Recommend SVHS Capture Card

[bgavin]

Please recommend a PCI capture card for SVHS input.

I have 300+ laser disks, and my Pioneer LD player is dying. I want to capture my favorite and out-of-print movies before the unit dies.

Host computer is E8400, 1.2tb online storage, 4gb. ABit IP35 Pro.

[i4004]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

something with philips saa713x chip(better than bt/conexant video decoders).
(x can be 1,3,4,5...)

if you need atsc too, there are cards that receive that, and have analog inputs.
i think i suggested such card on another forum some time ago...made by avermedia...
i think this one
http://www.avermedia.com/avertv/Prod...ail.aspx?Id=88

just analog, for example
http://www.avermedia.com/avertv/Prod...il.aspx?Id=290

but it doesn't have to be aver....

[pentium]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

What specific laserDisc player do you have and what exactly is wrong with it?
Personally I would just plug it into an Indigo2 with Galileo video however you don't have that.

[KeriJane]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Hi Bgavin.

Now here's a subject that I learned about.... Video Capture!

Most PCI video capture cards are, well.... Junk.
Most use "Software Encoding" which loads the CPU.
Most provide a very poor analog to digital conversion.
Some even have issues with Video/Audio sync on longer captures. I learned all of this in the most expensive way possible. (by trying to use cheap junk to obtain a professional result)

There is only one company that I can personally recommend:
Canopus.
They specialize in both Hardware and Software.
Their Hardware generally uses non-proprietary interfaces such as Firewire, and often do not require drivers to function. They specialize in stand-alone Firewire devices and PCI, PCIe and PCIx video capture devices most of which are natively supported in video editing (NLE) software without drivers or patches.

Personally I use and highly recommend the Canopus ADVC 300 which is a stand alone 2-way analog/digital digital/analog unit that connects to your computer via Firewire. It is capable of capture to digital, export to analog (to and from a computer) and real-time analog to analog "cleaning" of video and audio without any sort of computer hooked up at all.
No drivers or software are needed to function as the unit has buttons that can select most functions for video cleaning. A software utility is included to access the functions also. This unit even has an (unofficial) Macrovision removal Easter Egg/programming flaw built in! And, Yes, it supports SVHS.

Here's my mini review of what is out there:

Cheap, under $100 PCI capture cards:
They require drivers, use software encoding, often have appalling capture quality and audio/video sync issues. They generally do not support SVHS.

Midrange $100-$200 PCI capture cards:
They also generally require drivers, sometimes have hardware encoding, generally have better picture quality, sometimes have audio/video sync issues. They generally DO support SVHS. One of these wasted a LOT of my time with OOS (Out Of Sync) Audio. (it cost $200)

USB capture devices:
Generally poor capture quality. I have limited experience with these though. The one I used did not support SVHS.

Firewire capture devices: (Canopus)
The best I've found. Canopus products generally feature "Audio/Video Lock" which locks the audio to the video frames and prevents OOS drift during capture.
Canopus's own PCI cards often interface as an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) device which does not require a driver on most modern Operating Systems. Firewire itself is a far better interface than USB especially for Video. Which is why most digital camcorders use it.

Have Fun,
Keri

[i4004]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

>Now here's a subject that I learned about.... Video Capture!

ohh no, you didn't!

>Most PCI video capture cards are, well.... Junk.
Most use "Software Encoding" which loads the CPU.
Most provide a very poor analog to digital conversion.
Some even have issues with Video/Audio sync on longer captures. I learned all of this in the most expensive way possible. (by trying to use cheap junk to obtain a professional result)

it can happen...but it doesn't need to happen if you know what to do.
i can do better cap then your canopus with 30$ cap. card.
it is not true they have poor a/d conversion at all(that's not true for any chip you can get on cheap cards), it's not true they must have a/v async(i started capping in 2000...i never had such problems), and loading the cpu is not a problem at all with todays cpus. it wasn't a problem yesterday, as i was surfing the web AND capping on celeron600....you just need to piclk a good capture codec...

let me tell you about canopus: it's a waste of money that can't beat cheap cards.
why?
because you're locked with its dv codec, and cheap cards can do better: they can use mjpeg or huffyuv(lossless compression) both of which beat dv video quality.

