Snazzi III PCI Quality, does it seem right?

[burnout]

I have just bought a Snazzi*III PCI (http://www.snazzi.com/newsite/pages/products/snazzipcievongold.asp) (EVO Series)

The quality seems a lot lower than people have been suggesting... am i doing something wrong in DVD Mill? does any1 else have any sample from it to compare with the ones below?

The image quality seems banded/grainy with little blue lines all over it. These were done at 8mbit DVD quality, and there doesn't seem to be any dropped frames. (colour saturation was a bit dodgy though)

Is this just the highest quality of the card then? only seems like vcd, wouldn't mind a card that can keep the quality of videos.

From Metropolis video:
http://www.freewebs.com/bbase/snazzi-metropolis.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/bbase/snazzi-spiderman.jpg

From digi TV
http://www.freewebs.com/bbase/snake.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/bbase/snazzi.jpg (sorry about channel :p)

Ask for any more info needed

Edit: Also just thought, could it be down to a bad cable/connection?

[BaronVlad]

Hi,

the last sentence is the best :)

What kind of connection do you have ? Composite ? Long cables ? I had the same problem... but next problem: If you switch to svhs, does your VCR support this ?
:(

[burnout]

using 10 meter S-VHS cable going into a scart adapter (because the s-vhs on TV might be input only? can't get a signal from it anyway). Using s-vhs on the back of the card as well.

Would it be the scart adapter, or the length of the cable? And would an s-vhs and audio to scart be a better choice instead of using the adapter? (guessing the adapter will have some loss? not too sure though)

Edit: Been testing other cables in the same setup and some just don't give an output, so i wouldn't know which to buy. Could also get away with 5m cable instead.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by burnout
using 10 meter S-VHS cable going into a scart adapter (because the s-vhs on TV might be input only? can't get a signal from it anyway). Using s-vhs on the back of the card as well.

Would it be the scart adapter, or the length of the cable? And would an s-vhs and audio to scart be a better choice instead of using the adapter? (guessing the adapter will have some loss? not too sure though)


the first 2 images look like poor (rented,beaten tape) vhs and others look like,well,digi tv...(hehe)

so count your source too,but it's true that this is pretty awfull:
i had people complaining about the adapters
i would avoid any adapters and use svhs->svhs if possible............
(adapter in itself is not evil if it's just use to connect some wires,but there are some funny adapters etc.)
if you must use svhs feed from the scart,then you have no choice,so use it..........
although you can be sure that svhs connection wil not make you an extra profit if vhs is concerned (where signal itself is composite etc.)
for vhs try composite connection (and see if shorter cables will help)

i have 6-7m long composite connection and it works excellent....

oups!
i see you wrote this:
>These were done at 8mbit DVD quality,

then i can only say:forget mpeg2 capturing and use some decent avi codec to make your source videos!
no wonder they are blurred!
so,it's your:source,adapter,long cable,capture codec.........

everything else is fine!(LOL!)

/ivo

[burnout]

the snazzi card can only use 1 program as far as i know (movie mill) :( so no avi output, just mpeg1 or 2

bought a 5m s-vhs to scart cable but it only captures in black and white (any ideas why?). bought this to try without an adapter, might try another s-vhs cable using an adapter to see if it can get colour.

any other cards about for £150 in UK that get decent quality which can capture to avi?

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=325265#post325265


>>the snazzi card can only use 1 program as far as i know (movie mill)

yes,mfr's web suggests it's mpeg only....too bad...




>any other cards about for £150 in UK that get decent quality which can capture to avi?



how about buying some dirty cheap, used bt8x8 card just to compare it to mpeg2 capturing of snazzi.....
(there are people rebellling against some noise patterns on newest CX chipset (cx bought bt) and bt8x8 is tested over and over...i think dar1us was not so pleased with it too....here
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51968 )

[burnout]

thanx for the reply again, sorry it's been a while, but i've been reading up and testing new cables. There are only black and white problems for me when using s-vhs and audio (when u remove audio it goes back to colour). I have bought some shorter cables now and had a fiddle with colour settings and it seems to be capturing at the original video quality :)

thanx for your help