capture-card with built-in mpeg2 encoder?

hiob · Post by **hiob** » Mon May 01, 2006 6:53 am

hi there!

i am looking for a capture-card which i want to use mainly for direct-to-disk projects with dv-pal or analog svhs.
since i read in this forum that some people have experienced problems especially when capturing direct-to-disk i just wanted to ask for a little advice..

the capture-card (i would prefer an external one) will be used with a pc/intel 3g, 1gb ram.- when buying a "regular" card i would (up till now) tend to canopus ADVC300.
but i am wondering if a capture-device with built-in mpeg2 encoder would do a better job or maybe run more stable. i read about the ads Instant DVD + MP3 encoder which could also convert audio to dolby. but i still havent figured out if its compatible to mf5.

i appreciate any suggestions or infos.

thanks a lot

joerg

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Mon May 01, 2006 3:44 pm

For quality, reliability Canopus is the best.
You need a firewire port on your machine for that.

To do direct to mpeg/dvd conversion fast would require a separate device as you already know.
You can spend money on whatever and get everyones opinion.
I would buy a dvd recorder, Panasonic,hitachi or sony.
Then import the video(s) from the dvd you made into MF for editing.

The canopus units are DV video conversion(s). The best method.

You may not need to buy anything if you have a DV camcorder that supports the "Passthrough" mode. In passthrough mode you connect the vhs unit to the dv camcorder and it will output a dv video stream to the input (firewire) port of the computer. Same as buying a Canopus unit.
You can't go wrong with dv video. It's compatible with all video software.

Hope this helps,

MD

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Mon May 01, 2006 6:15 pm

I have a Hauppauge card with a hardware MPEG encoder, and it works great! (It does not have an AC3 audio encoder, it makes MPEG-2 audio.)

But, editing MPEGs has been a nightmare! MPEGs are not supposed to be edited, and I had to buy a special-purpose MPEG editor to prevent "lip-sync" problems, etc. (A special-purpose MPEG editor cannot eliminate the inherent losses when an edit requires decoding and re-coding.)

I would buy a dvd recorder...

I agree with that. A PC's hardware and it's multitasking operating system are NOT ideal for direct-to-DVD recording. (A hardware encoder makes it much more reasonable, but it's still not the best set-up.)

Then import the video(s) from the dvd you made into MF for editing.

As above, I recommend against editing MPEGs.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:59 pm

DVDDoug,

The -VR format is made to cut/split segments, not direct editing such as
transisitons and text overlay etc.

I'm curious to see what happens for one who is trying to edit HD-mpeg files.
Should be interesting.

MD

hiob · Post by **hiob** » Tue May 02, 2006 6:48 am

thanks again!

editing is not important, since i need the dvd right after the recording. the most important thing is having a finished dvd 5 minutes or less after an event i am recording..since it should be playable on a wide range of players i dont trust stand-alone recorders...
with the mpeg2 hartdware-encoder i just want to free ressources on the pc so maybe its running more stable..

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Tue May 02, 2006 11:43 am

hiob,

If you record onto a Panasonic dvd recorder unit to Dvd-r in SD mode (standard Play) mode
it will play in every player as long as you use brand-name media.

The computer is the less likely to play in all players.
You can also look at the handy-cams by Sony or panasonic.
You don't need the expensive models.

MD

keithm · Post by **keithm** » Tue May 02, 2006 11:54 am

I use a hauppauge PVR-150 (mce version with no remote): the picture quality is as good as my stand alone dvd recorder! I edit the mpeg capture with womble's mpeg2vcr and then burn to dvd with ulead movie factory 3. I still sometimes get lip synch errors but I get less with the captures made with the hauppage than with my stand alone dvd recorder.

The mce version is cheaper because of no remote but you do need to download the drivers from hauppauge: now the bad news!

There are issues with the line in audio level of this card; the card captures both audio and video but it does record audio too loud. There are a lot of tweaks and different drivers but in the end I made an external bix to reduce the levels.

It is a great card and when my dvd recorder dies I think I'll build another pc with one of these in; best price in the uk is at

www.scan.co.uk

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Tue May 02, 2006 4:05 pm

This is what the poster says he wants to do:

>>>editing is not important, since i need the dvd right
>>>after the recording. the most important thing is having a finished dvd 5
>>>minutes or less after an event

I would think that only a dvd camcorder can do something in 5 minutes.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue May 02, 2006 5:39 pm

You may find the following of interest:
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=11379