Capture card, don't understand what I need

[fasttoon]

Hi all,

I want to convert vhs tapes and I also want to record tv shows.

I notice there are 2 chips that are used conextant and phillips, there are a few other cards that don't tell what type of chip they use. Are they any other chips used? And what is the advantage/disadvantage of either chip

I see 8 bit, 9 bit, 10 bit used in the description, what is the difference? and how would it affect capturing, post editing, etc?

Hardware vs software card, I would assume hardware is better for cpu use. Is there any other advantage for hardware card?

What other sites/resources/books/etc would be recommended?

And is there other alternatives to capture card?

I've been looking at the Plextor convertx, Leadtek tv2000xp, Kworld hardwarempegtv xpert, Compro videomate tvpvr and a few other cheap cards. The Plextor is expensive but sounds good, the others are cheap and sound good too. What should I be looking at to compare the different brands and models?

My system spec if that helps

Shuttle an35n ultra, mobile xp oc to 2ghz 400fsb
Geil Dual channel 2x512mb
Samsung sata raid
Geforce4 5500
SB audigy
windows 2000 sp4
xandros v3

Will use this one for vhs conversion, tv recording, fm recording if the card allows, and viewing.


Soyo SY600 dragon plus v2.0
Kingston HyperX Dual channel 2x512mb
Samsung sata
Geforce2
on board via sound
Windows 2000 sp4
xandros v3

Will use this one for fm recording if the card allows and viewing, mainly for viewing and seldom for capturing or conversion.

Thanks for your help.

[CityK]

[Kind of doubt fastoon is still around, but nonetheless] All these questions revolve around analog capture cards and, as such, this thread should be moved to the other forum.

[fasttoon]

now why would you say that?

guess you don't have a clue.

and if it's in the wrong forum I would appreciate a mod moving it to the right forums, thanks mod(s)

[fasttoon]

btw I did get one card Kworld VS-LTV7131R Phillips 7131 chipset, couldn't find any info on this card at the website and very little on the web, took a chance because of the price ($15) and it's a very good card.

FM is very clear and the recording is fantastic, not too sure on the TV side because I got another FM antenna and converted to VHF/UHF, only channel 9 comes in very clear and in recording there is interference, play back shows the interference as well, it's wavy static lines from the top 1/3 of the screen, the remote works very well with a lot of access to the features including time shifting.

I'm going to buy a larger FM attenna maybe 12ft+ or maybe build my own VHF/UHF attenna. (in condo and can't have attenna outside, don't have cable, rabbit ears is an eyesore, the other tv's are ok with rabbit ears because it's hidden behind tv's, which is why FM because of flexibility, wrap around window sill, along baseboard, which ever gives better reception.)

Haven't tried VHS conversion yet so don't know how that will be.

I'm still looking for another card, right now I'm looking at the Phillips 7133/34/35 and the conexant CX2388X, not sure which brand I'll get.

So the original questions are still valid and another question, does anyone know of a good retail attenna that is not an eyesore or advice on how to construct a flexible dipole attenna for my purpose? Thanks for any answers.

[CityK]

now why would you say that?1) The bulk of your post surrounds analog sources, questions about analog decoder chips, and then you mention several analog capture cards.

2) Analog decoder chips play no part in the "capture" of digital signals. In a digital card design, the decoder chip serves only to be a conduit for the demodulated transport stream to get onto the PCI bus (i.e it acts as a bridge chip). The only possible way that the decoder could impact operation within a digital design is if it couldn't accomodate the symbol rate of the transport stream ... not currently much of a concern, and may never be (although its possible it may affect older sat cards). You can read about symbol rates in the MPEG2 section on the TSReader site if you wish.

I notice there are 2 chips that are used conextant and phillipsThe connexant cx2388x and philips 713x families of ADC decoders are very popular choices for both analog and digital cards.

there are a few other cards that don't tell what type of chip they use.Likely the older, yet still highly ubiquitous, BT878A, a design that is now owned by Connexant through purchase.

