PCI vs. USB Capture device,then which one?

[bozobyte]

Hello!
Can anyone PLEASE give me their advice on whether to buy a PCI or USB 2.0 video capture Device?

I have many VHS-C analog tapes I want to be able to capture, edit, then burn to a DVD,VCD, or SVCD disc. There are too many software/hardware titles on the market and I am too dizzy to decide.

Do I buy a USB Capture card like the $40.00 "SIIG USB Video capture Device" or the NCH USB DVD maker Video Capture device and use any editing programs like VideoDub, NEROVISION, or Adobe Premiere 8, or do I buy Roxio Easy VHS to DVD, Pinnacle Moviebox, or Diamond VC600,etc.,that comes with it's own software?

You must feel what I'm feeling. :-(

I will tell you that I have a Panasonic VCR, with many VHS-C camcorder tapes. I know the quantity at the time these movies were shot will mimic the same output that I burn, but at least I will have some preserved memories. It's all this avi's,.mov,mpeg1,mpeg2,mpeg4,encoding,authoring, editing, compressing, bitrate, resolution, converting, then FINALLY burning to a format where I could play back on the DVD player, BD player, Computer, or post to Youtube, etc. (AVI, MPEG1,2,4,etc.) WHEW!!!

I will say that in the future, I will want to capture, edit, and burn from a new AVCHD Digital 1080p Camcorder, so maybe the PCI would be better fit than just the composite cables from my VCR to the hard drive. I also have a Canon G6 digital camera that I take stills with, but also can shoot low, med, or hi res .avi files I also need to bring into my hard drive.

Does any of this sound easy? What! I heard you twice the first time...you told me to have a professional do all this for me, right? Well, that takes all the fun out of it.
Thanks for any advice! Happy Weekend!

MSI P-35 Platinum MoBo/
3228.0GB DDR2 PC6400 Corsair memory/
Intel Core2 Q6600 CPU/ Nvidia GeForce 8600GT with 512MB/
500GB Internal WD HDD/500GB Ext, WD HDD/
WinXP SP2/
NERO 9
I've heard bad reviews on NERO and the Pinnacle Movie Studio as far as Customer service and technical issues with their products.

[Cuc Tu]

Canopus ADVC 300

[bozobyte]

$390.00 for the this Canopus ADVC 300 @ Amazon, is a little too steep :eek: for my pocketbook,but thanks. Something in the area of $50 - $100.00 would do it....Maybe not. Someone mentioned Hauppauge 350 too,another expensive piece of work. I really don't plan on using a TV Tuner for my computer,would be nice,but then I'd have to buy an ugly antenna,nah, just the VHS Video capture,with maybe firewire for DV capture down the line. I'm leaning more towards PCI. Fry's Electronics store only had the Roxio Easy VHS to DVD with USB,and the Pinnacle Movie box USB for $80.00,and all the rest were TV Tuner PCI cards. So I will check our Micro Center.

[bozobyte]

Hi there!

My Nero is the original NERO 9, I can't seem to update this software online,too many frustrated problems,so I gave up. Also, not a very popular title as far as a few members here are concerned here on a few posts.

As far as buying a DVD recorder, It's going to record directly to the recorder, without any editing features.

I want to edit, fade in/out the bad areas, maybe add mp3 music, so recording directly to a DVR,without editing would not be feasible for me.

Is this right?
With the PCI, I could encode directly to the HDD, whereas the USB capture, there are many more steps involved?

Most peeps tell me to simply go out and buy a $30.00 USB2.0 Composite device, which sounds easier, but then there's the matter of finding the right editing software,and there are lots of pros and cons about this that makes it difficult.

If I go with a PCI, are these the things I need to be onboard?...

