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Recomendation for video capture  

post #1 of 8
5/25/01 at 2:47pm
Thread Starter 
I've got a bunch of home video tapes that I'd like to transfer to VCD. They were made with VHS-C and transferred to regular VHS, so the quality is not great, but I don't want to lose any quality in going digital.

What would be a good card, preferably for $150 or less? I've got an 866 PIII, 128 megs of memory, over 100 gigs of hard drive space, and a GeForce 32 meg video card.

Thanks.

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post #2 of 8
5/25/01 at 3:33pm
Something like the Dazzle Digital Video Creator 1 (MPEG1) or the $250 Digital Video Creator 2 (MPEG1 and MPEG2) would work. I have the latter and it works great.
post #3 of 8
5/25/01 at 3:41pm
I found this video information link. Imo, it's got more useful info in one place than I've seen before for video enthusiasts. It mentions several kinds of video capture, so take your pick.

-yogaman
post #4 of 8
5/25/01 at 4:05pm
If you have had your eye on a DV camcorder spring for one that has analog in and dub the tapes to DV then use a firewire connection to capture from the camcorder. Just a thought...
post #5 of 8
5/25/01 at 4:12pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the info and the link. I checked out the vcdhelper site briefly, but it raises many questions. Maybe someone here can answer these:

1. I'm confused by cards that say they create MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 output. My (limited) understanding is that capture cards will generally output in an .avi format. After the capture, you can use software to convert the file to MPEG. Is this right? Are these cards actually creating the MPEG in real-time? If so, is it as good a quality as software created MPEGs?

2. VCD is a very specific format. If it is a two-step process, is it advantageous to capture in a large (.avi) format like 640x480, and then convert down when creating the MPEG?

3. SVCD seems to be a better quality VCD. Will SVCD's play in standalone DVD players?

4. Assuming I can get the best possible quality, will I notice a degredation in quality between my VHS tapes and a VCD?

5. At best quality, how much (in minutes) can I get on a VCD?

Thanks.
post #6 of 8
5/25/01 at 4:14pm
I've been using Ken's custom modified Zolrix card which I have found to be the best capture card I've yet used. Compared to the Win-TV, the Dazzle II and the Radeon AIW, (all of which I also own) this card performs well with all third party apps I've tried and has no noticeable noise.

I don't want to sound like an advertisment. I don't think Ken makes these mods as a business -- if he does he sure doesn't make much on them.

I've also used the above cards with a Radeon AIW (no capture drivers installed) a GEForce DTS and a Matrox 400 E dual head, using dscaler (was dtv) and my personal preference is the modded Zolrix with the Radeon (no capture drivers).

Chuck
post #7 of 8
5/25/01 at 4:25pm
The Dazzle products take analog video and stereo audio in (your VHS) and can directly encode it in real-time to a VCD compatible MPEG1 file which is ready to burn onto CD using the appropriate CD Burner software (Nero, etc). No software encoding required and the video quality (at least of the DVCII) is excellent. The DVCII can also real-time encode DVD compliant MPEG2 files, if your lucky enough to have a DVD burner.
post #8 of 8
5/25/01 at 4:54pm
This topic was covered here:

archiving video to CD

------------------
David.. "It must be weird to be normal"
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