Recommended Video Capture for Newbie

[Vertigo50]

Ok, I would love a recommendation on a video capture card. Here are my requirements.

1. I want to convert VHS tapes to SVCD and burn them to 2 or 3 cd's each. (I've used DVD2SVCD program and like the VBR option for high quality, and I would like to be able to split movies at certain points for the disc switching.) Maybe I'm dreaming, but we'll see.

2. I want to be able to convert VHS or DVD or some other "analog" source to maybe some other formats like AVI, and be able to edit them somewhat. (I'm a film composer, and need a way to get video in the digital realm for synchronization purposes.)

3. I'm looking to spend under $100. I know this might be low, but that's about what I have to work with.

I've been looking at the AverDVD EZmaker kit, and have heard that pairing it with Ulead Mediastudio gives good results. What does anyone think of this card?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[dar1us]

Grr, sorry but all of these recco' threads are beginning to annoy me:)

Please search through (the last two months) and look for threads along these lines. Things have changed since two months ago, but not any greatly new, different and fancy cards have appeared.

Quickly, you may like to take a peek at the following.
WinFastTV 2000 or somthing like that
MSI TV@nywhere (seems to work quite well)
FlyVideo cards (Phillips 7134 Decoder)
any cards with the following decoders should be nice, they are the latest decoder microchips from the top brands.
Phillips SAA7134 and
Conexant CX2388x (or CX881? I am confused by which it contains, something along those lines)
BT8x8, I think that is the product code.
All of them work quite well.

But please, look about the capture forum over the past two months for good threads on the subject.

[NeVeRLiFt]

ATI has some ok cards some people like them, and some hate them.
The AIW series is the best out of the bunch IMO. The WinFast cards good but for a good one you will pay over $100 but it's well worth it.
As for software I prefer CCE or TMPGEnc for encoding my VCD/SVCD/DVD's. Use Nero for most burning. For more advanced/features and adding stuff to your SVCD/DVD's I recommend Sonic ReelDVD and VegasVideo.

I would do alot research on the card you choose before getting it.

Good Luck ;)

[dar1us]

Problem with the ATI cards is that the technology they rely on is a little crooked.

Wasn't sure on the price of the winfast, it looked a little fancy for such a low price.

Though, I do give a good reccomendation to the MSI TV@nywhere.

[cjv]

Originally posted by dar1us
Problem with the ATI cards is that the technology they rely on is a little crooked.
Can you expand on this use of "crooked." Maybe it's a British thing. :)

cjv

[dar1us]

Probably, but yanks use it as well?!

Crooked: a crooked old house: kinda crappy really, falling to bits, everything at jaunty angles (odd angles). but not meant literally there

in this instance, I specifically meant old

hope this has enlightened you all

[NeVeRLiFt]

Before buying a ATI card or any for that matter do some research... ATI has not updated there drivers or software for some of there products in a very long time :(
I use a AIW based card and love it.
The TV wonders/ VE or others may not be as good.
One problem I know is something to do with the card only capturing with a 320x240 res or 640x240, etc... and people having to use open source driver for the bt878 chip that bypasses this (go to http://btwincap.sourceforge.net for more details).

and here is a nice thread at Rage3D thats addresses this problem
http://66.224.5.66/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33649342

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>Can you expand on this use of "crooked." Maybe it's a British thing


no,it's not the correct term:
it's SHIT*Y LITTLE PIECE OF WORTHLESS JUNK!
that's how it should be pronounced!LOL!

anyone that says AIW has acceptable quality should check their eyes
first.....

i can't name a device that has image blurred as ATI.......
(ohh yes i can:ATI with "noise reduction" ON...)

[cjv]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>Can you expand on this use of "crooked." Maybe it's a British thing


no,it's not the correct term:
it's SHIT*Y LITTLE PIECE OF WORTHLESS JUNK!
that's how it should be pronounced!LOL!

anyone that says AIW has acceptable quality should check their eyes
first.....

i can't name a device that has image blurred as ATI.......
(ohh yes i can:ATI with "noise reduction" ON...)
:D

[dar1us]

Blurrrraatron 5000 care of ATI (not a AIW) - TV Wonder VE, el noisarado!

You have to do a little SERIOUS (seriously bad) denoising from TMPGenc 1.2 i think. if you want anything out of that, the results are terrible. I will have to post some shows for laughs sake!

