Is BT878A really this bad?

[jrjazzman]

I'm the long-time user of a waning DC10Plus card. A friend at work let me borrow a Hauppauge card, which seems to be one of the Impact models. It has the BT878A chip. I was really excited cuz I'm sick of the sync issues I've been having with my DC10Plus. So, I stuck the card in, launched VirtualVCR and ran a capture at 640x480, HuffYUV. I couldn't believe how poor the quality was compared to the DC10Plus. The Hauppauge cap was shaky and grainy, compared to the very smooth and steady DC10Plus capture. The Hauppauge cap was in fact so bad that I want to get opinions on whether I may have had a bad card. Are you BT878A users getting smooth and steady captures?

I have on order a WinTV GO (i think), a leadtek BT878A card, and a Canopus ADVC-100. Hopefully one of these will work well, preferrably the lesser priced items (WinTV go was like $30 after rebate from compusa, offer ends on 7/19 I think).

Jeremy

[jggimi]

I don't have a Hauppage card, but I do have an Aver card with a BT878 chip.

You don't mention the analog connection type you are using -- is it possible you are using the tuner? If so, you may be getting RF interference from your PCI bus or other internal PC components, and you may want to try a different type of connection.

I don't use the RF tuner, and do not experience your trouble. I also use the BTWinCap driver.

Another possibility is an incorrect driver setting, such as having the card set to NTSC in a PAL country, or PAL in an NTSC country.

[fberreth]

Depends how you define bad. I have a 848A and the capture is very blurry. It also has problems with the color, the RED channel is way too strong so you have to correct it after capture.

[jrjazzman]

I didn't may much attention to color; I couldn't get past the shaky, wavy issues. I think either the card is somewhat defective or it is possibly poorly shielded. I've read about potential noise issues with these cards. Who knows. I have a WinTV on order, so I'll do a non-scientific comparison.

Jeremy

[jrjazzman]

That's a good point. This thing had 3 composite inputs and one s-video input. although I tried all the inputs, perhaps the TV tuner was inducing some kind of noise. It will be interesting to test the plain old WinTV when I get it. Oh, I was using the BTWinCap drivers also.

Originally posted by jggimi
I don't have a Hauppage card, but I do have an Aver card with a BT878 chip.

You don't mention the analog connection type you are using -- is it possible you are using the tuner? If so, you may be getting RF interference from your PCI bus or other internal PC components, and you may want to try a different type of connection.

I don't use the RF tuner, and do not experience your trouble. I also use the BTWinCap driver.

Another possibility is an incorrect driver setting, such as having the card set to NTSC in a PAL country, or PAL in an NTSC country.

[jggimi]

3 composite inputs? Are you sure? 3 RCA connectors for video usually means component video, not composite, and if you were trying to use a composite signal with component video-in, then that would account for horrible images.

[jrjazzman]

Yeah, it's called the ImpactVCB. I have model 64405. http://www.hauppauge.com/html/impact.htm




Originally posted by jggimi
3 composite inputs? Are you sure? 3 RCA connectors for video usually means component video, not composite, and if you were trying to use a composite signal with component video-in, then that would account for horrible images.

[Kika]

The ImpactVCD has one S-Video and three F-Bas (Composit) Connectors. Be sure not to use more than one of the Imputs the same time! The S-Video- and the Composite-Wires are connectet to the same PINs on the Chip.

And yes, die DC10 is much better than any TV-Card, even better than the new ones with the Philips or the new Connexant-Chips.

You can increase the Quality a little bit by using VirtualDub with BT-Tweaker, which needs the DLLs from the old Program dTV (Now known as DScaler).

[jrjazzman]

Actually, this page, http://www.hauppauge.com/html/impact.htm, indicates that the ImpactVCB is available in numerous configurations of inputs.

I'm dissapointed to hear that the new Conexant chip isn't on par with the DC10. I love my DC10 (superb video quality), but it has been giving me terrible sync issues, if a lot of frames are dropped (usually in the case of a splice in the video, etc.).

I will be trying a WinTV, MSI tv@anywhere, asus 880 tv tuner and canopus ADVC-100. I know the canopus unit is nice, based on the consistently high reviews it gets. However, I had high hopes for the conexant 2388X-based cards (MSI & Asus). My preference is to have a HuffYUV encoded cap, and the canopus can only give you DV.

Pinnacle has a fairly new external box. I believe it's called the MovieBox DV. It's cheaper than the canopus and seems to offer the same type of functionality and quality, including locked audio sync. It's also worth noting that the Pinnacle is around $100 cheaper than the canopus. I chose the canopus due to its track record -- it seems that you can't go wrong with this unit.

Jeremy


Originally posted by Kika
The ImpactVCD has one S-Video and three F-Bas (Composit) Connectors. Be sure not to use more than one of the Imputs the same time! The S-Video- and the Composite-Wires are connectet to the same PINs on the Chip.

And yes, die DC10 is much better than any TV-Card, even better than the new ones with the Philips or the new Connexant-Chips.

You can increase the Quality a little bit by using VirtualDub with BT-Tweaker, which needs the DLLs from the old Program dTV (Now known as DScaler).

[ppera2]

I don't think that it's good idea comparing DC10 with cheap TV cards.
Quality depends from many things, not only used A/D converter chip.

My Pinnacle PCTV Pro has pretty good and clean picture from composite input, while tuner has too much noise by weaker stations (you can see how computer 'breats').

[avih]

FWIW, i'm using a cheap 5-6 yrs old bt878 card (fastcom + FM), with rf/composite/s-video inputs, and imho, the quality is superb. the only downside is the via chipset issues (white horizontal lines during high pci throughput), which you learn to overcome with time.

[jrjazzman]

The DC10 was a $100 card. What currently available card has DC10-like quality around $100? I can't find anything. It seems that there are $50 cards and $300 cards -- no middle ground. Ergo, I have the ADVC-100 on order.



Originally posted by ppera2
I don't think that it's good idea comparing DC10 with cheap TV cards.
Quality depends from many things, not only used A/D converter chip.

My Pinnacle PCTV Pro has pretty good and clean picture from composite input, while tuner has too much noise by weaker stations (you can see how computer 'breats').

[ppera2]

Originally posted by jrjazzman
The DC10 was a $100 card. What currently available card has DC10-like quality around $100? I can't find anything. It seems that there are $50 cards and $300 cards -- no middle ground. Ergo, I have the ADVC-100 on order.

I really don't know what current market offers. Thought that DC10 was more expensive, because I remember some Miro DC10 or similar what costed about 1000 DEM before 5-6 years.

Back to BT878: I didn't see some Hauppauge card, tested couple others. K-World is cheap and has bad drivers. Pinnacle is very good, picture is clear, colors are stable etc. It's much better than my first Asus capture card from 1998, for 5 times less money.

To be more specific (or clear), capture quality from good source is near good DVD, and better than many, what I saw.

[jrjazzman]

To which pinnacle card are you referring?



Originally posted by ppera2
I really don't know what current market offers. Thought that DC10 was more expensive, because I remember some Miro DC10 or similar what costed about 1000 DEM before 5-6 years.

Back to BT878: I didn't see some Hauppauge card, tested couple others. K-World is cheap and has bad drivers. Pinnacle is very good, picture is clear, colors are stable etc. It's much better than my first Asus capture card from 1998, for 5 times less money.

To be more specific (or clear), capture quality from good source is near good DVD, and better than many, what I saw.

[ppera2]

Originally posted by jrjazzman
To which pinnacle card are you referring?

Pinnacle PCTV Pro. But Rave should be same considering video quality, because difference is only in stereo audio by TV receive, and in FM tuner.