Futuretel REAL TIME MPEG-2 ENCODER-Is this good?

[Deepa DvD]

I got a deal on this Real-Time MPEG2 Encoder for $550 USD. I read somewhere the original cost for neew one is around $21k USD. That's a lot of big savings for me. :) So this card isn't used that much and I called the company Futuretel and now the company stopped making these boards. Here's a attachment of a pic.

Thanks in Advance for any advice or inputs!!! :)

[Arky]

I just knew that the name 'Futuretel' rang a bell with me :) , and here's why:

http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

(Futuretel NS 325 - if you have been offered a different model then this information is not necessarily relevant, so beware. In all likelihood, Futuretel made several different boards).

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"This is a good example of the work of talented engineers. How is it possibile that this company was able to build so excellent an encoder with a C-CUBE DVXpert chipset? Why can't other companies do it? Well, we find that this board encodes very good quality mpeg, in spite of the source being a bit noisy. Because the company does not have any DV playback device, we were forced to copy the test avi file to Beta tape then send that to them. This copy added some analogue noise to the original video, but the encoder solved the problem greatly - without using any filtering possibility. The only thing we found wrong with the color fidelity was that the result is a bit red - but we suppose that this is just a setting problem. We are sure that with good quality sources the NS 325 creates very good quality stream. Our last information is this company went bankrupt, this is a real pity."
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In my opinion, if the board is fully functional (I must admit I am confused as to why it is being sold on so cheap, after such a major initial investment...), then $550 would be worthwhile risk because you could very probably get your money back by auctioning it on eBay, if need be.


Arky ;o)

[Deepa DvD]

Thanks Arky!!! I found it on Ebay and won it. The seller wants Paypal only. It has composite inputs for video. XLR (or sometin) for the Audio.

Thanks very much!!!
deePA