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Good capture card?

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I want to get a good capture card for my PC. Can anyone recommend a card less than $150 that will give me a great rip of VHS/LD. I was looking at ADS Technologies API-555 Pyro Av Link with adobe Premier Elements. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

FE<3OT

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You'll never get a "great" capture from VHS!

My suggestion would be, rather than get a relatively expensive DV based capture device, get a cheap PCI card that can capture in uncompressed formats. For example:
http://www.leadtek.com/multimedia/winfast_vc100xp_1.html

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Right. I didn't really mean a "great" capture but rather, a good capture. A capture worth editing/preserving. So, does this look like a decent capture device?

pyro

It's on clearance for $100 bucks at my Circuit City.

The only feature I don't really see on this that the is on the one you listed was "De-interlace". Not really sure what this means.

Me>Rookie

FE<3OT

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DV capture devices are really easy and efficient at what they do, but they do have their limitations. A MAJOR limitation is that you can only capture with the DV codec. It is a true digital capturing system, which means that capturing from analog sources like VHS and laserdisc is not ideal. It will capture only with it's proprietary DV codec, not giving you the option of capturing uncompressed video or with something like HuffYUV instead. The DV capture will look decent, but you will lose a lot of color information right off the bat. And the reds in DV always seem to bleed as well.

Don't buy something like that if you're going to capture primarily from VHS/LD. Buy something like the card Moth3r suggested, or another PCI capture card that doesn't have a proprietary MPEG capture chip. For the X0 Project, we used the PDI Deluxe Card and captured with HuffYUV. That's about as good as it gets for analog capture. Even though that card runs about $200 online, you can find similar cards for as low as $30. For maximum quality, make sure you buy one that has the video inputs directly on the card, instead of having a single output with a multi-input adapter.

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

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I actually have that capture device and I think it gives a very good capture from analog video. The only problem I have is dropped frames but I'm not sure of the cause of that, it could be the computer or the card. Other than that, I get great captures, even from vhs. I think it's very hard to tell the difference between playing the Hi8 tape directly to my tv and the dvd made from the captures. I have some screen caps but I don't know how to post them online.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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You can post the image using imageshack.com. Once its uploaded to imageshack.com then just post a link to the picture on here.


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[url=http://www.uploadfile.info]http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/cd3a8df5b6.jpg[/url]

[url=http://www.uploadfile.info]http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/608d7b102f.jpg[/url]

[url=http://www.uploadfile.info]http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/c546bae96a.jpg[/url]

[url=http://www.uploadfile.info]http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/3105112d27.jpg[/url]

[url=http://www.uploadfile.info]http://www.uploadfile.info/uploads/939f87574e.jpg[/url]


If this works, see if you can guess which video camera format I used for all but the last one (it's from a different video camera). All used an s-video cable.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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I have quesiton about this post of yours Zion...

"DV capture devices are really easy and efficient at what they do, but they do have their limitations. A MAJOR limitation is that you can only capture with the DV codec. It is a true digital capturing system, which means that capturing from analog sources like VHS and laserdisc is not ideal. It will capture only with it's proprietary DV codec, not giving you the option of capturing uncompressed video or with something like HuffYUV instead. The DV capture will look decent, but you will lose a lot of color information right off the bat. And the reds in DV always seem to bleed as well.

Don't buy something like that if you're going to capture primarily from VHS/LD. Buy something like the card Moth3r suggested, or another PCI capture card that doesn't have a proprietary MPEG capture chip. For the X0 Project, we used the PDI Deluxe Card and captured with HuffYUV. That's about as good as it gets for analog capture. Even though that card runs about $200 online, you can find similar cards for as low as $30. For maximum quality, make sure you buy one that has the video inputs directly on the card, instead of having a single output with a multi-input adapter."

I've got a bunch of VHS music videos that will never see the light of day on DVD unfortunately, and I just want to get better captures than what I have now. Everything was captured at 320x240 (due to the limitations of the capturing USB device). And I'd like to capture these again at 720x480 for transferring to DVD. Do you have any suggestions for a caputure card/USB device that uses an RCA input? My VCR deck does not have an S-Video output unfortunately. So basically I want to get the best transfer possible out the above. Money isn't an object, but I know due to the fact this is on VHS it's only going to look so good anyway.
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My answer to your question would pretty much be what I posted in that second paragraph. The PDI Deluxe is the best capture card I've ever used. Aside from that and the Black Magic boards (which are more expensive than the PDI I believe), you're going to see a lot of similarly priced capture cards in the $30-$50 range that will give about the same results. I don't know of any USB devices that are similar. You might try out one of the bargain basement PCI cards just to see what kind of a result you can get. In theory, a card that doesn't have a TV tuner or any other bells a whistles that interfere with the capturing process would do the best job.

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

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So what you're saying is evenythough there are three component jacks, one can be used as composite? That's odd. I've never seen that.
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How do you guys feel about the Turtle Beach card?

Turtle Beach PCI card

lt's got a 10-bit uncompressed video capture. I'm assuming I could install HuffYUV and use Vegas to capture it uncompressed then edit as needed? Or is there a comparible card to this that's cheaper. Once again, this is only for VHS. I dont have a camcorder so there's no need for anything for an input other than composite.
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The PDI Deluxe (sweetspot card in Europe) allows capture via RGB, or component or Composite via the three RCA jacks.
It also has another two SVideo jacks and those two can also be used for composite.

It is the best sub $500 card I've used. On paper it looks like any other capture card, in use it produces much cleaner captures than anything else in its price bracket.