DV/Firewire - Captures analog video,converts to DV) Digital HD Capture to
(Newer AVCHD HD 1080p Camcorders)
MPEG1 hardware - VCD (medium Quality)
MPEG2 hardware - SVCD,DVD (Broadcast formats higher data rates)
MPEG4 hardware - Divx4, Xvid

[bozobyte]

Yesterday I purchased the SIIG USB 2.0 VIDEO CAPTURE DEVICE (JU-AV0012-S1). This has two Audio-Right and left, S-Video, and one Video RCA connectors.

I proceeded to do the install. First it prompted me to plug the USB device in the slot, NEW HARDWARE FOUND popped up, Inserted the Install CD, during this process, a window popped up,
“The file tridvid.sys" was needed and not found”.
I went back into the CD folder
32 BIT/DRIVERS and found that file and it installed it. Fine.
Then another message came up asking for a needed file named "acpinfo.ax". (Which is an Analog Copy Protection Notifier file) I went to Microsoft, searched, but could not find.

This "acpinfo.ax". file was not on the list of drivers or apps. on this install CD.

I went to Device Manager/Sound, video, game controllers, and noticed a yellow tag next to “Trident Analog Video”. Under Properties of this folder,”Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)”

Also, at some time during install another message came up telling "This product can not be used with this platform"? WHAT?

Package says, System requirements:
Windows7 (32-/64-bit)
Vista (32-/64-bit)
XP (32-/64-bit) I have the 32Bit XP

I contacted SIIG support and he told me that I should install from the website, which I did after the third attempt off the CD, but still get the error messages.

All I want to do is capture some VHS tapes to my computer, edit, and burn to DVD. Never thought I would have this many problems. Prior to buying this generic, basic looking, editing software device, I almost bought a Haupaugh 1600 PCI card for $80.00 @ Best Buy or Frys.

MSI P-35 Platinum MoBo/3.3GB DDR memory/Intel Core2 Q6600 CPU/ Nvidia GeForce 8600GT with 512MB/500GB Internal WD HDD/500GB Ext, WD HDD/WinXP SP2-32 Bit/ DirectX v.9

Even though I am not getting a TV TUNER card to capture or even watch TV, just use to capture, maybe something like this instead of a generic capture device like the usb I bought.

[bozobyte]

Soooo,
It's not enough I have to first get the capture of the VHS video into my computer, but I also have to use a editing program,then re-code to DV to burn to DVD/SCVD? So not all software that comes with the PCI capture card is good enough? Canopus, for instance, is way too much I want to spend ($300) or something like Virtualdub/vdubmod?

Maybe what I'm looking for is just the audio/video in to capture,then use another software program to edit,then burn?

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Even though I am not getting a TV TUNER card to capture or even watch TV, just use to capture, maybe something like this instead of a generic capture device like the usb I bought.

...and BINGO was his name-Oh,, ;) I had some early on bad experiences with some early usb wireless devices that drove me to opt for the pci version for a capture device.

I bought the pci unit a long time ago, maybe 2002 and it was already about a 1 year old card? It is a TV, FM and analog capture card . I had no problems with it for awhile, then something went beserk in it and it ruined my onboard sound on my ASUS mobo. Both were under warranty ATT so I exchanged each and have not had a problem since. I was using an old HI-8 video camera and I also wanted to capture some old VCR tapes. I also enjoy the TV and FM radio functions.

But anyway, you will get what you pay for, so you need to be the judge of the amount of money you are willing to spend. The card, with remote and some external wiring was a Leadtek WinFast TV2000XP Deluxe. I think I got it for ~around $50 back then. It captures in most of the formats you would want such as uncompressed avi, which is supposedly desirable for editing, and it also captures in various compression ratios of DVD, mpeg 1&2 (too old for 3&4?), VCD, SVCD and a few more. I even recorded several songs and lectures from the radio, and movies, specials from TV.

Producing, editing and burning brought about a whole new list of software needs and I opted for a few free programs as well as some trial versions. But anyway, I'll just list a few on-hand and if you need help locating their respective sites, post back and I can help with links.

