Iam trying to transfer some old video tapes to either vcd or dvd using a Belkin videobus device via the usb port.The capture works but the quality of the video on computer screen is quite poor.I have tried the supplied software( MGI videowave)and ULEAD DVD factory and the result is the same.The computer iam using is a Pentium 4 2.66,512 ram,80g hard drive,LG DVD recorder.The camera is a Sony with Video 8 tapes.Can somebody tell me if iam wasting my time with the gear i'm using and if so what to use.Iam new to this and would be thankfull for any help. cheers.
Well Firstly the belkin Video Bus USB device is not a very good quality device so you will never get very high quality from it..the MGI Video Wav software is pretty Crappy also for Capture quality if you are captureing directly to Mpeg format...I would suggest you try captureing to an AVI format useing a Codec like the HuffYUV codec or the PicVideo Mjpeg codec and see if that quality is any better...If the Quality is better and you want to make a DVD out of the captured files then you will have to encode your Captured file to Mpeg2 for DVD, If the Quality is still crap then it is because your capture device isn"t very good.... PCI capture cards are Much better than USB ones and they are Cheaper so you should look for a PCI Capture card that uses a 10Bit decoder Chip and then you will be able to capture higher quality files....
Firstly thanks for the quick reply.Ithink Iam chasing my tale persisting with this unit and you have pretty much confirmed this.The quality of the finished product is very important to me and looks like another card and new software as you suggest is the answer.Once again thanks for the help. Cheers Browny2
Belkin VideoBus II AUDIO capture problem I've been using the Video (BUT WITHOUT AUDIO) capture facility quite well for a few months - to capture images etc. So far so good. Now I'd like to capture audio as well, but it isn't working. I mean there is no audio preview at all or proper audio capture - no matter what application program I use - MGI VideoWave, Windows Movie Maker, or even Windows Sound Recorder. Windows XP assures me that the Audio Capture device is working normally. The VideoBus drivers are not signed by Microsoft for windows but I guess it must be possible to get it to work with XP. I tried downloading the Windows XP driver from the Belkin website (two versions are given, actually both seem to use the same audio device files it seems). It made no difference. I get a weird effect when I try to record sound. Short bursts of sound of less than half a second are recorded - once every 5 seconds or so - and the bursts are added together in the file. So recording say one minute of sound gives a file of sound bursts lasting maybe 4 seconds or so. What on earth is going on? And can it be fixed. It goes without saying that I could record sound from a microphone listening to the TV speakers etc. and by-pass the VideoBus for audio capture - but the sound quality would be dreadful. PS. I found someone else, on another forum, Tech Support Guy, had a similar problem - here's a link to that post - http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?p=1748133#post1748133 PPS. Hey, I found yet another guy with the same problem, this time on VideoHelp - http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=162974