Here it WAS - VCD@850kbps (350 meg per episode, 2 on each CD, then I worked out you can VCD at 800 meg total:) - this was my FIRST EVER EVER EVER capture, capture card arrived about 2 hours before (2 hours tuning time:)

sorry it is attached, I cant connect to my webspace cos ISP cut me off until the 15th!! crappy BT



********HMM - ATTACH IS MESSED UP*******

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>Can you expand on this use of "crooked." Maybe it's a British thing


no,it's not the correct term:
it's SHIT*Y LITTLE PIECE OF WORTHLESS JUNK!
that's how it should be pronounced!LOL!

anyone that says AIW has acceptable quality should check their eyes
first.....

i can't name a device that has image blurred as ATI.......
(ohh yes i can:ATI with "noise reduction" ON...)

Using my AIW with Satellite S-video-in and iuVCR capturing with XviD @512x384 using the Cyberlink deinterlace filter (deinterlaced during the capture) is truely stunning quality and size ;)
Same goes for WMV9 and iuVCR capture's @320x240.
Sometimes use AVI_IO to.

For VCD/SVCD compliant captures that look very good I use MMC7.7
if you need to see samples to believe how nice the quality is then let me know and I upload you some.

[cjv]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
if you need to see samples to believe how nice the quality is then let me know and I upload you some.
That would be great. Not that we don't believe you, just we are trying to get as many different cards/sources/samples as possible. Could you possibly add them to the "Samples" thread, and list your hardware, capture app, etc? If you can't post any avi samples due to bandwidth limitations, some high-res PNG/JPEG framegrabs will do just as well.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39432



cjv

[NeVeRLiFt]

I have to give credit to this guy named Birdy about this filter and using it in iuVCR.

I was blown away with it :D

Before meeting Birdy and learning about this...
I was using AVI_IO and DivX5.02 Pro

http://www.csupomona.edu/~iwsnyder/mirror/index.html

This link should give the info you need to learn how and it has some samples to show the size/quality you can get with this. This method works well I guess.

As for iuVCR... at the time I was only using it for my WMV9 captures using a 320x240 resolution and getting some nice quality, maybe a little smooth thou but still pretty good for the size.

Then Birdy comes along and tells us iuVCR allows filter to be used during a capture and he has found this Cyberlink Deinterlace filter... and it works!! It works awesome take any codec in iuVCR and use this filter and capture and deinterlace on the fly during the capture.
We started using XviD and the results are crazy. Some very nice quality(better than SVCD and file size's ranging from 2.5 - 10mb depending on the scene's captured for the sample's.

I have some samples hosted here... not sure how long they will last thou so better grab them quick.

http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/index.asp?page=20

These are all straight captures took from my analog cable TV using my AIW Radeon. My cable TV is noisy and my captures show this(the SVCD one really shows this well)
Also have two DVDrip samples hosted there showing how good Nandub is with my settings ;)

Have fun!


And for some freaky quality... Birdy using his PAL based Satellite with S-Video-in shows off his captures here using XviD and the Cyberlink filter! Must be seen to be believed ;)

http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/index.asp?page=19

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
Using my AIW with Satellite S-video-in and iuVCR capturing with XviD @512x384 using the Cyberlink deinterlace filter (deinterlaced during the capture) is truely stunning quality and size ;)
Same goes for WMV9 and iuVCR capture's @320x240.
Sometimes use AVI_IO to.

For VCD/SVCD compliant captures that look very good I use MMC7.7
if you need to see samples to believe how nice the quality is then let me know and I upload you some.

ntsc people use xxx x 480 (or hdtv stuff as i see)
pal people use xxx x 576 (or do it in unproper way...)
i'm dloading few of the samples
(and will comment as i always do!without any pitty for the capturer....hehe just kidding.....)

are you ABSOLUTELY sure that mjpeg or huff won't yield you better results than XVID?
i mean really sure?
also does this mean you're capturing straight to XVID that will be burned to cdr's afterwards?
if so,may i ask have you tried capturing to intermediate format first and then converting to xvid or divx afterwards?
also.....have you tried using deinterlacers in post process and compared that to deint on the fly?
the things can be done in quick and dirty way,or in slow and proper way.........what would you say which one pleases the eye better?

save your eyes my friend.......some day you might need them!
staring at blurred video images is not recommended.....
(dr.Ivo....LOL!)

