Capture Hardware Advice + DVD authoring Advice.

Jynks

Can somone please help me out with some information on TV capture cards?

I am totaly in the dark about them and would apreciate any sugestions for a good card.

What I am planning on doing is converting my video tape collection into DVD-R's, nothign to fancy just a version of the flicks that will not degrade as fast as the video tape.

Also interested in being able to record directly off the TV into the computer.

Can somone sugest a good capture card and possibly tell me a bit about how they work... I assume they record into some kind of uncompressed format or somthing so they can capture real time, do they have res limits? How much room dose a avrage film take up on Hdrive directly after capture? questions like that.

Polityk · **Posted:** Thu Apr 08, 2004 1:40 pm **Post subject:**

Please, don't use tags in topic title.

Jynks · **Posted:** Thu Apr 08, 2004 1:50 pm **Post subject:**

wat is a tag in topic title?

Polityk · **Posted:** Thu Apr 08, 2004 1:52 pm **Post subject:**

I meant things like "[Rel]", "-Q", etc.

We don't use them since the very placement of a post in the appropriate section suggests its nature and general content.

That's also why we don't put "Please:", "Looking for..." or "Has anyone got..." in the request sections thread titles.

Jynks · **Posted:** Thu Apr 08, 2004 3:33 pm **Post subject:**

gotch ya

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:54 am **Post subject:**

I'm a fan of DV bridges, it's what I used to capture this:
http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic.php?t=3679
and you can read about it here:
http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic.php?t=576

Problem is with capturing from VHS and TV, you'll always have to re-encode to deinterlace and clean up the source. If you can get something that does a highquality mpeg2 stream, you'll still have to reauthor if you want to deinterlace (if you plan on playing it back *solely* on tv, then you don't have to, but its best to anyway).

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:40 am **Post subject:**

I use a Pinnacle card and I get 0 lost frames with it.It's a PCI addon that works great.Spud is right though,still need to deinterlace and re-encode into whatever format you choose.I generaly cap in morgan jpeg format and then re-encode in Divx and crop using vdub.Would use gnot for that but it crashes out on me trying to load the huge avi file.Oh yeah,make sure you got a ton of HD space,at least 40gb free for a 90 minute movie..with morgan codec I get about a 90 minute down to 20 to 30 gb,but if you use Huffyuv it will be alot bigger,and uncompressed format is huge.
When I capped using my Gforce 4600 I would get a minimum of 100 lost frames for each movie,that is tolerable but it should be better..radeon has some good stuff out in the cap market,but personally I would go for one of the pinnacle cards..you really can't go wrong with it.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:35 am **Post subject:**

Quote:

but it crashes out on me trying to load the huge avi file

Try this:

Code:

#  SOURCE
avisource("F:\capture\Monster.Squad.avi") 

Where its your avi and path name are in the "". Then save it as 1.avs and load that into Gknot. If i have problems loading an avi, that seems to work which is a bizarrety that its best not to think about :lol:

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:37 am **Post subject:**

From a vhs this normally work best then:

Code:

# Spud Capture Script
#  PLUGINS
LoadPlugin("D:\Programs\Video\Encoding\GordianKnot\mpeg2dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("D:\Programs\Video\Encoding\GordianKnot\undot.dll")
LoadPlugin("D:\Programs\Video\Encoding\GordianKnot\decomb.dll")
LoadPlugin("D:\Programs\Video\Encoding\GordianKnot\Convolution3d.dll")

#  SOURCE
avisource("F:\capture\1.avs")
ConvertToYV12()

#  CROPPING
crop(16,4,692,568)

#  DEINTERLACING (1)
FieldDeinterlace()

#  RESIZING
BicubicResize(640,480,0,0.5)
#
Undot()
#
#  DENOISING: choose one combination (or none)
#  3) heavy noise
Convolution3d("movielq")

Your cropping and resize will be different depending on the source though, ConvertToYV12() converts the RGB source to YV12 colour format.

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2004 8:28 pm **Post subject:**

I'll give that a try on my next cap then spud...I would rather use gnot rather then plain out vdub anyways...didn't think about making the avs out of it..thanks for the tip :beerchug:

Jynks · **Posted:** Tue Apr 13, 2004 10:17 pm **Post subject:**

This is a ll a little techy for little old me....