If you are in the NTSC world, then you really really don't want to use DV capture, in addition to limitations with the DV codecs, NTSC captures in 4:1:1 whereas DVD (and PAL DV) is 4:2:0, so you end up with 4:1:0 efectively, so you lose a *lot* of colour resolution.

If getting dropped frames, use a separate hard drive to capture to (i.e. never use your C: drive), make sure you have plenty of RAM and make sure all other programs are not running (virus scanners, any other memory resident programs) and use a 7200RPM drive, or configure a pair of drives as RAID0.
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I've got an older Athalon XP 1900+ with 1gig of ram. My 2nd drive is actually a WD 36GB Raptor 10K RPM drive so I've got no problems on the drive. Hopefully the speed of the processor and board won't be dropping frames.
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This thread has also been of great interest to me. Thanks!

I've recently purchased a JVC S-VHS VCR. My intention is to capture my 1995 widescreen VHS tapes of the OOT so that I can produce my own dual-layer DVDs of them (until such time as Luca$hFilm release something better than my non-anamorphic versions, of course!).

I intend to purchase a desktop PC, which forms the next phase of my masterplan! I assume that most shop-bought desktops won't come with anything like the capture cards discussed as standard? Is 512Mb RAM sufficient or do you need at least 1024Mb? Is there a minimum clock speed I should be looking for on the processor? And what software would be best to use to capture the footage from my tapes and burn to dual-layer DVD with the least amount of quality losses possible?
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Get 1GB of RAM, memory is cheap and XP doesn't really start to perform properly until it has 1GB to play with, and no, it won't come with a decent capture card, you will need to buy one separately - but they are easy to fit.

If purchasing a PC now, simply get a conroe (intel core duo) based system, they are cheap and more than powerful enough for just about anything. Even the slowest one will be more than fine for your purposes. (they also seem happy to overclock quite a bit with standard cooling if that floats your boat) You can get boards that use standard DDR2 memory, make sure you have a few PCI slots free for add in cards. If it isn't a hardcore gaming rig, you may want to get a passively cooled graphics card (no fan) to keep the sytem quiet. (Personal choice, but video editing is time consuming, and the drone of PC fans drives me nuts after a while - silent is better)

Also, get a second hard drive (to capture to) and make sure it is 7200RPM. If money is an issue samsung drives are cheap and quiet and have 3yr warranties, otherwise the WD or Seagate drives at 7200RPM will do the job. I've had nothing but trouble with Maxtors, but YMMV.

As for software, most of the capture software is free or cheap. VirtualVCR, avisynth/virtualdub can all be downloaded.
You may want to get the cheap version of CCE (Cinema Craft Encoder) for encoding the DVD.

Most importantly, option up to a *quality* power supply, cheap power supplies tend to put electrical noise across the bus and it ends up as video noise/interference in your captures. A decent power supply will also make your system more stable for everyday use, and you can get ones that run quiet.
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Thanks, Laserman! I'll post in my "British new kid..." thread once I have any further progress to report.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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VirtualVCR is a nice little capturing application, but I've found that is can sometime lose audio sync. VirtualDub is better in this respect.

If your VHS tapes are slightly stretched or have video dropouts, you may still get dropped frames in your capture even if your hardware is fast enough.

I'd recommend using the huffyuv codec for capturing losslessly, then frameserving to CCE with AviSynth. If you're going to be applying some AviSynth noise reduction filters, these can be real system killers, so a fast CPU is essential.

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Excellent! Thanks for all this great advice, guys!

I'm hoping that the tapes won't be too stretched or damaged, as they've hardly been used. I've been using my 1991 widescreen tapes to watch the OOT when I want to and the 1995s have been kept for a "time capsule".
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Moth3r...can you elaborate on "frameserving to CCE with AviSynth" as to what you mean by this? I assume by the following sentence this has something to do with noise filtering?
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Originally posted by: sunday256
Moth3r...can you elaborate on "frameserving to CCE with AviSynth" as to what you mean by this? I assume by the following sentence this has something to do with noise filtering?

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Avisynth

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Put simply, an AVS file is a text file, or script, that describes a series of processing operations applied to a video source.

Processing can be anything; deinterlacing, noise filtering, resizing, colour correction, etc...
There are many filters built in to AviSynth, and many more can be downloaded as plugins.

When you select an AVS file as the source for CCE, TMPGEnc or whatever, the encoder sees the AVS file as a normal AVI file. Since AVISynth takes the source video, processes it, and serves the processed frames to the encoder, there is no requirement to save an intermediate file.

It is a very powerful piece of software, and it is worthwhile learning how to write scripts.

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Originally posted by: Zion...
Don't buy something like that if you're going to capture primarily from VHS/LD. Buy something like the card Moth3r suggested, or another PCI capture card that doesn't have a proprietary MPEG capture chip. For the X0 Project, we used the PDI Deluxe Card and captured with HuffYUV. That's about as good as it gets for analog capture.
...


I don't know about that one, but the best I've seen so far is the Compro VideoMate Ultra. It produces some really amazing results and has 3D Y/C separation. The following model is the Compro VideoMate X800. For more information, check out this page, specifically the WeatherMapRoundup.


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If you buy the X800, make sure you get it from somewhere that has a return policy.
It is an excellent card, but can have problems with interference patterns on the composite input which I think is due to insufficient filtering on the power rails. It is a bit of a lucky dip as to whether you get a clean picture in a particular PC.
(A good quality power supply is a must with cards that are on the edge of tolerance)
The 3D comb filter is somewhat useful, but introduces a lot of artefacts as most 3D comb filters do.
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Really? Is it much worse than the VideoMate Ultra or BTx78-based cards in that regard?