>Cheap, under $100 PCI capture cards:
They require drivers, use software encoding, often have appalling capture quality and audio/video sync issues. They generally do not support SVHS.

rubbish. most tv-cards have s-video input no matter the price.
"appaling quality"? perhaps. if you've set the resolution to 352x288 and then you capped it.
a/v sync issues; again, not true most of the time....you have capping programs that will avoid frame drops AND keep the audio spot on.

i think it boils down to you wanting something simple that works out of the box.
for a cap.card, yeah, you need to install drivers(big fuckin' deal), software encoding is a GOOD thing(because you can pick the codec you use...dv locks you to particular wquality and particular filesizes per hour), and about appaling quality i would really like you to demonstarte that, and perhaps i can tell you what you did wrong.
if you thought you were just gonna install driver and forget about anything else, yeah, it can happen you're on low resolution and then you blame the card for not working ok.

if you and me were given same video source, i would produce better quality with my cheap card than you with canopus.
and that's not a guess, we made tests where we were comparing image quality of canopus vs. cheap cards.

something to remember: most of the expensive devices actually use SAME video decoders as these cheap cards, they just add the dv codec and rip you off.
if you like to be ripped off, sure go for canopus.
but it doesn't have any advantage whatosoever over cheap cards.
like i said, it's actually worse quality.

and you shouldn't judge something just because it didn't work for you like you expected. you probably just installed the driver, used the bundled software(which indeed can be very bad) and capped some crappy vhs tape.
i bet you didn't like the results.
but that doesn't mean it cannot be done right.

usually more money buys you a better product, but here we have an exception, where more money doesn't mean anything.

if he wants it REAL easy, he might as well buy pioneer dvd-recorder, because canopus dv still needs encoding to mpeg2 and making the dvd-video.
otoh, he might be happy with avermedia card's bundled software, which probably can make dvd for him on the fly.

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

I didn't mean to start a fist-fight... sorry.

I want to create DVDs from my Laserdisks. I figure I have to play the LD and capture the output to an intermediate file on the workstation. From there, I have to get that intermediate file into standard VOB format for the DVD.

I understand this prevents me from capturing the scene menus, etc. No problem. I simply want to capture the movie. I'm OK with the scene breaks at the end of the LD side. I can use this to burn a 2nd DVD as required.

I'm looking for PCI card recommendations by make and model, so I have an idea what to try and locate.

[KeriJane]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Bgavin?

You in no way started a "Fist Fight".

This FLAMER named i4004 is attempting to start one.

It takes two to fist fight. I decline.

If this FLAMER named i4004 does not like my assessment of several commercial video capture cards he (she?) (it?) can say so in a civilized manner.

Other than reporting this rude post to the Moderators I have no intent of reacting to it except as stated here:

My experience is real.

My opinions are based on years of real life experience with everything from Radeon All-In-Wonders to ultra-cheap Conexant-based cards all the way up to expensive Canopus products. These were used in systems ranging from a Pentium 4 through AMDs, Dual Core PentiumDs, Core2Duo, and finally my current system, a dual-CPU dual-core XEON Mac Pro.

Using this equipment and software like Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro, I have produced and manufactured over 10 commercial DVDs from original Videotape as well as dozens of minor projects for friends and family. Of roughly 1,000 commercial DVDs sold, my client had never had a complaint or return and retained a 100% positive feedback rating with her eBay store.

No matter what people like i4004 say, you will almost always get better results with better (usually more expensive) equipment.

As far as specific PCI cards go, the only PCI (not PCIe) card that I have used and can recommend at all it the Pinnacle 700-PCI which is no longer made and had a nasty tendency to get OOS audio on longer (over 1 hour) captures. It did have good picture quality though.
All of the cheaper ones were not worth the effort and had appalling picture quality. The All-In-Wonders did OK, but are no longer made and weren't PCI cards. They were AGP and PCIe video cards capable of video capture and TV tuning.

