MPEG2 capture cards/devices

[Rahabib]

Hey guys, I ran a quick search but I didnt really find what I needed or it was a bit too dated.

I have been out of the DVD business for sometime now and just now starting to get some client interest in it again. However, I no longer have access to the Sonic Creator and capture hardware I once had. So now I need to find out what I can get for the money.

So I come to you guys to help me out. My project right now is just converting some vhs tapes to DVD for some company. I also put in a bid to another company for some DVD work with BetaSP masters (I have an SP deck already).

So what cards/adapters can I get thats best for the money. Id like to steer clear of capturing to one format (ie DV) and then converting - so native MPG2 capture cards are preferred. For both I guess I can get by with a high bit rate CBR, and if I have to go VBR, I can convert DV using software. For quick (yet good quality) DVDs is what I need the capture card for. But obviously I cant have any audio sync issues and drop frames. Not required but, a nice TV tuner that can also capture MPG2 good would be a bonus.

Are any of those cheap firewire/USB2 converters quality worth anything?

Thanks for any help/advice you can give me.

Thanks.

[Lester Burnham]

I've had reasonable success with a Hauppauge PVR-USB2.

Although I have had major annoyance with USB2 compatibility with certain cards / chipsets.

But the device itself, and the output, I've been pleased with.

Encoding in hardware, you can have custom profiles for the bitrate and other factors. I think you can capture up to either 12 or 15 mbps.

I tend to stick to USB1.1 limits and around 5.4-6.6 seems to be realistically the limit over a USB1.1 connection. Which is actually just fine for me, given how much I tend to want to go on a single layer disk.

You can use VBR or CBR, not sure about ABR though.

S-VIDEO is as good quality as you get for direct input - it's either S-VIDEO or composite. It's got an analogue tuner built in, although I've only ever played with that part purely for curiosity when I first got it.

All mpeg2 encoding is done in hardware by the device, and then sent over USB (USB2 ideally) to your PC.

There was some bundled software (editor, and authoring / burning package(s)) however, I use wintvcap (and wintvcap32) for capturing. VideoReDo for editing the captures. GUI_for_dvdauthor for authoring, and imgburn for burning. (Sometimes I use imgtools classic as a gui front end for mkisofs, for going from the DVD folders output of GUI_for_dvdauthor to ISO).

[Rahabib]

Thanks Lester.

Is there any good Internal capture cards out there? I think Ill probably get better quality and less drop frames from those but I could be wrong.

[Lester Burnham]

Thanks Lester.

Is there any good Internal capture cards out there? I think Ill probably get better quality and less drop frames from those but I could be wrong.

Well Hauppauge and others make PCI capture devices, too. I'm not loyal to that particular vendor, it's just that I'm reasonably familiar with their offerings, because of reading their forums dedicated to the device I have.

But as these and the USB one I have encode in hardware, you shouldn't get any dropped frames. The only time I've ever got dropped frames, is when I pushed the video bitrate a litttle too close to the limit of the USB1.1 connection mine uses. Using it at my now established, preferences when using USB1.1 and I don't get any.

Connected over USB2, you shouldn't get any, and be able to make use of the higher bitrates available.

The reason I chose a USB device over a PCI card, being that the source I was capturing from was a reasonable distance away from my PC - and using a USB device, I can just use a long-ish USB cable, rather than having to run long video (S-VIDEO) plus audio cables over that distance. Plus you can always use it with a laptop.