Image quality for capture card

[speedy4500]

I think this is probably the best place to post my concerns...

I just recently bought a Prolink Pixelview Video Maker PCI card, which has a TV tuner and hardware MPEG1/2 encoding. So far, I've only tried recording VHS tapes to my computer, and the quality leaves a lot to be desired (I think sometime soon I may extract the card and examine the various chips soldered on it and investigate their white papers if I can find them). My hunch is that the VHS tape input signal is fairly "castrated" to begin with, as no matter what bit-rate I set the MPEG2 encoder at--2.8 up to 15 mbit/s--the quality is pretty much the same; is that the probable cause for bad quality recordings? In two weeks when I get cable television hooked up, should the recording be better? Or might this be card related? Unfortunately, this card I have is rare in the USA, there was only one internet store I found that stocked them, so I don't have many places to look for advice/help, and I hope I didn't invest 160 of my hard-earned dollars into a less-than-stellar card. It seems like it has a lot of potential (the specs were nice), but so far it's not as good as I had hoped. OK, enough rambling....so is it the card or the VHS input?


PS Here is a link to a tweaktown.com review of it, the only review I could find on the net.

 

[CrazyP]

well, I have a AIW in one rig, and a tvwonder in the other. the quality does look bad when viewed on a monitor, but I have made vcd cd with some recording I made, and on the TV it looks fine. try uotputting the recording to the TV and see how it looks. remeber the monitor has a much higher resolution, so something designed exclusively for 60 hz refresh rate and 640/480 resolution will not look good at higher settings

 

[Turando]

for one, VHS is awful anyway, i just recently baught the pinnacle pctv Rave Pro and you get the same quality as the vhs when recording, from tv and cable its cristal.


Cheers, Turando

 

[speedy4500]

Okay, thanks. That's makes me happy knowing that the crappy quality is probably not due to the card. Once I buy some CD-Rs or an S-video cable I'll try outputting to TV and see how that looks. And I can't wait for 10 more days when I finally get cable TV. I might need to get a DVD writer or a 200gb hard drive to store all the recordings.........

 

[deez]

the reason VHS and standard TV broadcast look different is b/c they have different resolutions.

The resolution for standard VHS video is 240 horizontal lines, standard TV (in USA/North america) is 330 lines, and DVD is 450-500 lines

Most standard TV sets display 330 lines max resolution.

 

[Turando]

i think you will find it has little to do with the resolution, VHS whas not the optimum video media at its release, it was just the cheapest, its just a very very VERY poor media.