Now, where are the Moderators?

Keri

[gdement]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Cheap software based capturing works fine if you have time to figure out how to set it up. If you want something simpler, then the more expensive cards might be the easier way to go. I think those will often just give you an mpeg-2 file without any fuss. Not as flexible though.

I have an ATI TV Wonder Pro (PCI). I doubt that's a specific designation though... all I can say is mine was purchased roughly 3 years ago. It's a version with SVideo.

In the past I used it to capture lossless 704x480 30fps video in HuffYUV on a P2-450. No dropped frames, even after hours of recording. This required careful drive partitioning however. You need to dedicate a partition just for capturing, on a drive which will experience absolutely no other activity. Turn indexing off, etc. I also put the cluster size at maximum. Clear the partition before doing each capture, so there's no fragments. The last thing I had to do was rearrange how drives were master/slaved on the cables, but eventually the setup was golden.

I didn't find RAID necessary for capture, and when you get to the editing phase it's nicer to have independent hard drives, so you can use one drive as input and the other as output (faster that way).

HuffYUV doesn't take much CPU, but the filesize is only slightly compressed (I got around 1.5:1 with it on cable television).

I use VirtualVCR for capture. It's efficient and it has a "resample audio" feature which keeps A/V in sync. It's not the most user friendly program, but it works way better than the ATI software once you figure it out.

[i4004]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

>No matter what people like i4004 say, you will almost always get better results with better (usually more expensive) equipment.

you're not listening: i said i have actual video clips that show cheap cards produce BETTER quality. do you have clips that prove expensive cards have better quality?
also, if you were trying just the ati and conexant you have no right to generalize and say all cheap cards are crap.
try a card with philips chip.

why am i sensitive about this; because that is a subject i discussed many times, and nobody ever proved expensive cards have better quality, otoh, i have friends with expensive cards, we compared footage and we only saw cheap cards can do better.

btw. i'm not insulting you as a person, i'm saying you're wrong on this subject.
as for the knowledge about capping, i was among group of people writing this
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/start.html
which is still probably best guide on the web, even after 4 years, and even if it's outdated because new software came(mainly new version of vdub).
(one file version of the guide
http://www.geocities.com/wilbertdijkhof/ACG41.zip or
http://www.stefanstrobl.at/doom9/ACG41.zip )

offcourse, you don't have to write a gude to have knowledge, but i would REALLY like to see your cheap card footage vs. expensive card footage, so we could see why are you saying it's better. you're not guvung any details why you thought cheap cards quality sux. audio/video async is not an issure if you use good capping program(usually virtualdub or virtualvcr are used).
i can cap 3hrs without frame drops OR audio/video async.
i have actual screenshots to prove this.

also, i was working with authors of these programs to improve their performance as you can see here
http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=83
" Special props go to the users with handles Moitah and i4004 on the forums, who graciously spent a lot of time telling me that my resynchronizer sucked and that giving me hard data as to what was going on."

so when i say it works i know exactly what i'm talking about.

the only explanation i came up with is that cheap card requires more tweaking, while expensive card will work right away.
also, i think you're offtopic here, because bgavin needs pci card, and i doubt he'll be spending amount of $$$ you propose by mentioning canopus.
to reiterate again, it's worse quality than cheap card can produce.

and don't call mods anytime somebody says you're wrong: try to prove your case, and if you're wrong, apologize.
that is what i do when anybody proves me wrong.
happened many times, probably will happen many times in the future.

bgavin; you have the particular card recommendation above; i mentioned aver.
there was a discussion some time ago on another forum, i'll locate that thread for you: it has some good data too.
i'm in xp right now, i need to boot to 2k to find those bookmarks...
(i'm testing power management in xp..seems to be better than 2k...s3 stby works like it should and i need that for capping etc.)

