Advise please for a new guy looking to make his first captures on hardware

[Jynks]

Hi there...

There is so much choice around and I have no idea how to narrow it down I was hoping that you can help me... So far I have got VHS 2 DVD 3 using "Vid Box Nx3' but it was total trash and I took it back... so I was hoping that you could advise me on what hardware I should get.

Here is the deal

I wish to use the capture device on my laptop.. so I guess a USB2 or firewire connecting device...

My laptop specs

Camppaq Persario C700 Notebook
Intel Celeron 560 @ 2,13 GHz 2.12 GHz
2 GB Memory
32 Bit Vista

I know this is not very hardcore... but I was hoping there would be a solution for me. I have a duel quad core wizz bang workstation in the office... but I need the capture device to run on the laptop so I can have it in the lounge room and stuff. So I was thinking that I can encode it on that and just capture a video stream on the laptop so there is no frame drops due to processor lag as it trys to encode on the fly.

If possible I would like the capture device to work like my old VCR... as in the video and audio go into the device then out of the device into the TV and stereo.. is that possible?


Anyway these are my thoughts.... do you have any suggestions?

[Jynks]

<bump>

not a single card is worth getting?

[BigDid]

Hi,

Kwowns brands manufacturing capture cards (PCI) also have USB2 models Hauppauge, Pinnacle, Leadtek etc..
Some choices: http://www.videohelp.com/capturecards?CaptureCard=&searchconnection=USB2&price=&orderby=Name&hits=50&Submit=Search&Search=Search

I went from a leadtek PCI to a HD-DVD recorder so no experience on the subject.

Did

[Ghitulescu]

<bump>

not a single card is worth getting?
At the time, only really expensive cards, say above 500€, would have any merits. And that's not the end of the story.

You need also a TBC to correct the analog video from your VCR and maybe an audio mixer, since the VHS sound is not really good.

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There is no software that replaces a good hardware. All the software producers LIE about their products. You'll need hours of "cleaning" the videos, because of bad quality hardware, and sometimes the damages cannot be avoided/repaired.

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Have you read the sticky: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/start.html

[Ghitulescu]

There is no software that replaces a good hardware. All the software producers LIE about their products. You'll need hours of "cleaning" the videos, because of bad quality hardware, and sometimes the damages cannot be avoided/repaired.


I remember a programm I've seen long time on ARD (the first public channel in Germany).

A guy wanted to copy an old VHS tape to DVD. The tape was not perfect, but also had some dropouts, jitter, the whole stuff. He used 3 methods:
Method 1: Bought a software for PC, something like VHS2DVD or similar.
Result: awfull, worse than the original, even after hours of processing.
Method 2: he bought a VCR-DVDRecorder combi.
Result: Better, because the VHS part of the combi was better than his old VCR he used in method 1. Already a hint ...;)
Method 3:he went to a specialised service, where he paid some 3€ per minute.
Result: better than the original, no drop-outs, no jitter, no vertical shakings, better colours.

Why? Because the service used a VCR with DynamicTracking that corrected the track missalignements, had a better video quality overall, used a TBC to correct the timing errors and a video color corrector (hardware).