[spoon]

Are there any plans to add recording for NTSC, Line-in and S-Video for the HiPix card? This will be a very valuable feature. I have tried various capture cards for my Hi 8 camcorder without much success. Would really like to see that feature added to the HiPix.


Also noticed that some HD PC cards start to offer this feature.


Any idea?


-- spoon

 

[DAP]

This has been discused before.


The developers decided that their time would be better spent geting the ATSC features working properly as there are many other sources for NTSC recording.

 

[PVR]

Part of the reason that interest was low was that the analog capture

section of the HiPix isn't the best possible. We would likely be limited

to 320x240 captures (to get 30fps) rather than 640x480+ you can get

from higher performance hardware.


Personally, I run NTSC into a Sony DV camcorder and then capture video

on the PC using IEEE1394. In my experience that is a better way than

trying to deal with analog capture cards.

 

[spoon]

Thanks PVR.


You mean we cannot get 720x586 for the analog capture? So the HiPix is only optimized for ATSC - signals?


Yes, I have tried quite a few analog cards and am not impressed yet. So which DV camcorder provide analog or NTSC inputs? It will be good if you can give me some example that is

Thanks,

spoon

 

[PVR]

ATSC video going into the HiPix is already digital and compressed. The analog NTSC capture portion of the HiPix card is not ideal...


Sony DV or Digital8 camcorders tend to have analog inputs that will convert to a realtime DV datastream. You can then get a cheap IEEE1394 PCI card (can be found for

 

[mark_la]

Quote:

Originally posted by spoon Thanks PVR. You mean we cannot get 720x586 for the analog capture? So the HiPix is only optimized for ATSC - signals? Yes, I have tried quite a few analog cards and am not impressed yet. So which DV camcorder provide analog or NTSC inputs? It will be good if you can give me some example that is Thanks, spoon

I have a Sony TRV-900 MiniDV camcorder, and have used it to capture analog video from my family's VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, and Hi8 home video recordings. Then, I transfer the video with absolutely no generational loss using an IEEE 1394 Firewire connection to my computer. I've tried most of the DV editing software (Adobe Premiere, Ulead VideoStudio, Avid DV Express), and have settled on Pinnacle Studio as my #1 choice due to it's ease of use yet powerful features (3d HollywoodFX transitions, and it can author & burn a DVD or VCD complete with fancy chapter menus directly).


You can buy some very cheap single-CCD MiniDV camcorders for less than $600 and they would do an excellent job of converting your analog tapes to digital, but won't show you just how good MiniDV itself can perform (it would still be better than most analog camcorders of course). I would suggest spending a little more to get a 3-CCD MiniDV Camcorder...after all, you won't be using your current analog camcorder once you get a MiniDV camcorder which records at 740 x 480 NTSC standard (same as DVD resolution).


Also, have you looked at the Pinnacle Studio packages which come with the software and Analog Capture cards in one? They also have such packages that come with the software and an IEEE 1394 card and cable in case you don't already have one.

 

[spoon]

I'm currently trying out the Pinnacle Studio Deluxy w/ capture card and a nice break out box. It seems to be quite good in capture quality and software. It is the best for cards I tried out so far. But still, in some captures, the audio is out of sync with the video.


Is those out of sync problems fixable, after the capture?

 

[mark_la]

Quote:

Originally posted by spoon I'm currently trying out the Pinnacle Studio Deluxy w/ capture card and a nice break out box. It seems to be quite good in capture quality and software. It is the best for cards I tried out so far. But still, in some captures, the audio is out of sync with the video. Is those out of sync problems fixable, after the capture?

What format are you capturing as, what's your PC's OS & config? On the MiniDV-cam version of Studio, I have MPEG-2, DV-AVI, or PREVIEW quality capture options, I'm not sure what you have with your analog capture board. Your drives might not be optimally configured for full-quality capture. They might not be fast enough (you need 7200 RPM or 5400 RPM with an 8 MB buffer and almost no fragmentation on the recording drive). Try changing to the capture mode to preview medium or low quality, and then just capture the small edited snipplets (smaller AVI/MPEG files, where drive speed and fragmentation aren't of much concern) at the time of rendering your final video.


If this doesn't fix it, try upgrading to the latest beta patch of Studio 8. You can get it at:
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFi...ownload_a.html


As well as full technical support at: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/support/p...?ProductID=454

 

[jerndl]

One product I have been considering is the Dazzle Digial Video Creator 150 . It has a hardware MPEG encoder, can do full 720 x 480 DVD resolution, and has a USB 2.0 port. All for less than $200. On paper it looks great. There have been a few other similar products, but they have all been USB 1.1 and that was a limiting factor with the picture quality.

http://www.dazzle.com/images/DVC150inout.jpg


I'd like to hear from anyone who has direct experience with this product.


