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Capture Card Recommendation Needed

 
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2002 6:38 am    Post subject: Capture Card Recommendation Needed Reply with quote

Hey, guys. Sorry for not showing up, but if you'd known, some of you might forgive me... I got married. Cool Many stories to tell.

anyway, now I need to buy a capture card. Thinking of All-In-Wonder 7500 or 8500. Can anyone give me some opinions / second thoughts? If anyone who uses the card can answer me, it would be highly appreciated. But I'll take anything. Wink

Many thanx in advance.

p.s.) some say AIW's TV out is too lousy... think so?
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oblio



Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 106
Location: Detroix, MI

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2002 10:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is all just my opinion.

The Radeon AIW is nice because it works in win2k (which gives one relief regarding the 2G file size limits in 98), but I found that the capture quality wasn't as good as the DC10 (which I use). Also, some of the driver sets (the latest) don't let you save in anything but mpeg2, which can couple you with more artificating than you want to get into.

The DC10 needs win98 (I set up a seperate capture box), and works well with AVI_IO, but I find I have to reboot every 3 or 4 days (which is annoying because I mostly capture timed shows). I'm largely OK with the video quality off analog cable.

I think the DC30 has win2k german drivers or some such but is a little more expensive than I was willing to sink. (They were running 300$ at the time I was buying).

If you have a fast box and intend to compress on the fly, or have a ripping fast IO subsystem, you can use a standard BT848 capture card (these are the cheapest of the bunch) but I had mixed experiences trying to get a couple of these to work. FWIW, Striped ATA66 drives had problems keeping up with raw 640x480. This shouldn't have been a problem, and I blame the drives themselves, but still, annoying.

About video-out. I'm not sure how much it matters... I certainly don't use mine. I guess if you are trying to create a single computer that does everything, then it could be important, but I have to warn you that video capture hardware is the most tempormental stuff I've every played with from a hardware system point of view, and I definitely recommend using a seperate computer to do your capturing.

Well, there's the 2 minute summary of my experience.
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2002 5:53 pm    Post subject: Thanx for the reply. Reply with quote

hey, oblio. Wink thanx for the kind reply. after doing some research, I decided to test out All-In-Wonder 8500DV this time. as usual, many people have reported problems with it (mostly drivers), but there was a newer driver came out as of aug.1.02. so I assume that it might be able to solve the problem (and hopefully I won't meet any).

it's price got way cheaper than before (now, it's sold for $160 at buy.com) and I like the remote control that comes out with it. hehehe...

another good thing(?) is that the card is equipped with a firewire port (which would cost me another $40~$50).

well, to be honest, I'll have to see what it's like - and hope that I'll like it. I'll let you know.

again, thanx for your detailed guideline (as usual). Cool
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2002 6:00 am    Post subject: Review of All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Reply with quote

just got the device and tested for a while, and thought you might wanna know how it went.

though many people have complained about this card, this one went just right onto my machine. first of all, the following is the feature that All-In-Wonder 8500DV offers:

1. TV receiever / Recorder
2. Composite Video / S-Video In/Out
3. DV connectors for Camcorder
4. Two Firewire ports
5. One DVI output with D-Sub converter
6. RF-Remote control

the machine I installed the card runs Win2k Pro SP3 on PII-400 with 576MB ram, 100GB ATA100 HDD in total), CD-Rom+CD-RW.
the differences between 8500 and 8500DV are RAM size (128MB 8500 and 64MB 8500DV), firewire ports, remote controller and AIW input/output connector (will explain later)

installation was fairly easy - just hooked up the card and installed drivers from provided CD. just needed to wire antenna and cables, and everything worked. the only mistake I made was installing updated drivers from ATI web page. following is the updated drivers I have installed.

