[WT-46809]

Hoping that you can help a friend of mine out - I just don't have enough experience to steer him in the right direction. This may be a little off topic.


My friend just got a job as a television writer and wants to capture video to his laptop for on the road critquing/idea purposes. I sold him my brand new Osprey 100 (decided to put my HTPC project on hold) and he said that, using this card, the video appears with lines through it and is "shaky".


He is using a PC laptop, Win XP, 512 ram, 80GB HD, composite cables and a VCR as his source. Said he had a Broadway card before and it was "awesome" (don't have the details as to why he no longer has this card and needs a new one).


Thanks for any light you may be able to shed on this request.

 

[Steve Hanna]

 Pinnacle Studio Deluxe $299 at Circuit City.

 

[vstesting]

Steve, he said laptop .


While I will vouch for the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe, it won't exactly fit into a laptop. If the laptop in question has a 1394 connector of some sort, I would suggest a Canopus ADVC-100 . They are right at/under the $300 mark.

 

[Steve Hanna]

Sorry I don't know much about laptops. They seem like they'd be nice for portability but their size and power constraints keep them from becoming a part of my life. I suppose if I was a road warrior, I'd need one.


With USB2.0 and 1394 Firewire, there will be a lot more outboard options with external drives, video and sound cards.

 

[Dylan]

Quote:

Originally posted by WT-46809 I sold him my brand new Osprey 100 (decided to put my HTPC project on hold) and he said that, using this card, the video appears with lines through it and is "shaky".

That sounds like a description of an interlaced signal or a badly upsampled/deinterlaced one. The problem might be the software and not the hardware. What software is he using to view the video?


-Dylan

 

[RTK]

whats the chipset on the pinnacle studio deluxe card and is it dscaler compatible?

 

[Aslan]

Discussed in another thread on here. Why spend $300 on a capture-only device (such as the ADVC100) when for $500 you can get a good quality DV camera with this capability built in?

 

[Steve Hanna]

If all you wanted was simple still and video capture, you're right, just go with the camera. If you want to get into multimedia editing and differant I/O formats the card would be more flexible.

 

[Aslan]

Steve, What does the ADVC100 do that a camera with passthrough does not?


Until you get into cards like the Rex ($4500) I don't think there's any real benefit at all.


??


Aslan...

 

[Steve Hanna]

You would have to look at your editing SW, card functions, and then see if the camera did as much as the card. If the card has HW acceleration, it might be faster. I haven't studied the issue in enough depth as to specifics to go any further. When I'm able to afford the function, I'll dig in. Thanx for the camera pointer. It may be that I won't need a capture card at all. Video display output would be through my regular nVidia video card anyway.

 

[Aslan]

In the days of 200Mhz PC's the hardware acceleration was clearly needed. However, a 1Ghz PC today with good editing software derives very little, if any benefit from any of the capture cards. The point is completely mute with PC's greater than 1.5Ghz. Premier is the only software I'm aware of that does not take advantage of the PC and still requires hardware acceleration.


Good Luck,


Aslan...

 

[Steve Hanna]

I have a PPro200 machine. The nVividia TNT2 64 32 PCI video card speeded up my machine quite a bit. Even more than the 256Mb RAM I added. Of course I won't be doing much video editing until I can build a new high-end machine.

 

[Steve Hanna]

I just read some intersting info on Tom's Hardware Guide about video capture cards and their uses.

 

[Aslan]

I assume you're talking about either their recent review of the Raptor or the old review of a variety of capture cards. Both of these are poorly targeted IMHO - kinda like doing a review of the new horseshoes on the block that will give you a smoother and faster ride while ignoring the automobile (or for you oldtimers - doing a review of LIM spec memory cards like the Intel Aboveboard.)


They're reviewing cards that no longer provide much, if any, real benefit in recent PC's (eg 1Ghz or above).


Aslan...