anyhow (completely OT) i have seen some of the worst things about this forum written by you neverlift,and (wait for it, wait for it!)
i agreed on that (!) ( i saw some snippets of that,not complete thing ) and i myself was tempted many times to write down that stuff and permanently depart from here.......
i still don't know what keeps me here.......
(it MUST be that i adore the mods!LOL!)

cheers

Ivo

[cjv]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/index.asp?page=20

These are all straight captures took from my analog cable TV using my AIW Radeon. My cable TV is noisy and my captures show this(the SVCD one really shows this well)
[/i]
This is quite good considering it's straight from analog cable to low-bitrate MPEG2. Much better than I could ever hope to achieve, which is why I have to capture to MJPEG then filter/encode.
And for some freaky quality... Birdy using his PAL based Satellite with S-Video-in shows off his captures here using XviD and the Cyberlink filter! Must be seen to be believed ;)
http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/index.asp?page=19
Downloaded the file "Birdy.avi." It appears the deinterlacing worked well, but I have never seen a high-res capture so blurry in my life! There must be some _massive_ noise reduction pre-filtering being used!?

cjv

[NeVeRLiFt]

I have captured to Mjpeg and Huffyuv and then encoded it to what I want. But capturing using iuVCR and the filter works so good there is no need really.


Please do not in no way think this is perfect or best.... cause if thats what a person wants then by all means capture using Huffyuv or PicVideo's Mjpeg and then encode it to what you want. Most people with cable TV need to do this anyway so they can use certain filters because of noise in the TV stations.


Thanks for the kind comments and opinions.


take it easy :D

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^


anyhow (completely OT) i have seen some of the worst things about this forum written by you neverlift,and (wait for it, wait for it!)
i agreed on that (!) ( i saw some snippets of that,not complete thing ) and i myself was tempted many times to write down that stuff and permanently depart from here.......
i still don't know what keeps me here.......
(it MUST be that i adore the mods!LOL!)

cheers

Ivo


Ya well everything I said was true and my quality DVDrips made using Nandub and my settings show this ;)
And certain people really abused their power... dont think this will be happening anymore.

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by cjv
This is quite good considering it's straight from analog cable to low-bitrate MPEG2. Much better than I could ever hope to achieve, which is why I have to capture to MJPEG then filter/encode.

Downloaded the file "Birdy.avi." It appears the deinterlacing worked well, but I have never seen a high-res capture so blurry in my life! There must be some _massive_ noise reduction pre-filtering being used!?

cjv

Thanks!
Did you check the WMV9 capture? I captured a 2hr movie like this and it was under 600mb in size!

Did you check all of Birdy's samples? Some look better than others even thou there very large... I really gave him a hard time over the file size. But for a straight capture I was impressed and with my cable TV I can'nt match his capture's. I gave up my satellite so i could have my cable modem and I miss my clean captures :(

[NeVeRLiFt]

Should warn you all not to use B-frames in XviD while capturing.
Makes some unstable video's that can have some weird problems.

I think its more a decoder problem but I'm not 100% sure.
Birdy does not use them anyway and the build he recommends is a stable one that does not include them... I on the other hand tested them ;) And it really helps the size.

Out of all my samples the only ones that are XviD are these two...
some really fast motion for birdy.avi
smallest possible high quality capture for birdy.avi

My others are not there for download, I figured Birdy's looked so good why show mine.

Well enough rambling, I look forward to people's opinions on this.




If anyone has any problem playing my XviD samples I'm sorry I used B-frames in them and they dont play back good always. I just dont use B-frames in my captures unless its for testing.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>Should warn you all not to use B-frames in XviD while capturing

i've noticed that frame drop causes back-forth jerk if b-frames are applied on encoding of video (that originally had frame drops)

also,768x576 won't play that good on my machine as i have poor cpu...
(otherwise i too would be doing it without resizing,like birdy...as that keeps sharpness more than anything else....)

samples indeed look fine!
both yours and birdy's.....
i've looked few commercials (the deinterlace mode there was "blend",right? that's not good for all the cases i think....for some perhaps.....commercials of birdy are not deinterlaced so good....
commercial for chockolate has lil girl all trembling.....yes,my cpu was ok on that excerpt...)
and scene from rtl movie.....
it's pretty decent (but i still can't recommend on-thy-fly capture to end format OR deinterlacing along the way....it should be done later for proper quality..)
also some junk should be removed from top/bottom,not just leave capture as it is...........(birdy)
and one needs what CPU to capture to 768x576 xvid directly?
there are better ways if you wan't better source file.....

yours svcd (u-boot or ship?)
looks fine too.......
but why not leave it interlaced (you have mentioned some weird capture resolution... xxx x 360 or so ?) ie. capture at xxx x 480 (as i see you're ntsc svcd 480x480) and leave it that way....?

