Request For Recommendation On Video Conversion

[TCAS]

What is your recommendation for Hardware or Software or combination of both for conversion of "VideTapes " (VHS version) to VCD or SVCD and DVD. Would you go with the more expensive media with hardware conversion (decoding and encoding) capability or software conversion?. Do you go with simple media with Tunner/ or Capture capability or with both of these plus conversion one?.

[TheWizard]

This probably belongs in the General Hardware Forum, but either way your question will be answered, so I might as well post a reply here.

Buy a TV capture card and make sure it has a video input either composite or S-Video, if you want to hook your VCR up that way. You could route your cable/satellite TV through the VCR and connect the VCR to the coax connector on the TV capture card, but this can be skipped if the card you buy and the VCR has either composite or S-Video. I recommend ATI cards, either the simple TV Wonder or a Radeon All-In-Wonder, as I've had success with them. You could use another brand though; I'd suggest doing a search on Google for reviews of TV capture/tuner cards. Likewise, you can search for reviews for video editing software. Personally, I capture using 320 x 240, 30fps AVI video with 44.100KHz, 16bit, stereo audio. It produces HUGE files, but the quality is excellent since less than 1% of frames are dropped during recording. I then splice the AVI to omit anything I don't want and save it as a WMV file in Windows Movie Maker. I've also used NeroVision Express 2, but for me, Windows Movie Maker is a piece of cake to use. You can use NeroVision (or many other software packages) to save files as AVI's or MPG's. If I have an AVI, WMV, or ASF file that I want to convert to MPG so I can make a (S)VCD out of it, I use TMPGENC. If you use video editing software, such as NeroVision, that can create MPG's then there is no need to convert the file with TMPGENC. Furthermore, if you use video capturing software that can output in MPG, and you see no need to edit the film upon completion, then you don't need Windows Movie Maker or NeroVision. Just create a (S)VCD in Nero Burning ROM with the MPG you have.

Each TV capture card has a maximum resolution and capture rate, in frames per second. There are cards that support 640 x 480, but the only cards I have used only support 320 x 240. Poor me. Also, the capturing software limits or enables you to capture the video in certain formats: AVI, MPG, WMV, and so on. I use ATI's MultiMedia Center, and while I doubt it's the best piece of capturing software, it does the job for me. I urge you to check out some reviews to see what suits your needs, both hardware and software.

[wicked1]

I too have been wondering about this.I want to convert some Hi8 video tapes to dvd.My video card(GeForce 5600 Ultra) has the capabilities to do it but the files are insanely huge.A 5 minute video is a few hundred megs.Are there any video cards that can encode it to mpeg2 on the fly so they arent quite as big?

edit:I found a card that sounds awesome.It can do mpeg1/2/4 on the fly.The mpeg4 would be nice.Too bad its made by plextor (ducks for cover) Its also 160 dollars though.Anyone use it yet?

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.a ... 14&order=1

[TheWizard]

The ATI TV Wonder I use can capture in MPEG1 and 2, I believe. When capturing TV, even DVD-quality MPG tends to have a fairly high frame droppage rate, which is why I prefer 320 x 240, 30 fps AVI. I'm not sure how the frame droppage rate is with VHS or Hi8 capturing.

[Turkeyscore.com]

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.a ... e&sort=asc
check out the $39 Kworld, I havent seen any reviews on it, but it can supposedly capture MPEG 1/2 at 640x480, it also has a remote and an FM tuner. (I am thinking about buying it and reviewing it)

[TCAS]

I personally would like to go for either HAUPPAUGE WinTVPVR 350 ($190) or Plextor Convertx PX-M401U ($160), but not having DVD writer at this time, $200 for the TV Tunner/Capture & Conversion Video card is kind of expensive. I might decide to buy Leadtek Winfast Delux 2000XP for the $46 from Newegg, the problem with this card, there is no indication that this card have either Capturing or Conversion ( Analog to Digital) capability.

[TheWizard]

Just read some reviews on all of the above, then decide which you like best. The ideal review would be one that compares several TV capture cards side-by-side.

[TCAS]

Today (October 15) I ordered the Leadtek Deluxe TV2000XP card from Newegg for $47+tax. Upon arrival of the card will install and try checking the functional tunning, capturing and conversion, will have the comment later.

[TheWizard]

I've heard the Leadtek Winfast is a good card, definitely let us know how it turns out.

[aviationwiz]

I have Pinnacle Studio. It hooks up USB to an adapter, then I plug the standard Red, White, Yellow cables to. Then I just use Studio to capture the audio and video from either a Video Camera or a VCR. In fact, I just did it the other night.

[TCAS]

I am reportting the evaluation result on functional peromance of LeadTek WinFast TV2000 Delux for Capturing , Tunning and Conversion capability. The card tunes and displays 125 TV Channels with quality better than average TV, FM Radio easily tunes in to all FM channels with good quality of reception with interference for some and that is due to the FM antenna not being properly situated. The card record and playback from live TV with very good quality, and playback so easy.

I have yet to try the Conversion function of this card by connecting it to VCR and then try to play the VHS Tapes and recording it with encoding to VCD(MPEG-1) or SVCD(MPEG-2) formate. I will post the result of that testing when is one.

[treemana]

I use the Hauppauge PVR 250. It's best feature is a hardware MPEG-2 encoder. (It doesn't rely on your CPU to do the encoding.) The 350 adds hardware decoding, but that wasn't as important to me.

I can capture an MPEG-2 file at DVD resolution. (720x480, 29.97 fps, I usually go with a 4000Kbps bit rate which will give me 2 hrs on a 4.37GB disk.) Since the captured video files are DVD-compliant, I can quickly author and burn a DVD. (No re-encoding necessary.)

My previous capture card did not have hardware encoding, and the highest resolution I could capture at was 320x240. (Any higher and I'd start dropping frames.) This card was good for making VCDs, but nothing of a higher quality.

I am very pleased with my Hauppauge card.

[Turkeyscore.com]

The card record and playback from live TV with very good quality, and playback so easy

Can you give me an actual resolution/FPS? I am curious about that card, looked good, but I dont really want to buy a card only to find out that just records 320x240 .

[TCAS]

Turkeyscore.com Wrote:

Can you give me an actual resolution/FPS? I am curious about that card, looked good, but I dont really want to buy a card only to find out that just records 320x240 .


Yes: The Target data rate Is : 4000 kbps
Video Codec is MPEG-2 Codec
Audio Codec is MPEG-1 Layer II
Capture Resolution is 320X480n NTSC
Audio bitrate is 224 kbps


If you go to the "Newegg.com" site and read the 435 buyer of this card so far you will get prity good idea how this card is and that will help you make your own decision.

[sly5]

Take a look at the Canopus family of cards. I have an ADVC 1394 and I loveit. I import analog via the Canopus card using Vegas Video and I can then burn to vcd or svcd. soon I'm going for the dvd burner so DVD here I come.

I think I paid around $150 for the card about a year ago.

Canopus also has an external converter called the ADVC-100 where you can convert to vcd/svcd/dvd or back to vhs after editing.