How to connect??

[rsrts]

I can't just figure out how to connect the television or the video-recorder to my graphic-card to be able to capture? Which cable shall I use between the television (alt. video-recorder) and my graphics-card? S-vhs to S-vhs or Scart to S-vhs? Am I totally wrong?

Someon, please help!! I'm totally lost...

[sfheath]

I'm assuming you mean s-video. Whatever output you feed into your graphic card input should work providing you have a capture application that can detect it.

[rsrts]

Ok...

So, basically if the television have an s-video INPUT this also works as an OUTPUT if you connect to a s-video OUTPUT compatible graphic-card? Or is this setup only a one-way connection that just let you view the computers interface/display (e.g windows xp) on the television and not the other way around, like viewing what is displayed on the television on the computer-display in a capture-program like virtual dub?

Sorry for my bad english. =( I'm swedish but I hope you understand...

[sfheath]

If your computer has only an s-video output socket then yes, you can only connect to a tv input to show the computer picture on the tv.
At the tv however, I believe I've seen s-video sockets that double as input/output. I've not heard of this on a computer graphics card but the manufacturers documentation should clarify this.
Do you know what card it is?

[rsrts]

Thanks for all the help so far!!

I have a MSI Gforce FX5700 which atleast has an s-video output that lets you view the computer display on the tv, as said. However, I do not now if this also works as an input??

But in fact I also have the Pinnacle PCTV PRO-card which for sure has an s-video that is INPUT-compatible...

But strangely I can't get this to capture what is displayed on the Tv, to my computer in a capture display like virtual dub. It just leaves a blue screen. Therefor I assumed that the televisions s-video only worked as an INPUT.

Do you still think I shall be able to capture from television this way or shall I try another way?

[sfheath]

Looking up http://reviews.designtechnica.com/re..._main8023.html it implies that your FX s-video is input/output but says tv cards other than MSI's own might not work with it

Your Pinnacle card's s-video will be an input and should monitor your video-recorder but this is ignoring the earlier warning mentioned above.

How have you arrived with this combination of cards?

[sfheath]

I think you need to either ..

take the Pinnacle tuner out and put the MSI one in to match your graphic card ..

or change to another graphic card to let Pinnacle tuner do it's job

[rsrts]

Ok, too bad! =( Guess I have to bite in the sour apple then and by myself a hauppauge dvb-s card or something like that to be able to rip from my television.=( Very expensive though.

As a last attempt I maybe can try a "scart to s-video cable" and in that way check if my television s-video only works as an input, because the televisions scart should work as both-way connections for sure.

Otherwise I maybe have to record shows with my video and transfer it this way to my MSI-card. My thought at the beginning, however, was to be able to skip this step in order to save time and quality...

Thanks for all the help anyway!
I will post here if I get it to work somehow...

[sfheath]

If you read the review, you'll see that there is a potential compatibility problem with your graphic card and 3rd party tv cards. A Hauppauge TV card might just give the same problem.
I personally have the Hauppauge WinTV Nova-t terrestrial freeview tuner and am quite happy with it but my graphic card is compatible.
Getting to the SCART, your video recorder is more likely to have it wired for tv output than your tv is, as video recorders feed to tv's, not the other way round?

[rsrts]

Okay maybe i misunderstand you, cause my english is pretty crappy... But a tv should probably feed to a video as well? Because the video has the possibility to record shows/programs, thru scart from tv, which is led to the television thru an antenna-cable or a digital sattelite-reciever.

Okay, I thought it was only with the pinnacle card... This sounds like a pretty expensive investment to get it to work!

What does your Setup look like, exept your hauppage-card?

My thoughts from the beginning was to be able to capture things from the tv, e.g like videopimp.com. I think their movie-quality is really awesome for being mpeg-1, but I have never been able to successfully read how their setup look like, to be able to capture this way.

[rsrts]

I only fingd a rather dizzy information on the web on how to capture. The most information is about how the capture-software work, aspect ratios an so on. Since I've been reading a lot of this stuff i'm not concerned about it anymore.

The thing I like to read is how to really set it up to be able to capture, like which cables are used, hardware, video-players, televisions...
I'm sure there's a lot information on the web for this too, but since my english is really crappy I have not found any.

Too bad! =(

[sfheath]

Originally posted by rsrts
But a tv should probably feed to a video as well? Because the video has the possibility to record shows/programs, thru scart from tv, which is led to the television thru an antenna-cable or a digital sattelite-reciever.

You're making a fundamental mistake here. Video Recorders have tuners in them so they can quite happily record tv programmes without your tv even being switched on.

TV's are basically input devices. They show what's put into them. Hence the fact tv's have an RF input only.

Videos have an RF in and an RF out as they provide the option of outputing a re-modulated RF signal. They also usually have an input for a camera.

Your Pinnacle TV card again has a tuner in it. If it was compatible with your graphic card, you'd be able to use an application to record tv with neither the TV or VCR running.
The review I referred to implies that if you had the matching tv tuner card this would be possible.

My setup for example, is the Hauppauge Nova-t terrestrial tuner run from ShowShifter DVB application in a tower with a DVD writer.
With this (and one minor conversion of files I shan't complicate this with right now) I can record tv broadcasts and save in DVD quality.

Your essential problem I believe is the fact that your tv card and graphic card are not compatible.

I hope this helps your understanding

[rsrts]

Hehe, I learn something new everyday =)

Things is starting to get clear here now...

In fact I have managed to record with my pinnacle card although I had the msi-card running.

The only problem is that this capture was done via a regular antenna-cable(RF?) that was connected directly to the pinnacle-card. But in this way I ONLY get to record shows from Swedens 3 Main Channels, which are analog... Not from the digital satellite-channels like mtv, vh1, cbs, discovery-channel and so on. Theese are all shown on the TV thru a digital satellite receiver which get the signal from an LNB-cable which is connected to a satellite dish... Not thru the standard antenna-cable which is in every house.

As I understand now, if I want to capture theese satellite channels, my only possibility is to do it thru a satellite tv-card like Hauppauges dvb-s card where I can put the LNB-cable directly in the hauppauge-card?

My hopes from the beginning was, as said, to somehow manage to show the digital sattelite channels from the sattelite reciever on my television and from there send the signal directly to my pc's capture card thru the television s-video input/output and capture it with virtual dub or something like that. This seems impossible now though...

Hope you understand what I mean...

Do you agree that I need a dvb-s card to make it possible for me to do my wanted capture from the satellite with really good quality or do you see other alternatives??

[sfheath]

I've not met satellite myself but don't you have an RF or s-video feed from your sat decoder to the tv? You should be able to buy a splitter box to put in there to feed another cable into your Pinnacle. Then seek on the Pinnacle the channel the decoder is outputing or switch to the s-video, whichever you're using.

Advantage of buying a dedicated dvb-s card would be that you could watch one channel and record another. The cabling would be different to above but I don't think you want or need this option?

Complicated I know - you should see the knitting I have with two video recorders, an analogue tv card and a dvb-t card!

[rsrts]

My satellite reciever, a triax, really sucks! The only feed out connections are thru scart, audio out and LNB out ( which only dvb-s cards support? not my pinnacle). No s-video, rf or something like that.

So the only possibilities I can see by now is to buy a dvb-s card which has the LNB-input... Or maybe use a "scart to s-video" cable where the scart is connected to the scart-output on the satellite-reciever and the s-video connected to my pinnacles s-video input...

Isn't this right?