Video Capture Cards

[MusashiM]

Okay, guys, I have a question about video capturing. I'm thinking about trying to input and record video files on my computer. I'm not sure whether any of the newer video cards support this (I was thinking that I might be able to combine getting a capture card and upgrading at the same time), but the only one that I think might support this would be the All In Wonder...

Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that I am just going to have to get a PCI video capture card. If any of you have any suggestions on what to get or where to look, it would be a great help. Thanks.

[MusashiM]

hehe, Well, I haven't got much feed back, but in case there are people reading this post that are interested in video editing as well, I've been doing a little homework. First, I've been looking mainly at ATI, simply because the price is right and I value DVD and video playback over gameing...

What I've found is that if I want to get a video card that also supports video editing, encoding, and especially recording, I'll have to get one with VIVO (video in/video out). The All In Wonders have a lot of extra features that allow you to control how you watch live TV feeds and lets you edit things out on those video feeds. However, that is not really what I am interested in that as I am in just recording. For that, I could just get a PCI video capture card for around $40-50, but since I am planing on getting an upgrade to my current vidcard, I might as well just get a card that has those features built in. I am really thinking of getting the Radeon DDR 64 with vivo... it doesn't have all of the features of the AIW, but I think it should get the job done. If anyone has any other input, it would be appreciated...

[unnamed]

i have a radeon64meg vivo in one of my boxes.

my only complaint is that the 16bit performance sucks and the win2k drives suck too.

if yer using 9x and dont care about 16bit performance (i can't really stand most games in 16bit, especially newer ones like quake3) its a great card.

just make sure you install web tv for windows if you wanna get video capture working (took me forever to figure that out).

[K2]

i have a Asus Geforce2 MX deluxe combo, its really good for the ripping and stuff. It can rip up to SVCD(mpeg2)

Darth reviewed this card not too long ago..

http://www.gotapex.com/reviews.php?rev=v7100combo/index.html

[jkusar]

If you end up getting a separate card, stay away from anything that uses Motion JPEG as it native compression scheme. This may also apply to some combo cards, but I know that a lot of separate capture cards use it. The quality is absolutly horrid. However, I have worked with Digital Video for some time and have found that the absolute best way to capture video into a computer is to first transfer it to a Digital Video Camera and then into the computer via firewire. I have not found any other way that can capture an hour of video with no dropped frames and perfect digital quality. Of course this is very expensive as the cheapest camera I've seen goes for around $500 plus you need a $50 firewire card and tapes on top of that. But considering I use it to make money and quality is paramount, this is the way I choose to do it.