Evening ladies and gents, I was reviewing the tech details of some USB capture devices and some PCI tuner cards, anyway I've come to something thats stumped me: From reading the glossary I've attempted to understand the components of each device, but one device (usb capture) I've looked at states it has a Digital Video format of both MPEG-1, MPEG-2, though it mentions it's Digital Video Capture Resolution is 320 x 240..from the glossary SVCD resolution is double that of VCD (480x576 in PAL)...since SVCD is in MPEG-2 format how can this card produce MPEG-2 with such a low capture resolution. Also, one question that will/must sound very simple to some: on another device (pci card) I was looking at, there is no mention of capture res, though it does mention is has a 10-BIT chipset (while being able to capture in MPEG-1,MPEG-2). I dont understand the concept of the 10 bit chipset, is it related to Bitrate, i.e. the physical size of audio/video per second? Hence if so, how can I work out the capture res from the bitrate? Ultimately I want to do the usual transfer of tape footage to digital product, vcd(mpeg-1) quality will do, but it would be nice to work with svcd(mpeg-2). Thanks for takin the time out,
I'd stay away from the device that only captures at 320x240. It is possible to capture mpeg-2 at that resolution just so you know. I suspect that the low cap res is the result of USB transfer rate limitations. As for the 10-bit chipset device, the number really has nothing to do with capturing per se, and more to do with the actual chip's architecture. For best results, stay away from USB devices and go with PCI. Another option would be to go with an ATI All-In-Wonder AGP card. You can find a 7500 AIW at a very reasonable price these days mainly because the GPU is older, but the capture hardware is not very different from the newer AIW cards.
