Video Capture Solution for Laptop?

[billyball2]

Hi all. I'm down to one machine (my laptop) and time/space/money concerns will prevent me from building a new desktop untill next year. Question: Are there any capture cards/capture solutions that I can use with my laptop (PC/MCIA slots)? I have a lot of video that I want to download to PC, along with the occasional home video, but I don't know where to start.

Any suggestions are welcome...

Thanks

[Ookami]

Yes, many different ones, also.

Depends on your money and taste.

-USB (when I followed the whole theme, it was mostly compressed, don't know the situation with the new USB standards)
-DV/firewire (like the hyped ADVC 100)
-probably also PCMCIA (IIRC, I read about some solutions)
-and the rest I forgot and don't know about

So, what do you want to do exactly and how much money/time do you have? I should put this question in the FAQ so that people write more about what exactly they want. Just like "I want to drive around. I don't have much money. What car should I buy?!" :) .

Cheers,

Mijo.

[kaitsuburi]

@ookami

Do you think ADVC100 would be susceptible to dropped frame problems on moderately slow laptops (e.g. P3 1G w/ 128 Mb RAM)? I have only used used my ADVC100 on my fast desktop, so I am wondering...

-kaitsuburi

[Ookami]

Originally posted by kaitsuburi
@ookami

Do you think ADVC100 would be susceptible to dropped frame problems on moderately slow laptops (e.g. P3 1G w/ 128 Mb RAM)? I have only used used my ADVC100 on my fast desktop, so I am wondering...

-kaitsuburi

No, I don't. Even if you would use a much slower PC it should not cause dropped frames.

Remember, all the PC has to do is take the ready (the ADVC does the whole encoding etc.) DV material and write it 1:1 to the HD. It cannot be much easier for the PC. Don't know the minimum specs for DV "capturing", anyone?

So, if there are dropped frames the reason should be another than the "slow" PC. Jeez, where talking about a SLOW 1 GHz PC, wonder where I should put my 0.9x MHz C=64?

Cheers,

Mijo.

[kaitsuburi]

Originally posted by Ookami
Remember, all the PC has to do is take the ready (the ADVC does the whole encoding etc.) DV material and write it 1:1 to the HD. It cannot be much easier for the PC.

This makes sense, thanks. Also, firewire tends to be less CPU-intensive compared to NIC/LAN or USB (?). I have managed to get dropped frames with ADVC100 on an Athlon XP 2600 though when I accidentally started a VirtualDub encode with high priority (for some reason) while I was capturing :o But it never happens otherwise. I just wish I had firewire on my laptop...

-kaitsuburi

[billyball2]

"Just like "I want to drive around. I don't have much money. What car should I buy?!"

LOL. I just re-read my post and I thought the same thing. I'd like to stay around $200(US). Mainly used for capturing home video (8mm) to be put on CD and sent around (possibly some TV/Video capture for my own amusement).

The machine isn't too bad, Pentium III 1.4 ghz, 256 RAM. Speed and time aren't too much of a concern as my only deadlines are self imposed.


What should I do?

[Guest]

>I just wish I had firewire on my laptop...

PCMCIA firewire cards are very cheap.

[kaitsuburi]

Originally posted by neuron2
PCMCIA firewire cards are very cheap.

Wow! I guess I was completely ignorant about this... Thank you Mr. Graft, I am off to get one this weekend and do a capture through my ADVC100. Well, my P3 1G laptop has a small drive for DV capture (about 27 gigs in total) so I'll have to do some serious cleaning but I am confident it will capture fine :)

-kaitsuburi

[Krizzz989]

i've had the ADVC100 for a few weeks. once my notebook hd started auto defragging, and it STILL would not drop frames. i love this thing. the contrast is a bit off in my captures, but that's easily fixed.