Video capture cards with hardware encoder suggestions?

[idigvb]

I'd like to transfer vhs tapes to dvd. So far I've been using an 878-based capture card, encoded and authored on the PC. Although I've read that hardware encoders probably produce lower quality mpeg-2, I would like to try it out for time-savings reasons.
I've been reading reviews on several capture cards with hardware encoding, most of the reviews were conflicting too.
I'm looking at cards in the $100 range give-or-take $20. Does anybody have any experiences with MPEG-2 capture cards to share?

[Mug Funky]

my DVB-T card does hardware mpeg encoding, and for VHS purposes it looks alright.

remember that VHS has far less detail than you think it has. but you'll want an encoder that's good with noise. mpeg-2 has been around long enough that decent encoding can be got for a good price. but the only mpeg-2 card i'm really familiar with does not come at a good price at all (and isn't made any more).

perhaps a standalone DVD recorder is the best bet - you can replace a VCR and back up all your old tapes in 1 fell swoop.

[tigerman8u]

I got a stand alone dvd recorder friday but haven't used it yet so can't comment on it. I have had good results with my ATI AIW which is a hybred (software and hardware) encoder. Hauppage produces a good hardware encoder

[spuddog]

I use Intervideo's Windvd Recorder to software capture mpg2 with an ATI TV WonderVe (bt878 card). It works ok for me. Are you backing-up commercial VHS or home?

[idigvb]

Thanks for the replies.
I'm backing up home videos and I still have at least 50 hours worth of tapes to go...
It's a hassle to get audio/video sync and I'm opting to go for a hardware encoder solution, which I presume do not show this kind of problem.

[Div_X Factor]

If you are experiencing synch issues i would recommend an ati theatre550 based card.It processes the audio onboard rather than passing it to the pc sound chip so has no synch issues :-)

[Inc]

I use Intervideo's Windvd Recorder to software capture mpg2 with an ATI TV WonderVe (bt878 card)
Normally, Bt878 Cards do capture as known using about 52.000µs which almost equals 640x480 (648x486) in NTSC.
So it would be interesting HOW WinDVD does treat the incoming raw signal for ending up in a 720x576 mpeg2 capture. Means do you recognise in the final mpeg2 output black borders on the right and left side?
Or more precise: Could you do the SAP->ToCapture Test explained in the Doom9 Capture guide for determing the resulting active area of the captureCrad/Driver/CaptureApplication combination ... that would be very helpful :) Thanx

Some time ago I made a test using WinDVD on a SAA7134 Card and on a 720x576 PAL result the outputted stream ended up in an almost generic PAR encoded mpeg2 (52.1482µs->53.333µs). I dont know if that Bug still exists in newer versions of WinDVD.

[spuddog]

That's the reason I asked whether it was a commercial or home capture. Most of the capturing I do is from Broadcast TV, so I normally capture 1/2 d(which is dvd compliant). I don't Know how higher resolutions are handled.

[Qjimbo]

If you are experiencing synch issues i would recommend an ati theatre550 based card.It processes the audio onboard rather than passing it to the pc sound chip so has no synch issues :-)
Yeah, I bought a WinTV PVR-150 a while ago and was totally disillusioned when I got framedrops even though it had a hardware encoder! I resold the thing for the price I got it instantly and stuck with my ATI TV Wonder PCI. Don't miss it at all though as I've recently come across an excellent program called VirtualDub_Sync ( http://www-user.rhrk.uni-kl.de/~dittrich/sync/ ) which uses really good maths to avoid framedrops. I now cap 720x480 at 8000kbps (0 MSP and 0 VHQ) Xvid or Lagarith and then re-encode to MPEG-2 DVD quality.

But yeah I've heard the Theater Cards are rock solid if you want hardware MPEG encoding.

[birdie_in_texas]

i bought one of the "bargain" cards..$38 for an ATI All-in-Wonder 9200...has 128MB Ram..so i figured it would be ok..

i don't guess there is anyway to make it "ok" is there..? it does capture from the camcorder, but the files are ungodly huge and the size is teeny tiny..i am sure it is just me not knowing..but what would you all recommend as a replacment...?

there is bound to be an awesome "real" bargain out there somewhere..right?

[gary_hendricks]

Hi idigvb,

I suggest that you go with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR250.

Why so? Because this is quite simply the best value video capture card with a hardware MPEG2 encoder. In my own experience, the pictures that you obtain from this card are clear, sharp and have no dropped frames. Far better than the previous ATI tuner cards that I had.

One drawback of the Hauppauge is that their software is totally lousy. I don't think they've updated their software for a long, long time. It's full of bugs, slow and a pain to use. Get a better software (a nice one is Snapstream BeyondTV) and you'll have a much easier time.

Speaking about performance, the WinTV PVR250 is certainly way better than any of those cheaper TV cards you see in the market. If you comapre the rate at which your CPU gets utlized while recording programs, you'll see that the The PVR250 uses less than 5% CPU whenever it is recording.

One tempting thing to do when buying the PVR250 is to go for the more pricey PVR-350. Don't do it! The only difference (to me) is that the PVR350 has a MPEG decoder/TV-out. Is it a good thing? No way! Because the decoder can only take Hauppauge software which is crap (see below).

The nice thing about this card is that it comes with a nice gray remote control. If you have other Personal Video Recorder applications like BeyondTV - the remote control works with them too. Some users might find the short range a bit irritating though.

So all in all, if you want to capture video from the TV with a minimum of hassle, then you should consider this card. It does cost more than those cheap TV cards - but you get great quality and performance.

Let me know if I can be of further help :)

[DrP]

Before you rush out and buy a PVR250, you should read this forum (http://www.shspvr.com/smf/). Note that the PVR150 is actually a newer (and some say far superior) card.

[CWR03]

birdie_in_texas, you will need to update the drivers. More than likely you used the ones on the included CD, which are badly out-of-date. Once you get the latest software you'll find that you have many presets, including DVD-compliant MPEG-2, that are good quality and reasonable size.