>certain people really abused their power

my thoughts too...certain people.....

cheers

Ivo

[1loser]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>anyone that says AIW has acceptable quality should check their eyes first.....i can't name a device that has image blurred as ATI.......(ohh yes i can:ATI with "noise reduction" ON...) Here is an example of a AIW 7500 capture. I saved it as an avi file with NO filters using the PIC video codec set to 19 (20 gives the highest quality but the file size is 2 1/4 times larger. Using the codec compression set to 19 yields 1 hour = 9.5 GB's. I also used iuVCR and captured at 640x480 with it perfectly in sync. This is the best addition to my computer, the remote control is fantastic also. I paid $120.00 and couldn't be happier with my purchase.

My first impression of the card wasn't so good because I didn't know the first thing about capturing but once I learned of the PIC Video codec and learned a few more things (recently using iuVCR instead of virtualdub sync) I realized how good this card really is.

Capture sample 1 (http://user.7host.com/liketoshop/aiw.capture.640x480.no.filters.jpg), Capture sample 2 (http://user.7host.com/liketoshop/aiw.capture.640x480.no.filters.2.jpg), you can take a look at the samples or download it by right-clicking and selecting save target as.

[cjv]

Nice shot (the blonde) :)

What is your source? And did you use S-Video, Composite, or ATI built-in tuner?

cjv

[1loser]

Originally posted by cjv
Nice shot (the blonde) :)

What is your source? And did you use S-Video, Composite, or ATI built-in tuner?

cjv Cable TV with ATI's tuner. This is my first capture card and I think the tuner is excellent and changes channels very fast. If I use ATI's software to capture it does get a little out of sync since it doesn't have the extra features that virtualdub sync and iuVCR does to keep everything in sync. I also read several good tips here at the forum that made my capturing experience much better.

1) try not to run anything in the background like antivirus software.

2) don't use the computer while capturing

3) use a very faster drive with a 8 mb cache

4) install a PCI ATA controller card to run your capture drive only!

5) use a bat file to start the program in high priority "Start/high iuVCR.exe" or change in task manager to high priority.

6) use Pic Video codec set to compression of 19 to keep quality high but file size reasonable. 9.5 GB's per 60 minutes at 640x480. The final MPEG-2 file size will be under 795 mb's at 1850 video bitrate and 192 audio bitrate with 53 minutes of edited video.

Thanks goes to all those that have made posts that helped me to achieve great capturing results!

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>anyone that says AIW has acceptable quality should check their eyes first.....

me first?
LOL!

hi-res ati stuff doesn't look so bad these days....
bt8x8 is still a bit more flexible with sharpening (if needed) of
bt8x8 tweaker,etc.

>Nice shot (the blonde)

no,the black girl is more interesting!
(hehe)

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^


bt8x8 is still a bit more flexible with sharpening (if needed) of
bt8x8 tweaker,etc.




Me and others have been giving ATI a hard time over this and a few other things... I believe MMC 8.1 or later will address this and maybe a few other things.

I really pushed hard for them to make their MMC do more stuff like AVI_IO and iuVCR... in terms of AVI formats... multi-segment captures, pause and resume function and the option to adjust codec's from within MMC. And lots more ;)

Another tool I recommend anyone to have is Stinky's Reg tool for MMC.
It allows for some denoise and sharper/softer effect's... this is all capable... just well hidden in the registry by ATI. It also lets you adjust the Mpeg1 and Mpeg2 capture profiles so you can tweak out even more quality with certain settings that ATI seems to think the avg user should not know about or have access to.


And thanks ^^-+I4004+-^^ glad you liked my sample's... as for the war's from my past :D I believe if i had showed samples then alot of it could have been avoided maybe(I never once lied and just stated to the best of my ability how to make nice quality 1cd encode's from DVDrips).
Thanks be to Orbman for hosting my samples and to the other kind soul for making that website the guide I made. I wanna add two more guides to it :D both using iuVCR. One for XviD captures using the Cyberlink deinterlace filter and the other for one for how to capture using WMV9 @ 320x240 resolution.