ATI Control Panel build 6.13.10.3017
ATI DVD Player 7.6
ATI Multimedia Center 7.7.0.1 (Tuner+Capture)
Display Drivers - Catalyst 02.2 Win2k Radeon 5.13.01.6118-efg
Hydravision 3.10.1010
WDM TV Capture Driver build 6.13.10.6125 v4

after installing the updates, I couldn't watch TV - my system would hang and show bluescreen. funny. the only update worked was remote control update. I had to uninstall everything and reinstall provided drivers.
so my best recommendation is - stick with the drivers that are provided. don't update any except remote control update. it's not a real update.

this is what the board looks like:


from the top, it's TV antenna receiver, DVI connector, AIW input/output connector socket, and firewire port. on the very right, you'll see power conenctor. this is for some firewire HDD that needs more power from the board. since I was planning on buying one firewire or usb 2.0/firewire combo card, it's good to have extra ports. I can save one valueable PCI slot. Wink
as I'm not using flat-panel display (I'm on 19' Samsung SyncMaster 955DF), I needed to use DVI-to-D-Sub converter (provided with the card).

this is what ATI input/output connector looks like:


left side is output, right side is input. good thing about this connector is that I don't have to westle with wires from the back of my machine when needed. the cable is about 2 feet long, so that I can work with input/output wires in the front. it has composite video, stereo sound, s-video, digital audio (output only) and DV (firewire, input only). following is the image from the left/right (accordingly)




remote controller works fairly well - it can start/close all application provided with CD. TV, DVD player, Library, Web (except CD player) with volume control, channel control and DVD contorl (plus 6 programmable buttons). I can move the mouse from the remote button located in the middle and left/right click. below is the image of the remote (image is little different from the remote I have. probably they have upgraded it). and it's operating range is okay. I can control PC from two rooms away, though the remote receiver is located right below my monitor (which may have much magnetic interference though it may be shielded)



as for the performance, it works okay with my machine. many people have complained that this card wouldn't capture and stuff, but I can capture TV and video without any problem. I only needed to wire them up right.
many presetted mode is provided by default. from 56k windows media incoding to 720x480@30fps DVD capture mode. it also supports AC3-dolby stereo output (codec is needed, but who cares Wink ). I can make VCD (NTSC, PAL supported) and capture snap-shots. also it is possible to zoom in to the TV. also the resolution is cutomizable, so that I can make my own set of mode (such as 720x480 with cd quality of sound in Mpeg1)
it also can encode, but if you like to encode Mpeg2 in real time, you will need pretty fast machine to do so. apparently mine can't.

and since it works in win2k (as oblio mentioned), I don't have to consider the file size limit (2GB in FAT). and win2k is considerably more stabe than win9x.

the only thing that didn't work for me is watching movie from the TV. that's probably due to my screen resolution and TV's resolution (my TV can only support upto 800x600@60Mhz, and I'm using 1152x864@85Mhz. are all TV the same?). you can either duplicate the desktop, expand the desktop to the left/bottom, and have two desktop (you need to set up your monitor at 800x600, as well). by duplicating my machine's desktop with TV, I can record it into video tape. but as for the movie showing on TV, I can't find the answer yet.

and I also figured that the quality of the video is not the best - that's perhaps I'm not using S-Video connector. but my video doesn't have S-Video out. darn thing.

so, to conclude, for me it works, though many people complain. I bought this because I loved the remote controller (yes, call me lazy ass.. Wink ) but it's cool to control pc without being close to it. and the capture is not the best, but it's okay for general use (such as recording TV show and making VCD and stuff) I bought it for $160 (shipping included) and it's worth it.
the only downside is, its poor driver support and TV out. I can't believe the updated drivers can cause the problem.
the upside would be easy capture with scheduler (which I think most of TV capture cards are able to), working condition in win2k, firewire ports and remote.

in overall, I would give it WinkWinkWinkWink smiley face out of WinkWinkWinkWinkWink. if the drivers had worked right and TV showed the movie, I would give it a five.

if you have any questions regarding to this card, let me know. I'll update it as soon as possible. thanx for your reading my humble review of AIW 8500DV.

p.s) one warning - I'm not sure if it's the same with other cards, but I've read some say the TV antenna will generate a lot of heat (I have not confirm this) so they attach a cooler on it. if so, I'll attach a cooler later. you may wanna consider this also.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2002 9:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the review of the card-- I've been thinking about getting an AIW card for a little while as well. My main reason is laziness-- the RF remote.

