Video Capture Cards - Recommendations

[Lorek]

Hi, I've been having enormous problems capturing tv. Before buying a TV tuner card I researched which card would work with the best quality and I came up with Hauppauge. So I bought a hauppauge pvr-500mce card and am very dissapointed with the quality. I've tried Beyond TV, Virtual VCR, I attempted VirtualDub for the Video capture but Hauppauge doesn't offer any driver's that will work with a wrapper that I know of. Whenever I capture video, i get severe artifacting. The Line in Channels for the RCA inputs don't work, and all my captures look like a 20 year old vhs recording from a rental place. At first I thought it was just a defective card, and successfully RMA'ed it and got a brand new one sent out but now I'm having the exact same problems with the new one. I thought hauppauge was supposed to be one of the best tv encoder card manufacturers. Can anyone recommend a good capture card that'l work and that's relatively cheap. taking a complete loss on my current card.

[jggimi]

Are you sure you're not seeing RF interference, from the PCI bus or other internal PC components? I don't use Hauppage, but perhaps there's something else going on. You might post an image; it may be more helpful than what you've described so far.

[tigerman8u]

I don't think it is the hauppage card. if you're not all ready doing so try better cables. make sure all cables are away from wall outlets. try hooking the cable/s from the hauppage straightr to the tv. I know it can be frustrating but sometimes it's something simple.

[Lorek]

I'm not sure how to test for RF interference, the only other cards I have plugged in are my AGP ATi 9500 Card, and a Soundblaster Live.
As for the cables I've tried using different cables, and the way my line is setup. I live in a three story rental, the only cable outlet comes in on the second floor and is wired from the second up to the third along the walls. There's several splitters involved, but i've already tested without the splitters and get the same problem so I don't think that's it. I've noticed that when I have my tv tuner software running the room with the computers seems to be about 10-13 degrees higher then normal. It might be heat but I won't really know until I get a water cooling system as my air is maxed as far as the power supply can handle. 4 side fans, 2 on each side, and one on the back underneath the powersupply.

[jggimi]

We still haven't seen a captured image; that might help identify the problem.

You stated that your line in (composite video) capture doesn't work. Could you be more specific? What happens when you try to capture composite video?

One method to check for internal RF interference is to move the capture card to another slot. Another method is to move or remove other PCI cards -- in this case, that would be moving or removing your SB Live card, and seeing if the image quality improves.

External RF interference is also a possibility -- but ... if you have already taken your PC physically down to the cable box, and used a shorter cable, and seen no change, it would seem that you have an internal problem of some kind.

We're still guessing. Can you please post an image?

[Lorek]

What I mean by line in, is the hauppauge card I have has both RCA jack input, and coaxial cable input, and an FM reciever which i've never used. The RCA Jack's Don't work.
Posting two pics to my webspace at geocities.com

http://www.geocities.com/dundir/index.html
there's no remote linking so you'll have to go to the page to see them.

The same quality remains throughout the movie, and the vcr is a brand new Sony VCR. VCR's been tested with same tape on a TV and looks perfectly fine. Recording was done at best quality, and it still looks like crap.

Cable TV looks worse.

[Caleb13]

About the best place to learn something about usefullness/problems of TV cards is

http://www.tv-cards.com/

or rather, their message boards.