DVD Shrink (free), Video Redo (trial), VSO's ConvertXtoDVD Plus (??), and NERO (~6 or 7? ) is currently the burner software but when using DVD Shrink it automatically finds and uses whatever burning software is available. It may even be able to use the native Windows XP and newer's, but I have not tried.

I have heard of some people even liking Windows Movie Maker for some tasks.

What I did mainly was just play the VCR tapes after running a head cleaner in the player and chose avi, mpeg2, maybe DVD or WMV and made a recording of the entire tape by tape. Once on digital media, editing if wanted, or just the process from capture to burn, is much easier.

I still use the radio stations function of my capture card daily :) AAMOF, I groovin' to some "Life is a Highway" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsmRuRp4cM) right now! :cool:

I think my fingers are out of breath...
Later, good luck.

PS
Nowadays you either take the card out from your camera and use it in your card reader or you play/copy the mini DVD the video was made on, or even use HDD's directly.

[bozobyte]

Thanks Fruss,
Good song...btw.
I used to drum for a Bluegrass Country Rock band,we appeared on the GONG SHOW,and I have a VHS tape of our performance i would like to capture,edit, and burn,along with the VHS-C tapes. I like all types of music.
Thanks for the info! I'm leaning towards the PCI, but I would hate to see any of those error missing file messages with any PCI device I may get. I looked at the installed editing software of the USB SIIG device(which I did successfully install, but not the drivers for capture) I inserted an AVI Camera video from my Canon G6 to test,and it is so basic,there is no fad in/out,which I want to do between splices from the VHS-C tapes.

[hackerballs]

Nero 8 Ultra is best, DVD shrink (free) is great with it.......yes, as Fruss Tray says buy a card reader for you camera as one should not download or format their pictures directly from the camera......why make a camera do PC work? Better for your camera............and ATI has the best capture card.....so far....but most will do

[Cuc Tu]

Missed all this action...

OK, the best solution is too expensive. I agree, ATI has a good capture solution. Their All-in-Wonder cards are OK. I have the latest PCI-E AIW HD (~$80) as well as the USB Combo HDTV box (~$40).

They work fine, but you have to consider that their native capture is via hardware MPEG2 encoding, which could make later editing less stable, plus there will be quality loss (Many people will not notice much, hower). They also have a low level integration requirement, which is prone to various complications (cases in point above).

This is why I suggest the Canopus. They deliver a standard high quality, raw DV stream via firewire and the capture process is supported by many professional video editing titles, such as Adobe Premier Elements (for the home user).

But again, the ATI solutions work too and are cheaper. This is the one I have:

http://www.frys.com/product/6124759?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Only in black...

I also have the Hauppauge 1600 PCI and it works too. I've not done a comparison, but the Hauppauge has given me some grief with the drivers. I think their latest updates have fixed a lot though. It was a bit more:

http://www.frys.com/product/5954744?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

This one came with a watered down video editing solution. I don't think ATI came with something for that.

By far, I like the Adobe Premier Elements, but it is harder to learn. It can do way more though. I've also used VideoStudio, Pinnacle Studio, and an old ShowBiz, plus MS Movie Maker.

I recall using DVD Shrink, but not editing with it. It was good for what I used it for.

If I wanted to go the cheapest route and plan to fiddle more with it, I would probably buy the ATI USB box and try some of the free editors mentioned.

Then I would go with ATIs PCI TV card.

Make sure you get the 650 series in either of the flavors above.

I would put Hauppauge as the 2nd PCI solution simply because of my experience, but it is probably equally as capable to frustrate...

Last, if you want to save a few bucks, on a quality converter, you could look at the Canopus 55, 110 series instead of the 300...

Plan on having lots of free time for video though. To make anything moderately nice is about a 10:1 time investment to finished product (i.e., a 1 minute video will take at least 10 minutes to make, something with titles and transitions, like a commercial)

[david eaton]

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