Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Video Capture Card

This is topic Video Capture Card in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Chase Taylor (Member # 778) on 11-01-2003, 02:12 PM:

Can anyone give me some ideas on a good video capture card. I'm not looking for the consumer stuff but not the best. I need something that is not crazy expensive.

Thanks
Chase Taylor

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-01-2003, 02:15 PM:

I have an extra Holographic 3D capture card if you are interested. It captures via composite, S-video or component.

Posted by Chase Taylor (Member # 778) on 11-01-2003, 02:34 PM:

I sent you a private e-mail Brad.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-02-2003, 02:02 PM:

Do you care about capturing images from HDTV?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-02-2003, 06:01 PM:

If you have a digital camcorder you might not have to buy an expensive capture card. Some MiniDV cameras have AV in and out features that will record S-video and audio feeds. Then you just do a digital capture via Firewire to get the stream into the computer.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-03-2003, 01:36 AM:

...and if your computer's motherboard is a new-ish one with a built-in IEEE1394 (I-link/Firewire), you won't need to buy one at all - all you'll need is software.

I used to have an ATI 'All in Wonder' combined AGP graphics, TV tuner and (analogue) video capture card. It could capture from composite or S-video. It was a bargain at UK£140, I thought - the quality of the captured video was very good indeed and it would swap between PAL and NTSC at the click of a mouse - unlike the Matrox card I use now in which you have to totally reinstall the drivers or swap between two system drive images.

What let the ATI card down was that the driver software was crap and would frequently cause unexplained glitches and sometimes freeze or crash the whole system (this was running Windows 2K). Whenever a new version of the driver came out it would cure one problem and cause another. They may have sorted these issues out with later versions of the card (I got mine 4-5 years ago), though.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-03-2003, 10:33 AM:

The ATI software is still quite buggy and prone to crashing, but it's also rich in features.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-04-2003, 02:00 AM:

A pity - if the drivers were a bit more stable and the cards compatible with a wider range of software (e.g. Adobe Premiere), they'd have a great product.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 11-04-2003, 11:56 AM:

Canopus makes a very good analog capture device:

http://www.canopus.us/US/products/advc-1394/pt_advc-1394.asp

MSRP: $249

A friend was looking into the options for doing video capture, and the people he talked to that do video capture a lot use this device. I'm sure that many of the lower-end cards, like the ATI AIW cards and the like, would be suitable for low-use scenarios.

He has the one that was a separate box that connected to a Firewire port:

http://www.canopus.us/US/products/advc-100/pt_advc-100.asp

MSRP: $299

I guess a big issue is time sync during long periods of capture. Lower-end cards can't keep a lock on the audio and keep it in sync with the video.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 11-06-2003, 05:59 AM:

I just bought a Dazzle 80 with my new computer.

When I try and install the Dazzle software it disables my sound card [Frown]

Anyone have any experience with Dazzles?

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 11-06-2003, 03:53 PM:

I have a Dazzle 80. Decent capture device (I used it for the editing on "Lose it All") Haven't had the problem you described though.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 11-13-2003, 04:55 PM:

I don't actually have a sound card. It's on board-sound. I'm wondering if the problem is that the on-board sound chips are not Direct X compatible.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-13-2003, 06:07 PM:

David, could you e-mail some full resolution captures from your card?

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-13-2003, 11:27 PM:

Certainly. Would you like them sent to anyone in particular?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-13-2003, 11:31 PM:

I was hoping you could e-mail them to Bobby Henderson. But I'll take some copies as well. [Smile]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-14-2003, 12:00 AM:

But are they really 1920 X 1080? Or just poseur wannabe HD pho-toes?

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-14-2003, 12:08 PM:

I'm not sure what you mean. The captured images can be saved in either jpg or bmp format. The one I sent to Joe was jpg. The properties indicate they're the native resolution of the video source, usually either 1920 x 1080, or 1280 x 720. If saved as a bmp, wouldn't they be bit-for-bit replicas of the original frame? I'm no expert on this...

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-14-2003, 10:08 PM:

Yeah, they would be pixel for pixel replicas of the image. I was just being a bit of a smart ass in light of how some folks can shoot a big science fiction epic using cameras that don't capture half the pixels of a 1080 HD image yet claim it is better than 35mm. It seems some people are a little flexible on the term "hi def" rather than sticking to the native pixel layouts given for 720p and 1080i (1280 X 720 and 1920 X 1080). This accusation is really leveled quite severely at all the companies selling overpriced flat plasma screen TVs that are not HD at all.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-14-2003, 10:35 PM:

If you're interested I can send you an unaltered HD cap in bmp format for your analysis. It'll be about 6MB.

Plasma TVs are cool but they're a ripoff given that they don't do HD. I don't even think the picture looks all that great.