Video capture brush up...what to get?

[AarontheJC]

My last capture card was ISA, so it's time to upgrade!

I'm running my 8500 right now, so AIWs are pretty much out of the picture.

How's about it? TV Wonder USB or PCI?

If I'm coming in from a camcorder via S-Video, which will provide better performance, the PCI or the USB? The USB edition real-time encodes AVI, the PCI encodes real-time Mpeg-2.

I have always thought that USB would be extremely limiting for video capture applications. Is USB a problematic interface when dealing with video capture?

I had another question. What is the max framerate and resolution TV Wonders can capture at?

Or two: ATI did not list Windows XP as a supported OS for any of their capture cards. Has anyone used one with WinXP?

Are there more recent cards I should look into?

$1-75, and $75-$150 solutions?

How's about Dazzle cards/USB?

Any experience would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lancelot]

I would definatly never go for a USB capture device, I've read about tons of dropped frames in various reviews. I have a Pinnacle Systems "Studio PCTV" PCI board that works pretty ok, and there are XP drivers available online. You need to have a 100% free PCI slot sharing no resources with other devices (both IRQ and DMA free) for it to work flawlessly otherwise you'll get dropped frames. Videocapturing, even from a TV-board, simply takes a lot of bandwidth.

 

[AarontheJC]

Thanks for the IRQ tip. I'll remember that when I get a card. I'm really boggled why there would be so many USB connections if USB is an inferior interface. It all boils down to money and to the consumers you are targetting, I imagine. Where did you get your StudioPCTV?

 

[funnyperson1]

look out for USB 2.0 though, methinks its better than PCI....

 

[Ice_Gargoylle]

i wud think about getting one of those Dazzle packages at a store. I got a pci tv wonder and its not all its cracked up to be. I have limited video format and it has problems when used w/ my video editor.

Decide what u are gonna use it for and how u are gonna want to edit it /output it. Then look into cards for those options.

Plus i have issues w/ my 8500 and tv card, for some reason the tv locks up every once in awhile and i have to reboot.

The dazzle is way more, i think 300 here, but they also have other versions for under 100 that may siut your input better.

The tv cards are limited, the receive interlaced input, "TV" signal, so the best i can get is 640x280? i think in mp2 and a whopping 320x240 avi, not to good. Plus mp2 i have found to be very hard to work with in premier of all things, not supported, lol. so im forced to use avi.

 

[AarontheJC]

The tv cards are limited, the receive interlaced input, "TV" signal, so the best i can get is 640x280? i think in mp2 and a whopping 320x240 avi, not to good. Plus mp2 i have found to be very hard to work with in premier of all things, not supported, lol. so im forced to use avi.

Thanks much for that info. I am using Premier right now for my video editing (I only have a handful of videos that I got off our old editing machine to work with -since the old capture card was ISA), and I have an 8500 also, so thanks for letting me in on your problem. I was looking at this Canopus ADVC100, but it's $300 and I was really hoping to get away with spending under $100.

I'm looking into the dazzle cards now, but they're not looking too promising for my price range. I think I'm going to have to suck it up and lay out the cash for a better card...but I hope I can keep it down anyways.