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Capture Card Comparison

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Over the last year, I've made a comparison of various capture cards during my own laserdisc transfer project. On my home server here (BE PATIENT) there are three untouched captures of the same scene. Only one of these capture cards is able to capture in YUY. The others are captures from an MPEG2 capture card and another from a DV capture card. The results I think are suprising. Remember, these are all raw, untouched captures:

The top picture is a capture from a Canopus ADVC50 (same as the ADVC100 excepts lacks video out capability). It shows slight combing, but there is bad dot crawl(?), tearing (?) of red, most easily seen along the top of Leia's left arm. I never really considered DV seriously to start with because of the quality loss from the format.

The center is a YUY capture from a BT8*8 (actually a BT878) chipset tv capture card. It shows combing artifacts that I've noticed in many captures using similar cards and really is of poor quality. Despite the good reputation I am not impressed by these cards.

The bottom capture is from a Hauppauge PVR250MCE. To my eyes it easily is the best capture of the group. The interesting thing about this card is that it only captures in MPEG2. That's right, the image that has already been compressed shows the best quality. If I could wish for one thing, it would be a sharper picture as it looks like it was run through a soft filter.

Ok, a word on the source of the capture material. I'm using the definitive collection through a Pioneer Elite CLD-79.

Anyways, I would like everyones comments on these captures and a discussion on capture cards, and anyones personal experience with the PDI Deluxe.
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I've posted a second set of pictures here for further comparison.
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[From my previous post...]
Well, one thing's for sure - a lot of you are putting my raw captures to shame. Those Elite players are amazing.

You're absolutely right, the bottom one looks the best of the three, even though it's MPEG2. Hauppage cards have always been some of the best available, I just never looked at them because they only do MPEG captures. The middle one looks the closest to mine, and that makes sense since my cards are the newer generation of the BT8*8's.

Zion, from what I understand there is essentially no difference between my CLD-79 and your CLD-D704. I could be wrong but I beleive the 79 is just a D704 in elite badging.

You may be right, but the difference with my 704 is that is has severe color smearing which prevented me from ever getting a good solid capture out of it. None of my screencaps were off of that machine.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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I am using a BT878 card, and although there are minor combing artefacts on my captures (example), it's nowhere near as bad as the middle image on jonstamos' page.

This is using the s-video input, and therefore the 3-line digital comb filter in the player (D925) is in use. If I use the composite, the combing is much worse; see the images in this thread.

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That is the whole point of using a card like the PDI deluxe, it had much better combing filters than the ones built into the LD players, that is why you should come out via composite if using a good capture system, or via S-Video if using a crappy capture system but a decent player.
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OK, I've decided to do something a little exotic. My JVC RX-DP15B reciever does video scaling. I've decided to use the receiver to scale the laserdisc to s-video or component and capture with the PDI Deluxe card. During my tests I've discovered a slight quality improvement scaling composite to s-video compared to going directly into the PVR250MCE with composite. With the PDI Deluxe card I can capture the video in YUY2 instead of MPEG and potentially have a further improvement capturing through component. I'll keep everyone posted with the results.

As an aside, I 've discovered that it only took 10 minutes to disconnect my receiver from my home theater yet over an hour to hook it up.
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[Spock] "As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy, than to create." [/Spock]



Yeah, I know...wrong franchise.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Originally posted by: Laserman
That is the whole point of using a card like the PDI deluxe, it had much better combing filters than the ones built into the LD players, that is why you should come out via composite if using a good capture system, or via S-Video if using a crappy capture system but a decent player.
Yes the chipset in the PDI card features a 4-line adaptive comb filter ("adaptive" I think means the same as "3D", i.e. it also considers adjacent frames as well as just 4 lines from one frame, to get better results during motion). The output from this chipset then goes to a BT878 video decoder!

Unfortunately using the composite on the D925 is of no benefit (as mentioned in another thread), because apparently the player uses it's own comb filter to split the signal before processing, and the composite output is just the chroma and luma of the s-video combined.

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So using a CLD 925 (which I am) S-Video is always the best output to use right?
I now have a Pinnacle DC10 capture card which captures both PAL and NTSC.

Below is a link to first captures I have made from them.
Capture screenshots

Personally I think the DC10+ has the slight edge in detail over the Winfast card.
Both captures are from DVD.

I'll get round to doing the LaserDisc captures soon.