Are they any other chips used? Yes, several. For example, the ATI RT200; Nvidia personal cinema type cards tended to use philips 711x or 717x decoders; Hauppauge hardware cards which tend to use Connexant ADC coupled with a connexant mpeg endcoder; the new multipurpose ATI 550 etc etc etc...

And what is the advantage/disadvantage of either chipPertaining to the CX2388x vs 713x, you aren't likely to see much difference between the two on an end user basis...there will likely be opinions about each in the capture forum, and likely examples of capture qualities obtained with different card's bearing those chips.
I doubt that there is anything significant between the processing stages of either that would trump one over the other. But, if it so pleases you, the datasheets for both chips are publically available, so you can puruse through them if you so please.
Both are well supported in Windows and Linux.

I see 8 bit, 9 bit, 10 bit used in the description, what is the difference? and how would it affect capturing, post editing, etc?In terms of a tv signal, analog decoders take the cvsb signal handed to it by the demodulator and provide ADC decoding of the signal into an RGB or YCrCb bit stream (also more widely known, yet technically incorrect, as an YUV bitstream...you can find a possible explaination of why computer video people created this confusion on fourcc).

The 8, 9, 10 bits that you see in specs refers to the bit depth of the constituent parts of component signal that results from the ADC. In other words, how many bits are used to describe each part of the now digital video signal. The greater the depth, the more accurate a representation of the original signal you will tend to get in the digitized signal, although final quality is dependent upon the processing stages of the ADC itself and other factors like tuning, demodulation, background emf noise etc etc...the old saying "garbage in, garbage out" is just as much prevalent here as it is applicable elsewhere.

Whether or not you would discern a differnece between a capture produced by a 10 bit decoder vs a 12 bit decoder or even vs a 8 bit decoder is also a matter of your display and video cards capabilities. I'll leave it up to you to delve into that theory. I will note however that as newer decoder chips are released with higher and higher bit depths, such improvements go hand in hand with improvements in the various processing stages as well as improved circuitry in other parts of the cards...

Hardware vs software card, I would assume hardware is better for cpu use. Is there any other advantage for hardware card?In the analog realm, hardware cards only perform MPEG2 encoding (although, come to think of it, I believe there are a couple of capture devices (as opposed to cards) that can perform realtime hardware MPEG 4 ASP capture ... plextor comes to mind). Anyways, after the decoder chip digitizes the signal, it either passes it off to the host processor (software cards) or to an on card encoding chip (hardware cards....although you can by pass this stage with some card's drivers and run it as if it were a software card if you so choose). Having dedicated encoding hardware will, as a result, alleviate the "burden" of encoding the digital stream into a mpg2 file.

Hardware cards are big with the PVR/htpc crowd and with those who are not too concerned about generation loss when editing a lossy compression format ...if they happen to want to edit the material later. Many are happy that they can fairly easily authour the material to dvd.

Software cards offer a greater degree of flexibility for capture formats and allow for the highest possible quality via capturing with loseless codecs, and then editing / filtering without a generation loss before saving the material in a more suitable compression format.

What other sites/resources/books/etc would be recommended?Doom's analog capture forum, Doom's analog capture guide, AVSforums, htpcnews, dscaler, tv-cards, ....

And is there other alternatives to capture card?You could get an VIVO video card and hook your VCR up to it via svideo....but its the same principle as a tvtuner/capture card (i.e. it will contain an decoder chip, just sans the tuner)

guess you don't have a clueI actually was going to reply last saturday, but didn't have the time ... as you can see, it takes a while to provide even half ass answers just a few of your questions.

(After doing the same to another thread earlier today,) I saw that your thread was still here, so I just decided to give it a nudge in hopes that a moderator would place it in its rightful forum. I really didn't expect you to still be around. To my surprise you were.

However, I really didn't appreciate that one comment. Its either a poor choice of words on your part or a smartass remark. Nonetheless, I proceeded under the assumption that your net-ettiquette was less then desirable only due to the misfortunate of the former. But I've come to the point where I'm tired and have lost interest. Hopefully a mod will move the thread and maybe someone else can help you with some of the remaining questions. I would, however, highly recommend you utilize the search feature.

[fasttoon]

Wow!

That is a big help.

Thanks. Appreciate the time you took to post.