureing to AVI but when captureing to Mpeg the software has a Big effect because Real time Mpeg capture programs are not very efficient with Bitrate so do not generally produce as good of Quality as if Captureing to Uncompressed AVI or useing HuffYUV.... As far as analogue Capture devices go this one is one of the Better ones that I have owned and it is the cheapest one.... For me The biggest Problem with captureing from an analogue Capture card is Audio and Video sync cuz most AVI capture programs to not properly compensate for the Time lag between the audio and Video capture so over long captures the audio & Video will slowly drift apart.... There are a few programs that can Compensate for this like IU_VCR and Virtual-VCR ,the Tricks is to set the Video Stream as the Master stream which makes the Program dynamicly resample the audio so it will keep sync with the Video, If the Master stream is set to the Audio the program will change the Frame rate so that the Video matches the the audio which is all well and good untill you try to encode the captured file to another format and then the audio and Video will drift apart again.... I never really Found much of an advantage to useing Capture devices that are Built on to Video Cards like the All In Wonder type Cards because there is very little Variety in the Type of capture Chip that is used, You basicly have to go for an ATI card, and Nvidia card or a Matrox card and if you want to get a new Video card you have to also replace the Capture card and the Capture Quality of these cards is limited....Just My 2 cents
i'd have to disagree with you on this one max777. mixing/editing my own movies/DVDs is fun and rewarding BECAUSE i don't have to be an uber-genius to do it. it's really not that hard, it just requires some patience. Minion: thanks for the advice about the software vs. hardware debate. for my part, i would like to add that as a rule of thumb, the software that comes with a sub-$50 capture device is rarely adequate. Free programs like Virtual-VCR, more often do a better job and are easier to use. conserning on-board decoder chips, i agree there may be logistical issues, but what exactly are these capture quality limitations you speak of?
