I'd love to get suggestions on how best to upgrade my hardware and software to improve the quality of the MPEG2 (DVD) and DivX output I capture from my Hi8 and VHS tapes. Background: I am currently capturing Hi8 and VHS to my PC using the video input port of my ATI Rage Fury Pro card in a 800mhz PC which has an Ultra-DMA33 hard disk controller. I capture using VirtualDub at 356x480 resolution and 'radio' quality audio (the best I can get without many dropped frames) and encode to MPEG2 using TMPGEnc which gets good results, but takes days to encode 2 hours of video using 2-pass VBR. I was thinking of upgrading to a reasonably hot processor and motherboard and serial ATA drive. >>Should I expect to be able to capture at 720x480 with CD quality audio? >>Should I get another video capture card or will the ATI Rage Fury Pro give good results? >>Would it be better to use a analog video -> digital video converter, such as the Canopus ADVC-100, and then capture it with firewire? >>Any other thoughts? Thanks, Ken
You can generally Capture at 720+480 to Mpeg2 with a PC at 2.0ghz and Faster but you will not get the Hottest Results with your Rage Fury pro as it is a Pretty Old Device, and ADVC-100 or a Canopus ACEDVio(Internal PCI Card) would be a Much better Upgrade... These Devices Capture to DV AVI so an ATA/33 Drive will ne be Fast enough to Capture DV AVI but an ATA100 or 133 drive would be But if you are Planning on Getting a Hot new System then you Might as well go for a Motherboard that has Sata Like the New Motherboard I bought last night which is a Really Fast Hot Smokin motherboard, it is the "Albatron 865PE Pro" motherboard that supports SATA and ATA/100 and has a Max Bus speed of 1266mhz and Robust OC Options, It supports the new Northwood and Prescot and Springdale P-4 CPU"s and Has Dual DDR Support up to 6gb and 6 Chanell Dolby Audio..This Board sells for up to $175 but I was able to get it for $75...well anyways good luck....Cheers
What difference will I notice if I use a ADVC-100 or ACEDvio instead of my old Rage Fury Pro card? The ADVC-100 and ACEDvio are about the same price. Do they do the same things and give the same results? I suppose since the ADVC-100 is an external unit it is a bit more flexible since I could more easily move it to another PC or lend it to a friend. I also found the "ADS Pyro A/V Link" which is cheaper- anyone have any thoughts on which I'd prefer? I haven't explored capturing DV input- do I do it with VirtualDub? Can anyone direct me to a good explanation of the process? Thanks a lot! Ken
You will Notice a Dramitic Increase In the Quality useing one of these Devices over your Rage Fury... These Devices are the Best in there Class and Use the Highest Quality Hardware DV encoder chip on the Market so it will Produce better quality than other Analogue Digital converters Like the ADS Pyro A/V Link and the Canopus Devices have Locked audio Support which means there is No chance of there ever being any Sync problems that you can get from other Capture devices.... To Capture from one of these Devices from a Firewire Port you will Need a Direct show Capture program so you can not use Virtual-Dub to capture with it but there are Howeve many other Programs that you can capture with, I suppose the Cheapest one would be Windows Movie Maker which is free but a Little Buggy and will only export your files in either WMV or DV AVI format so you might be better off getting one of thise Video Editing/Capture Programs to capture and edit with, they can also export your Files in Mpeg2 DVD Format..I personally use a program called Vegas Video 4 for all of my editing, It can Capture from Firewire devices and do fairly complex editing and export your Project as a DVD Compliant Mpeg2 file with Dolby AC3 audio that you just Author to DVD...It is a Pretty expensive software package as it is about the same cost as the ADVC-100 costs... You can also use something like WinDVR 3.0 to capture To DV AVI or Directly to Mpeg2....The capture proscess is Pretty much the same as doing it with your Rage Fury card accept the Video Is Compressed to DV AVI in the Device and Transfered to your Hard drive, you just have to use the Correct software to capture with.....well good luck
Thanks for everyone's input. I figure the PC/hard drive discussion is moot since I plan to get a reasonably fast new motherboard that supports SATA. I'll use my ATA133 drive with it, then get a SATA drive if I need to. The issue of my video capture device remains. I got conflicting opinions as to whether my Rage Fury Pro is worth keeping. Is there any reason I shouldn't continue to use it as my display adapter? Will the Canopus device give me better analog output to my TV? Explain the other Canopus devices, such as ADV-C50 or ADVC-1394. Why would I need DV input? If I get a DV cam, why would I run it through the Canopus device rather than direct to my PC?
If you have a DV Cam and Run it through something like the ACEDVio or the ADVC-100 it would just act Like a Plain Firewire port and Transfer the Digital Information to your Hard drive...It is when you are doing Analogie capture when the Card really Shines...The Capture Quality would Be Much supperior than your Rage card as I have a Simular Card and the Quality of these Devices is Much better than a Rage card...If your Camcorder has an Analogue Passthrough then you can use your Camcorder as the analogue/Digital Converter and get Simular quality cuz your DV Cam can act as a Digital converter but not all camcorders have this Feature...So it is up to how much the quality of your analoge captures is Important to you... The other devices you mentioned are all Basicly other versions of Analogue/Digital Converters but they all do the same basic thing Just some other have extra Bells and whistles.....Cheers
