I'm thinking about getting a video capture card, and I am wondering if anyone would know what would be a good one to get?
I own an ATI All In Wonder 9600 pro since October 2003 (when it came out) and it has yet to let me down in both recording video and in PC gaming performance. It costs over $200, but no more than $250, I paid $217 for mine. It also comes with great editing software and a lifetime subscription to a TV-Guide software so you can set it to record TV shows. I recommend one that has the ATI brand name on it. They are good cards overall. It all depends on what you want to do with it. If its to capture videogame footage than get one that has software to record it to mpeg at least as well as hardware support so that the CPU doesn't do all of the work. There aren't any that record straight to divx so you'll need a nice big hard drive (120gb and up) to record the footage at a good resolution as an mpeg 1 or 2 (that takes up the most space) and then just convert it to divx with some other software. When I record a 30minute show as an mpeg2 DVD quality video, it takes up about 1.8gigs!! However when I convert it to divx it will take up about 250mbs (just make sure thats the only thing your PC is doing because if you're multi-tasking, then expect to loose tremendous quality from the converting process). Just look for the following when looking for a video capture card: Recording software Editing software Ability to record as mpeg1 and/or 2 Has S-Video input as well as composite Has FULL HARDWARE SUPPORT (Don't buy a cheap $30 card, chances are they use the CPU to do the calculation and everything else, thus the quality of the recording is very poor).
well, I have one of those cheap cards, a Pinnacle PCTV Rave, and to be honest I'm not dissatisfied with it. Granted, the software that comes with it is utter crap (I use FreeVCR or Virtualdub) but I was pleasantly surprised when I found out it did PAL and NTSC over composite/svideo (unlike my TV).
I use a Buffalo video capture card called MEG-VC2 It has it's own CPU for encoding up to 30MPPS MPEG2 video. So even if you have a low spec PC you can still encode hi-quality MPEG 2 videos. It also does avi for any codec that you may have. Sound quality goes as high as 300 or more kbps. It can also do PAL / NTSC so there are no problems there too. As far as the software goes it's crap really. All you can do is configure the capture card but there is a lot that you can configure. For editing I use FlaskMPEG to convert the MPEG 2 videos to Divx then use Virtual Dub for all my editing. Just whish that Virtual Dub would accept MPEG 2 but it won't :smt011 Making DVDs is much easier though. Just encode the MPEG 2 streem then use Nero Vision Express to make a DVD :smt023 Yakumo
~ I don't know what system you'll be running it on, but I set up a Shuttle XPC "VCR" to record shows into DiVX... I've installed Linux and purchased a cheap-o ATI TV Wonder VE for $50 CAD. Works beautifully.
Anything that's based on the Bt/Cx878 chip - with the proper software (eg. DScaler) you can display most video modes made by man and a few more. Support under other OSes than Windows is no problem either.
I didn't have any luck with TV cards,I already tried a lot. Ati all in wonder gfx cards really suck,heavy frame drops,no wmd driver support so you only can record with the crappy software etc. Old Phillips BT chip cards (audio problems,only low res etc.) I currently have an Elitegroup TVP3XP which cost me ~80 bucks and won't really work with my mainboard because I can't get any channel really normal.Everything is in mono,has heavypicture noise etc. I heard that's because of my mainboard. If you have sat get a DVB card,most analog cards are really crap.