Um can I mabey ge tsome definitions and soem hardware to look at?

John_Doe · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 5:55 am **Post subject:**

Hey, I'm also looking into this now and am currently considering buying one of these:

eMagic USB 2.0 Audio/Video Box 704x576 25 fps fullscreen video capture
http://www.emagictech.com.tw/pv326ch-1.htm
I like that it's external and USB, so I can take it with me if need be. It has support for s-vhs and a composite which is what I need. And the prize is very nice. 600,- nok (aprox divide by 10 to get ? or $)
The downside is that it's only compatible with the bundled software as far as I understand.

Hercules DV Action DVD Videoediting PCI, Firewire
http://europe.hercules.com/showpage.php ... show=2&f=1
Spud recomended DV bridges? I have no idea what that is, but this is the cheapest one I found (350,-) but it don't have any of the s-vhs or composite sockets.

Terratec Cameo Grabster videograbber
http://productsen.terratec.net/modules. ... 6&menu=309
Scored rather high in an Norwegian test. Is supposedly fully compatible with all software. High quality. also external, so I can carry it around if I want to. Prize is a little higher though 850,-

One more question though, monkey mentioned that I'd need a macrovision descrambler or something or I wont be able to capture anything?? It doesn't say anything aboot this in any of the tests I've read..?

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 5:59 am **Post subject:**

He's right if your source has macrovision on it..like alot of vhs tapes do.But if you are grabbing from old horror tapes then most of the time it doesn't.

John_Doe · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:20 am **Post subject:**

I want to grab lots of different shit.... But where the hell do I get ahold of one of those descramblers here in norway?

and any advice on which of those I listed above to buy?

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:55 am **Post subject:**

Well, the Hercules looks good..although I am not a big fan of them..got a few of their cards in the past and definatley spotty results.I wouldn't go usb with it either like the first one you put up..better to have it directly in..now the 3rd one looks pretty much like the first..a little different but pretty much the same.I beleive ATI bought out hercules sometime ago so they may have upped their standards..The reason I went hercules in the first place was like you said it was cheap And those were low grade cards to begin with.But that one looks a hell of alot like my Pinnacle and as I said before...I couldn't have asked for a better card.
http://www.videoguys.com/studiodeluxe.html
bastards knocked off about 100 bucks off it from when I bought it

Seems that is the way of all things for me...they have version 9 out now too..probably a pretty penny but you may want that instead..no idea if the card is upgraded but if it is just the software then go for 8 and just download version9 like I am about to do :wink:

At any rate the hercules looks alot like that one I showed...so you may do better with that...keep shopping and checking specs..good luck man :beerchug:

John_Doe · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:59 am **Post subject:**

what's bad with usb?

Jynks · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 8:28 am **Post subject:**

Are there any issuses like marcovision with dubbing from cable TV?

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:00 am **Post subject:**

John_Doe wrote:

what's bad with usb?

he's right, you do NOT want USB 1.0. USB 2.0 is "okay" but vastly inferior to firewire which is, as any digital camera owner should know the industry standard AKA. the bizz for video capture.

Much faster than even USB2.0. Why do you want a fast interface? Reduced frame drops and higher quality. So for a DV bridge I'd grab a firewire model, I'm using the Dazzle Hollywood DV bridge, but you should be able to get something better nowadays.

Quote:

Are there any issuses like marcovision with dubbing from cable TV?

Don't know what country u r from, but in the uk, only payperview is macrovision.

Lots of DV bridges can demacro on the fly, I haven't needed to since my old vhs player did it anyway, but i suspect I'll find out sometime since my newer player probably wont

John_Doe · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 4:38 pm **Post subject:**

bahh... I get a headache from all this. =)

I've read a little up on that dv bridge and I guess it would be rather nice since I'm considering buying a DV camera in thailand. but the price seams over the top though. aint there a cheaper alternative?

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Apr 14, 2004 4:54 pm **Post subject:**

a ?7 vcr from the guy at the pub and pretend its good quality?

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