Originally posted by: Obi-Wan Spicoli

Originally posted by: Patrick R.
Thanks Obi-Wan Spicoli. I really hope torrents of From Star Wars to Jedi and The Making of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back come out too.
I found a torrent for the extras disc. If you want it I'll PM you the link. The Making of Star Wars and SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back are available on laserdisc, which, of course, would make for an excellent conversion. There's also a Japanese laserdisc sourced collection known as Star Wars: The Making of a Trilogy which includes both titles above plus Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi and From Star Wars to Jedi. But they have hard coded subtitles. This collection has already made the binary rounds but I have yet to see a torrent.

Originally posted by: Patrick R.
I'll stick to my Canopus ADVC-100 instead of the GeForce4 card I have. I like not having to worry about audio sync. The only bad thing about the Canopus is that it captures at 4:1:1 instead of 4:2:2 like the Targa can.

I've been considering a capture device for a while now. One choice is the ADVC-100. How do you like yours and do you recommend it? I'm also considering a Hauppage PVR-250. Any experience there?

Scott

Scott,

That would be great if a torrent of that stuff surfaces. As far as my ADVC-100, I am very pleased with it. It is an external DV Capture bridge that uses it's own power source. You do have to have a Firewire Card in your PC to use it. Unfortunately, it comes with no software whatsoever. However, there is a free program I use called WinDV that works great. Since I've used this card, I have had no dropped frames and no audio sync issues like I did when I used the GeForce4. The sync issues may have been caused by my built-in soundchip. I have since disabled it and installed a regular sound card. I like the ADVC-100 over the 50 and 1394 (don't need a firewire card for this one and comes with software and cheaper) because it has inputs and outputs so you can make a tape for someone without a VCR. That really is a small reason now since almost everyone seems to have DVD Players now.

You may want to consider the ADVC-300 or 500 as well. Here is a link to Video Help's capture card list.
Capture Card Lists

I have also provided links to reviews for each of the cards you asked about, but I'll start with the Targa Laserman mentioned.

Targa 2000

It sounds very good since it can capture 4:2:2. However, it is not supported by Pinnacle anymore and the last Windows OS it is known to work with is NT. Some have said they have gotten it to work with Win2K, but mileage may very. You'll notice the reviews are from 2001.

Hauppauge WinPVR-250

This cards seems to be rated pretty well. However, it appears that those with AMD processors and chipsets have trouble with it.

ADVC-100

Here is the ADVC-100. I've had no problems with mine. There was some mention that it would not work or XP would not work with some Firewire cards based on a Texas Instruments chipsets. That was a few years ago. That problem has been sorted out, so if you have a newer Firewire card, you shouldn't have an issue. My cheap Firewire card has a TI chipset and I have had no problems. The only thing to consider is that this is a DV capture device and Laserman has mentioned DV has color loss because of the compression to 4:1:1 during capture. I really haven't had any color problems except when I had one of the jumpers set to capture at IRE 0 (Pal) instead of IRE 7.5 (NTSC). Since I switched it to 7.5, I've had much better colors. The last thing I will say is that this device works with both PC's and Mac's which a lot of products do now days.

Thanks.

Patrick