HI......... Maybe you guys can help in selecting a high-performance "semi-pro" PCI board or USB stand-alone analog video capture device? My goal is to digitize my C-band analog satellite's "First Generation" video to the highest quality NTSC possible without going to professional equipment e.g. Matrox. The fine detail inherent in this video extends to 4.2 mhz or 330 horizontal lines. My other high bw analog NTSC sources are the Laser Disk at 5.8mhz / 450 lines, the S-VHS at 5mhz / 400 lines and the Sony DVD-Video player. In contrast, my low bw analog camcoders are VHS at 3mhz /235 lines and 8mm at 3.3mhz / 255 lines. A capture board intended for these won't cut it for the C-band satellite and my other high bw video sources. I have a TV test DVD that produces NTSC EAI Multibursts out to 5.75 mhz or 460 horizontal TV lines. A proper analog video capture device should encode this NTSC multiburst to at least 4 mhz with less than 2 db loss as viewed on an oscilloscope. My questions for any candidate analog capture device builder is: 1) Do any of your boards use luminance comb filters after video A/D? 2) Are any of your boards specified for NTSC EAI multiburst responce? 3) What is the video A/D sampling rate of your analog capture boards? So far Canopus, Hauppagegue, WSchip and Osprey have not answered satisfactorily or not at all. I've got a Plextor PX-402U USB converter that is a disappointment. I don't want to make the same mistake again. A comparison of Plextor and a professional Matrox ADC follows: As expected, the Plextor rolls off much worse then the Matrox. The first 2 bursts at .5mhz and 1.0mhz are about equal. At 2.0mhz 160lines, the Matrox is down .4db,the Plextor is down 1.33db At 3.0mhz 240 lines (vcr), the Matrox is down .58db, the Plextor is down 5.55db At 4.1mhz 328 lines(c-band), the Matrox is down 1.57db, the Plextor is down 10.65db At 5.75mhz 460lines (laser disk), the Matrox is down 5.8db, the Plextor is down 19.7db How can I be sure the selected capture device will meet my expections? Thanks for any meaningful responce.............TomComm
Well For the Highest Quality Video Captures From a Variety of Sources I would Recomend the "Canopus ADVC-300" (Or the ADVC-110 if you are on a Tight Budget).... Most Analogue Capture Cards use a 8Bit,9Bit,10Bit or 12Bit decoder Chip but the Canopus ADVC-110/300 units use a 24 Bit Video decoder and use the one of the Industries Highest Quality Hardware DV Encoders Chips and also the ADVC-300 Model has Hardware 2D/3D Image Filters and Line Filters and has a Built in Line TBC and Captures up to 525 Lines of Resolution in NTSC.... These Devices are "Professinal Equipment" But at a Non-Professinal Price and they are Arguably better devices than the Matrox RT but without the Built in Editing effects which aren"t needed these Days with the Hardware accelerated effects that come with Most Good NLE"s.... These Devices Capture your Video to High Quality DV AVI format which is the Best editing format and are Compatible with all NLE"s.... The Canopus ADVC-110 sells for about $250 US but doesn"t have the Image Filters that the ADVC-300 has and the ADVC-300 goes for about $450 US.... I"m sure if you go to the Canopus Web site you can Find a PDF with all of the Specs you need on the Canopus Devices..... Cheers
Thanks Minion.......The Canopus ADVC 110 and 300 seem to be right up there in AD resolution and quality hardware encoder and hardware decoder. Since I'm strictly after video capture of high bandwidth NTSC TV, I would choose the ADVC 110 as you suggested. The only real problem I have with Canopus is their complete non response to my inquires concerning the 110/300's analog video capture bandwidth. Surely they know what that is and if they don't (highly unlikely) it's a trivial matter to measure it with a Test DVD ($49) and a lab oscilloscope as I did with the Plextor. So why the secrecy? Tiger Direct has the ADVC 110 for $240 with a 30 day money back guarantee! It's worth the shipping to do my own risk free evaluation. BTW: Matrox has the RT.X10 HW for $399 and they publish a video frequency sweep out to 6mhz for both the RT.X10 and the Canopus. The RT.X10 is signifigantly better, but is it $150 better? TomComm