[i4004]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

here are some cards with philips chip
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...1#338000564831
(dunno if newegg still has them)

here's what thread starter got and was satisfied with
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...1#172002864831

he was also satisfied with the cleaning process i gave to him(if you need help with your ld stuff, i can make you avs cleaning package tooč....but ld should be better source than vhs...).

and here's one person happy with aver (emntined above..atsc-analog combo model) that i recommended
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...1#201005250931

[travistee]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Get pinnacle studio.
Its cheap under $100 and its a good editor.
They have a usb box that you can accept either SVHS or Firewire DV
That way you don't need any card in your system.
Thats another $100 or so.

The problem with capturing SVHS is thats the source is often erratic and small glitches can mess up the capture.

I use a SIMA GoDVD digital video enhancer to clean up the source.

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

This isn't my arena of expertise, so I might have a term used incorrectly. The Pioneer laserdisk player has the S-Video output as well as composite. SVHS is probably the wrong term.

I have several All-In-Wonder cards in the bin. These are AGP and could be used for capture, if suitable. I'm in the computer business and have no end of available hardware. I thought the ATi cards were S-video Out, not Capture. Shows what I know about video work.

I looked at the Hauppage line of capture cards also. I'm begining to think I will get better results by dropping my entire LD collection in a dumpster, and buying them in DVD.

[pentium]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

I'm begining to think I will get better results by dropping my entire LD collection in a dumpster, and buying them in DVD.

Or you sell them to someone else who owns a Laserdisc player.

[i4004]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

>I'm begining to think I will get better results by dropping my entire LD collection in a dumpster, and buying them in DVD.

there are only few examples of people keeping and transferring ld versions because dvd versins are lacking...or lacking by their standards, which are different to standards of most of us..heh...

so yeah, dvd versions will be better....

ati aiw will probably do, because ld has less timing errors than vhs.

>I thought the ATi cards were S-video Out, not Capture

well, not all ati cards are aiw.
aiw has in and out.

i cap because i don't wanna buy dvds, and i don't wanna rent 'em and then fuck with ripping etc. i don't wanna divx because it usually looks worse than my tv-caps.
otoh perhaps that's the solution for you?
rent and then copy to your hdd...burn...
although thats piracy.

but surely simplest solution is to just buy dvds, if available, and most probably are.

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Some of the LD are out of print in DVD, so capture is a must.

Most of them are probably available in DVD. I'm looking at almost a grand $ to repurchase them in DVD, even at the cheap places.

I figured play/capture would be a mature technology by now, so that is why I asked the question here. Video isn't my arena of expertise.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Have you thought about looking for another LD player? I saw a nice Pioneer at Salvation Army for $25 a few weeks back. Haven't been there since, so I don't know how often they're in. Could also try Craigslist.

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

VHS, LASERDISC, BETAMAX, they're all better than DVD. Potentially - atleast they're kind of organic ( infinite possible quality - as opposed to digitals strictly limited quality)

I would be surprised if you needed more than an Avermedia AverTV card, mine requires something like a 300Mhz CPU it says, well on a modern machine it's a killer. I have captured 768x520 res at 50fps, bit rate 20000 motion vector 3 with mine. It's software encoder is MPEG2 and fully configurable. Though decompressing to Huffy raw to re-encode in 6000kbs divx has been time consuming workaround for me.

I have all my miniDV's recorded from my JVC DV1 camera backed up like this, the quality I could not ask for more, no issues, full beyond MiniDV resolution and visible cloth detail as much as you could expect from a JVC 560 line CCD, no nooby frame distortions at all.

By default it had Teapo hi frequency caps. Which haven't needed replacing. * I normally use my home made 1000 thread OFC 4 x screened composites terminated 24Kgold connectors, not SVHS but I can see the card has it. And have tested it in the past.

Avermedia software varies though, I use different versions for different tasks, the newest isn't always best at everything.

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

All over the internet you will see professional screwing up with interframe distortions
in their purchasable videos, despite spending big bucks and time on them. Don't make
the mistake of thinking money buys quality.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

Are any Avermedia TV tuners supported in Linux?

.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommend SVHS Capture Card

More correctly:
Are there any Philips SAA713x based cards that are Linux supported?