Video capture

[frenkie]

I'm fairly new to any form of video editing, etc. but I want to learn more.

I've got a lot of vhs tapes and 8 mm tapes (from my camcorder) that I want to transfer to my pc (to burn on a dvd, or cd-rom as mpg file or something).
Has anyone experience with this kind of recording? If so, what capture cards, software, etc. do you recommend?
What are the resolutions of various methods?
Greetz,
Frenkie

[Rincewind256]

I don`t know what graphiccard you have, but if you need a newer one and a capture card for analog devices, why not combine them. You will save systemresources, too. You know AGP-Bus is faster then the PCI, so if you want, try some cards like the "ATI All in Wonder Radeon 8500 DV 64" (theres a firewire-port inkluded you will need, if you want to buy a digi-cam in the future) for $ 199.
Just look: http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/ai...0dv/index.html

[frenkie]

The specs of my machine are as follows:
AMD Athlon K7 800 Mhz
384 Mb RAM
6 Gb + 20 Gb HDD
nVidia Geforce 4 440 mx AGP video card 64 Mb

You were talking about firewire, but is this also needed for analogue recording (eg vhs)?

[Rincewind256]

No, Firewire supports DV-Cams.

[frenkie]

As for analogue recording (won't be doing much dv recording the next couple of years), what capture card are recommended?
Some people say Hauppauge pvr, others pinnacle cards or even the ATI AIW Radeon card.
What card(s) do you prefer? Personally, I prefer quality above price.

[Rincewind256]

Sure, Pinnacle and Hauptauge have very good capture cards around, but I would prefer the "ATI AIW Radeon 8500 DV". Of course, this is only a suggestion you asked for it.

1. First, you save PCI-Slots. The most computers only have three or four of them. (The Radeon has a TV-Tuner, analog capture function and a Firewire = you are saving three PCI-Slots!)

2. You are minimizing hardwareconflicts. All come from the same manufacturer and all components are optimized.

3. AGP-Bus works faster then PCI and you are saving systemresources.

4. The Radeon 8500 GPU is faster then your nividia geforce 4 mx 440 (ATI 8,9 GB/sec memorytransfer on AGP 4x, Nividia 6,4 GB/sec memorytransfer on AGP 4x).

5. The Radeon is affordable ($ 199) and the quality is high.