Just trying to help others and have fun ;)

As for deinterlacing....
I prefer deinterlacing since I also tend to watching alot of stuff on my monitor... even though I have a 29" TV right beside my PC.
I even tend to watch TV on my PC in a little 320x240 window most times while I do stuff.

[Valky]

To Neverlift: Just watched those samples and tried your method with Xvid and iuvcr.

I have to say that I am really pleased with the results :)
I can't capture with such high resolutions cause I have VIA motherboard and there is some line-bugs with high resolutions like 640x480 but I can barely capture with that same resolution 512X :)

I was just wondering what bitrate or other settings you used with Xvid, cause I couldn't find your guide you mentioned. I just tried without b-frames and constant bitrate 1200.

Any chance to cut garbage from capture on the fly? I mean couple of pixels from vhs tapes from bottom and top?

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by Valky
To Neverlift: Just watched those samples and tried your method with Xvid and iuvcr.

I have to say that I am really pleased with the results :)
I can't capture with such high resolutions cause I have VIA motherboard and there is some line-bugs with high resolutions like 640x480 but I can barely capture with that same resolution 512X :)

I was just wondering what bitrate or other settings you used with Xvid, cause I couldn't find your guide you mentioned. I just tried without b-frames and constant bitrate 1200.

Any chance to cut garbage from capture on the fly? I mean couple of pixels from vhs tapes from bottom and top?

Hi,

This method I use I got from Birdy. I only used iuVCR to do wmv9 captures using a 320x240 res. I used AVI_IO before this.

Birdy noticed that you could apply filters to captures in iuVCR and now this where we are with it. :D

iuVCR has a crop filter. iulab video crop is the name I believe.
I have not tried it thou.

I have a VIA chipset based mobo... Abit KT7A and I have a SoundBlaster Live series card. I have no problems with it but I followed Pauls faq/guide.
And I run a AthlonXP 1800+ o/c to 1649mhz on this mobo.

I use 1-pass quantizer mode for when I capture, try 6-4 for the quantz's and see how it works out.
in advanced settings I leave everything like they would be if I was doing a 2-pass encode.

[1loser]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
And for some freaky quality... Birdy using his PAL based Satellite with S-Video-in shows off his captures here using XviD and the Cyberlink filter! Must be seen to be believed ;)

http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/index.asp?page=19 I would like to get this Deinterlace Filter but it seems it was removed. If you are able to put it back or provide another link that would be great. Thanks.

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by 1loser
I would like to get this Deinterlace Filter but it seems it was removed. If you are able to put it back or provide another link that would be great. Thanks.


http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/incoming/birdy/Filter.exe

Let me know if this link works for you ok.

[1loser]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
http://homey.dyndns.org/vid/incoming/birdy/Filter.exe

Let me know if this link works for you ok. I got the filter and it works. I was just wondering if the quality is reduced? Is seems to be very good but I still need to spend some time with it. :D Thank you

[NeVeRLiFt]

The best way to test the filter and see if it effect quality... capture using Huffyuv and use the filter, see what you think.

[1loser]

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt
The best way to test the filter and see if it effect quality... capture using Huffyuv and use the filter, see what you think. This filter works very well.

When you use a de-interlace filter while capturing does in become a progressive video? It seems I should select progressive frames and zigzag scanning order in cinema craft.

When I use the project wizard in TMPGEnc it says the captured video is interlaced even thou I used the de-interlace filter.

[Lascala]

Hi There a newbees first post!
I happened 2 have a
Aver DVD EZmaker kit pairing with Ulead Mediastudio pro since 1 month ago & it gives good results.
I think this card is really good 4 that cheep money,but im only in it 4 fun!Edited some videos 4 my Wifes Oriental Performence & Playing with home made music videos.
Ive using a parabol (SIRIUS) SCART 2 a Svhs video player & from that1 2 da card composite cable,i also use composite 2 my tv.
My computer is p3-1000 512meg.Im also using vegas video4 but that ap is really much slower in capturing than Ulead,could b some fiddling around there 2.
First i got strange lines in capture via Svhs cable,
tryed everything,changing card possitions etc, moving eletric cable around 2 different connections,ihad 2 stay with composite.
Well,i prefer mpeg2 cause the files goes 2 big otherways.
Sorry 4 my poor English.Hope u got something from al this fantastic cool guys here,as i said im ust a newbee on this matter of capturing.
But im Smoth satisfied.
Greetings.
LaScala