Jay

 

[mark_la]

Quote:

Originally posted by jerndl One product I have been considering is the Dazzle Digial Video Creator 150 . It has a hardware MPEG encoder, can do full 720 x 480 DVD resolution, and has a USB 2.0 port. All for less than $200. On paper it looks great. There have been a few other similar products, but they have all been USB 1.1 and that was a limiting factor with the picture quality. http://www.dazzle.com/images/DVC150inout.jpg I'd like to hear from anyone who has direct experience with this product. Jay

Looks like a great product for Analog to MPEG encoding, on paper at least like you said. One thing to note is that there's no way you're going to feed 720 x 480 from an analog source. It'll up-convert to the DVD resolution, but since it doesn't have IEEE 1394, it can't get true 720 x 480 input. Another thing to note is that if you have a 1.8 Ghz P4 or higher CPU, Pinnacle Studio 8 can handle real-time software MPEG encoding at 720 x 480 DVD resolution, from analog or MiniDV/MicroMV digital sources. The Dazzle packages usually ship with Ulead VideoStudio which is no competition for Pinnacle Studio (named Editor's Choice by PC Magazine for consumer-level video editing). I can see the Dazzle as being a better solution if you have a PC with less than a 1.8 Ghz CPU AND plan to capture all you video for DVD Authoring.

 

[Don Landis]

Analog digitizing boards for computers are expensive but produce great results. We use a system here that is rather robust. It will digitize full YUV component video to an array of 200+G hard drives. Fo rht e average consumer the price of this system is out of the question at over $50K. The suggestion of doing the analog to digital conversion in a camcorder or DV VCR is a great way to do this. The realtime converters mentioned above are also available but many have suffered major problems like sync issues and frame locking. Dazzle has had more hardware complaints than any device I can recall. We have one here that just doesn't work well at all. WE use a semi pro VCR and it works as stated by PVR. We have a DSR-20 that we can import Y/C analog and analog audio and output 1394 to our one computer via a 1394 firewire card. Vegas Video, Edition DV and a few others work well. Premiere is less reliable but also works. Several other low end software packages also work. We have tested about a dozen here and use 3 regularly.

When people ask me, I tell them to get a mini DV camcorder and a fast computer with windows XP and 1394 card and that is all they need to begin to do some real nice stuff. Analog capture is junk until you get into the high end and then it is really better than firewire.

 

[GaryHDTV]

Quote:

Originally posted by mark_la One thing to note is that there's no way you're going to feed 720 x 480 from an analog source. It'll up-convert to the DVD resolution, but since it doesn't have IEEE 1394, it can't get true 720 x 480 input.

I don't understand what you are saying here. Broadcast NTSC analog video has an inherent 'resolution' of 720x480i. When fed through this box it is then digitized at 720x480 resolution and compressed with MPEG2. It doen't 'up-convert' anything. What does firewire have to do with it?

 

[jerndl]

Quote:

Originally posted by Don Landis Dazzle has had more hardware complaints than any device I can recall. We have one here that just doesn't work well at all.

Are you referring to the model DVC 150 or Dazzle in general? There is a similar product from Adaptec, VIDEOh! DVD . These devices should be better (i.e. easier) than a camcorder especially if your desire is to transfer analog video to a DVD. These devices work similar to a camcorder except that they encode to MPEG2 instead of DV and they use USB 2.0 instead firewire to transfer to the PC. There is no further conversions required once it gets into th PC therefore it is much faster (and less CPU required) than transferring DV from a camcorder and then converting DV to MPEG on your PC.


Jay

 

[GaryHDTV]

He is probaby refering to the DVCII, which I had, and it was full of problems and never worked right. I too, am interested in something like the DVC 150, although if another manufacturer makes a similar product I would go with them because of my past experience with Dazzle.


spoon, another option you may want to consider, since you are using Hi8, is a Digital8 camcorder. They will playback Hi8 tapes, digitizing and output DV video from the firewire port directly.

 

[spoon]

Thanks for the Digital8 suggestion. It sounds like a very effective solution since I don't even need my old camcorder around. I will certainly try it out once I get a hand to one of those.


But I'm not sure I want to buy one though. I think it is better to go direct to DV.

 

[johnwcookjr]

Gents,


Are there any players available that will allow you to hook up your DV camcorder via 1394 and then play/scale out the VGA/Radeon in realtime?


I've captured via 1394 into Premiere and StudioDV and then played the captured files back after converting to a high data rate AVI but I'd like to play the tapes back realtime thru my HTPC to my projector.


Any thoughts?


John

 

[GaryHDTV]

I have set a filter graph in GraphEdit which allow realtime playback from the firewire port. Use the Microsoft DV and Camcorder filter as the input source. It should be possible to build a custom mediagraph for Zoom Player to do this.

 

[jerndl]

Quote:

Originally posted by GaryHDTV I have set a filter graph in GraphEdit which allow realtime playback from the firewire port. Use the Microsoft DV and Camcorder filter as the input source.

Does this scale the video to full screen? How is the picture quality compared to direct s-video out from the camcorder? Thanks.


Jay

 

[GaryHDTV]

It will scale it to full screen. Although I have never built a graph using a de-interlacing filter in-line. I see no reason it wouldn't work. PQ is much better than s-video, but there were interlaced artifacts.

 

[johnwcookjr]

Gary,


Thanks for the reply, however I was looking for a COTS product.


Something I can install and press play.


Where can I find Graphedit, is this shareware/freeware? I spent about 10 minutes using the search engine and nothing directly related to downloads came up. I'll keep looking.


John