A couple years ago I picked up an ATI TV Wonder PCI capture card so that I could watch TV on my computer. That pretty much marked the end of my TV-watching... it just wasn't worth it without a remote. Not being able to channel-surf during ads sucks.

Anyway, what I was going to suggest here: with my old TV Wonder card I found that the input video quality was quite poor-- disappointingly so. When I first set the card up, I had it hooked up to a cable connection here. I changed that slightly, and routed the cable into my VCR, then ran a composite video cable from my VCR into the TV Wonder card. The video quality was *much* better, and I could use my VCR's remote to control the channel.

To summarize: I'd recommend avoiding using the TV tuner on the card, and I'd route a cable signal through s-video or composite cables from a VCR instead.

Regards,
-Melchior
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Wed Sep 04, 2002 3:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

but if I route the cable from VCR, then I would have to control channel from the video, not from the PC. and for general purpose, I think antenna is okay. and since AIW's remote has recording button, I can record something when I need. so I just wired antenna.
but as you suggested, I can wire it up with composite/s-video and audio cable and TV antenna, and choose the source when I need. that's a good thought. thanx. Wink

as for your taste, AIW offers channel surfing mode - but sadly the button is not on the remote. however, you can define one from 6 programmable buttons. it will surf the channel in every 2, 4, 6, 10 seconds and you can stop anytime.



and for obvious reason, AIW offers 'showing TV on the desktop when minimized' mode. so if you minimize the window, it will show TV as desktop's wallpaper. also, it has 'blending mode' which you can specify transparency of TV window. it will probably come in handy for ya.

also, you can watch it while surfing the net. I'll include the screenshot here.



hope this helps, and sorry for not being able to test the quality of the recorded video. my system is just way-too-old to test all of em. Wink

p.s) pictures may not be available depends on my system.


Last edited by BlueSeptember on Sat Sep 07, 2002 7:15 am; edited 1 time in total
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Musicman



Joined: 25 Feb 2002
Posts: 18
Location: Memphis,TN

PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2002 5:24 am    Post subject: What filters you use? Reply with quote

Sort of on/off topic...this may be the only ati header in a long time. I have an ati AIW 16mb pci and it works great. Able to capture..no crashes..etc.etc.

It's when I want to reencode it to svcd from huffy that my quality suffers...I use alot of filters in VD when I frameserve it to tmpg. What I would like to know is what VD filters you guys use (if any) to maintain the sharpness of what you captured.

I know how to boost video bitrate but my filter selection is probably causing more damage than I want and I would like to hear from others who have experimented with different VD filters and what is the best combination on say...VHS anime...VHS non-anime.

I've been to many forums...and VD filters are barely touched upon by capturers. They pretty much say add them....I would like to know what is being used. I know that it is different for each capture but I still would like to know what others use.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While I haven't done much capturing in a while, one of my favourite VD filters that I often use while reencoding videos to a smaller size is the "temporal smoother". It helps to reduce noise, while maintaining sharpness-- it looks at pixels back in time and in future frames and smoothes them that way-- I don't think it looks at neighbour-pixels, so that's why it keeps things sharp.
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oblio



Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 106
Location: Detroix, MI

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2002 10:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ya... temporal smoother at 4, and smart smoother at 7x35.

When the VHS source gets really choppy, I lower the smart smoother a bit- better to have analog artifacting than blur your image to the ground.

I have tried the HQ Smart Smoother and have been unable to get as good a smoothing as with Grafts version- its very possible this is because of my inexperience.

Other than that, I leave the source as clean as I can.... I prefer to let TMPGEnc resize rather than VDub, especially downsizing, as I really don't like the jagged edges it creates... needs antialiasing...

anyway, thats my experience.
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