Video Capture Card

Michael Collins

I'm in the market for a good quality capture card. I want to do a bit of DVD authoring and such from analogue sources like VHS and old camcorders and also Sky+. I've had a look around different places but I can't seem to make my mind up on a good one. I looked at what they have over at overclockers.co.uk here but wasn't sure if they would give good quality captures.

All I want is a good quality card capable of very high quality MPEG2 composite captures, I don't really care too much for TV input or FM radio but i'll take it if i must:D. So does anyone know of such a card?

Thanks...

elvis2002

Just last week i got the Compro video mate gold+ and am quite happy with it. I got it from pcn.ie.

Its has coax input, s-video and composite connections along with remote controller, power up cables, audio in/out, fm radio and teletext. It captues in Mpeg 1 or 2. It comes with video studio which is a good tool for editing files.

Using coax cable produces a very noise filled picture but s-video produces a stunning picture quality. You can see a review at www.tv-cards.com. They rate it as the best card for the money. They have a good messageboard there too for questions.

Also I would stay away from overclockers, have a look on google for overclockers.co.uk reviews and you'll see what I mean. Their customer support is non existent.

Happauage are always being recommended too. elara.ie sell them.

DONT get a usb card because the quality they produce is noting compared to pci cards.

jesus_thats_gre

I am in the market for a decent TV card also. I want to put an Xbox through it also? Do any cards come with a remote that allow you to shut your PC down also?

Any suggestions?

parasite

you should go for a wintv pvr 250 or somesuch to take the load off your cpu

butts

I use the Hauppauge PVR 250 with WinTVCap program and CPU usage is very low – I can use DScaler with a Hauppauge TV card to watch TV whilst capturing video with the PVR 250 at the same time. See http://www.shspvr.com/ for more info about the PVR 250.

Michael Collins

A question for parasite or butts: Can you use that card to capture into a RAW uncompressed avi? Or does it only capture MPEG?

Cheers

butts

Michael - The PVR 250 can only record in mpeg 1 or 2, but there is nothing to stop you having a cheap TV card in your system as well for capturing avi when the need arises.

Michael Collins

Thanks for the replies. I'm still not sure what to get. Like I say, all i really want is the analogue video capture ability.

butts

You should check out the forms on http://www.videohelp.com/ for other people opinions on the various approaches to video capture with regard to both hardware and software. For some people a DVD recorder is the easiest way to capture.

Mutant_Fruit

as far as i know, a capture card can capture into ANY format, but some can capture to mpeg1/2 in hardware, thus meaning you can capture full quality stuff even on a p1.

If you want to capture to AVI, you'll need a fast processor to be able to capture and encode 25fps.