video capture cards, help please!

[SpikeSpiegel]

Hi!

I'm planning to buy a video capture card to record movies from antenna to my hard disk, could u give me some tips about wich features/brands/models/etc should I search for?

I'm totally new to capture, anyway I know that almost all v.c.cards can compress video streams with mpeg1&2 via hardware, and some with divx too (1pass/quality-based compression, so with a low quality/file-dimension ratio): well, this is not important, because I want recompress all with Divx, so the only thing that really matters is that capture quality (definition and resolution) must be high.
A resolution of 640*480 without noise should be fine.

Another requirement is the presence of a "channel tuner" and possibility to receive a digital signal via antenna: soon, here in Italy, most channels will be aired this way, so it should be really useful.

Thanks in advance!

[SpikeSpiegel]

...so?

I've found only one v.c.card that allows "terrestrial digital" signal input:
Microedge DigyVision Terr (PCI & USB)
but there are no info about capture format (max resolution, codec, video structure, etc)

other questions:
Do all v.c.cards support real time (via hardware) DV compression?
Anyway, real time (v.h.) mpeg2 compression quality is DVD-like or worse?

[rsquirell]

Card hardware technology seems to change every couple of weeks...and all the "old pros" around here probably picked theirs up last year, are satisfied (so they haven't upgraded) and are reluctant to offer advice because they haven't kept up with the latest and greatest (if it aint broke don't fix it.) Popular cards mentioned have been Snazzi, All-In-Wonder, and Hauppauge (there are others, too....do a search of the forum for video cards). Even though some cards have input for DV, they are really only necessary for analog VHS transfer to the digital PC. DV can be fed directly into the PC via the firewire...and any video software will capture it. And if you have a DV Camera with analog inputs you can feed the VCR tape through it directly to the PC eliminating the need for a capture card altogether.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Got it, actually neither I am an upgrade-fanatic: the fact that my CPU still works is almost paranormal phenomenon!

I don't have any DV cam, neither I'm planning to buy one, I just want to record movies directly from TV (antenna) to my hard disk (and, then, compress them to DivX), but trying to achieve a higher video quality than VHS one.
The problem is that here cable-TV doesn't exist, but soon all main channels will be aired in a digital format via antenna and by now I've found only one card compatible with this input. Maybe this is possible even with old cards, but I can't find any info...

[rsquirell]

so far we've been limited to TV (VHS) resolution. If there's a card out there that'll capture an HDTV screen on the PC that would be a breakthrough...and a lot of people might get interested real fast. You can only capture as good as your source...and rca composite and s video ports convert the digital signal to analog...in order to get such a feed you'd need a HDTV with a firewire out port. Otherwise, everything's going to be limited to standard TV quality.

[tigerman8u]

For video capture and tv tuner I got the ATI AIW. No complaints here.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Originally posted by rsquirell
If there's a card out there that'll capture an HDTV screen on the PC that would be a breakthrough...

Are you sure that it doesn't already exist?
As I said, I've found a card that can capture digital signal directly from antenna: here that "signal" is called "terrestrial digital", it's really similiar to HDTV, but standards (resolution, fps and video structure) are different and it's aired only via antenna instead of cable or satellite.
I thought that something like that (for HDTV) could already exist, especially because the compression used to broadcast the signal is really familiar to our PCs (that's why: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hdtv2.htm)

[rsquirell]

No...I'm not sure. If it works let us know. It can't work with existing HDTV's....but if you bypass the TV and capture direct from the antenna...

[SpikeSpiegel]

Sure, if I can find a way to test it I'll post the results.

Anyway I've found another card with more useful features (s-video, composite input), over the possibility of recording directly from antenna a digital signal:

Empire Pci Dvb-T