Looking for suggestions re capture card/PAL 60/SECAM

[Dropped Frame]

I'm currently using an MSI GeForce4 MX 460 and I can't seem to find a solution to be able to capture PAL 60 and SECAM (I'm in a PAL country) in color, and since I would like to safe some NTSC and SECAM cassettes from degradation, I have to do something about it.

I thought about buying an NTSC VCR from the U.S. but that's not really an option I think - the SECAM incompatibility would remain.

Any suggestions for a card that fulfills my needs and is affordable for me (around $100) are much appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Originally posted by smiller667

Hi,

you might want to ask this question in the capturing forum - afaik the Matrox Marvel (I have seen reports using a G400, perhaps also the G200? I am unsure, better consult the Matrox user group forums) can capture PAL60, some older Asus cards are also capable of doing so (V3800 using the Asus Live software?). The old Matrox Rainbow Runner Studio Addon card could apparently also do this. Before you buy, please verify these assumptions - they are really from the back of my mind.

I have no idea about SECAM whatsoever ... playback is OK for you, I guess? Apparently Thomson (used to?) makes some nice VHS players in France which offer PAL, SECAM as well as TRUE (i.e. no PAL60) playback - some Sony models also offered to output either PAL60 or true NTSC.

Good luck.
Thanks for the heads up, smiller667! I'll check that out. Re SECAM playback - yes, it looks good on my TV though I don't know which signal I'm dealing with here.

[Arachnotron]

I have been looking for a PAL60 solution too.

In the end I came up with this:
Allmost all capture devices can do PAL60 BUT almost no drivers allow you to configure it. Your hardware almost certainly can do it, but the driver won't let you.

I only found two exceptions so far:

1. BT878a cards in combination with the BTWincap drivers,
2. Philips SAA7134 based cards .

@1.: this works, but at least with my card (Hauppauge WinTV model) the card did not capture the correct NTSC frame, but started a few lines downwards which caused it to cap more lines with garbage at the bottom then neccesary. I don't know if this is a driver issue or just my configuration

@2: I have a Terratec Cinergy 400 card. There is an Asus SAA7134 based card that also works. I suspect all cards with this chip will work, since as far as I can tell all manufacturers simply uses the same drivers supplied by Philips. But I cannot guarantee this.

The Terratec has several SECAM versions too, but I never tried them out. Don't know about BTWincap, but would be very surprised if it could not also do SECAM.

There may be other devices arount that will do PAL60 and SECAM. I vaguely remember someone with an ATI card posting that it worked, but I cannot remember which one that was.

The quality of an PAL60 cap is excellent, there is no loss through conversion as far as I can tell. (actually, I think NTSC and PAL tapes store chroma the same way, and only convert back to PAL or NTSC colour carrier on playback, so PAL60 may even give you a slight advantage here)

Last bit of warning: Philips devices often are autodetect, and jump back to PAL if there is no signal. So apply the PAL60 signal, check if it indeed switched, switch manually if not and only then start the cap.

[edit] the chips mentioned above are used on TV cards, which are often between $50 and $100

[Dropped Frame]

Allmost all capture devices can do PAL60 BUT almost no drivers allow you to configure it. Your hardware almost certainly can do it, but the driver won't let you.
So it's not even possible to configure the drivers via the registry?
Thanks very much for your detailed response, Arachnotron.

[Arachnotron]

So it's not even possible to configure the drivers via the registry?

I should have been more clear on this. Most drivers won't offer you the option using the standard user interface. That does not exclude the possibillity some might be persuaded to do it anyway using some sort of hack. I have not found such a hack for any of the cards I tried, but that does not mean they does not excist.

Of course, after I found a card that worked I stopped looking. :)