Video Capture

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Matt Darcy
Posts: 164
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2002 1:28 pm

Video Capture

Post by Matt Darcy »

hello all,I am looking for 2 bits of help.my first is, I have a VHS video which I want to trasnfere on to my PC as an mpeg/avi/divx etc etc. I don't really want to replace my video card (but I will if I have to) is there a "device" that I can plug into my PC to do this, can anyone recommend one.Second, if the cost is massive to buy this device or I really do have to change my video card, is there anyone on this board who could do this for me ??thanks,Matt.
AndyThomas
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Video Capture

Post by AndyThomas »

Depends if you call a couple of hundred pounds "massive"! I've got a fairly hi-tech piece of kit from Canopus - the ADVC 100 - which plugs into a firewire port and will get the job done. Alternatively there are products from Dazzle which I think are USB - Shane uses one I believe. Other alternative, yes, is to get yourself a Pinnacle capture card or equivalent. Although I've never tried it, I think some graphics cards can also get the job done but I don't know what the quality's like. I can get 60 or so minutes onto a VCD, I haven't actually tried DivX encoding but I could probably get more on a CD-ROM using that. I'm about to be very busy in a new job so I'm not sure I'll have time to do it for you in the near future, but depending on the length of the tape I could put it on my "to do" list!
Andy Thomas - SFXB Webmaster and Forum Moderator
Matt Darcy
Posts: 164
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2002 1:28 pm

Video Capture

Post by Matt Darcy »

The product you mention, that plugs into a firewire port, is this an "external device"Does it go from a VHS recorder to the device/firewire portall the firewire devices I have seen are for camcordersWould love to know more about this, I could shell out a couple of hundred, I would also love to hear what shane suggests
AndyThomas
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Video Capture

Post by AndyThomas »

In short, yes, you hook up the Canopus box to a normal video with a special SCART lead and hook the Canopus box into the firewire port. I took this option because my soundcard has a firewire port spare, so rather than get a card that was rooted in the machine I opted for the flexibility of an external box. You can read a very good review here:http://www.simplydv.co.uk/advc100.htmlThere may have been new entries in this market since I looked into it so it'd be worth having a look at the site as a whole to see what's what. Note that this box takes an analogue signal and converts it into Digital Video or DV, which is what modern Digital Camcorders output - hence they can also be plugged straight into a firewire socket (perhaps with an adaptor).DV is very, very uncompressed - the 1 minute 30 intros on SFXB are around 200MB in DV format. The resolution is also a lot larger than VHS, so to get it looking "right" you need to reduce it to something like MPEG-1 dimensions, as MPEG-1 is roughly equivalent to VHS quality. You could in theory encode it as MPEG-2, DVD quality, but (a) that's a much bigger file to cram onto a CD if that's an issue and (b) because VHS resolution is so far below DVD resolution, you won't see any real benefit. If anything, glitches in the tape will just be amplified...Hope that helps soomewhat. It's a fairly large subject to get your head around, but if you've got the spare hard drive space it's good fun.
Andy Thomas - SFXB Webmaster and Forum Moderator
Matt Darcy
Posts: 164
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2002 1:28 pm

Video Capture

Post by Matt Darcy »

good review, I like the look of it a lot.Questions, do you get any software with it do acutally do the capture ?what software do you use ?thanks,Matt."speak up shane would like to know what you use too"
AndyThomas
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Video Capture

Post by AndyThomas »

I use a mix of software, depending on what I'm doing. The Canopus doesn't come with anything as standard, but as I had video editing in mind when I bought this machine I asked for Pinnacle Studio 7 SE. It's quite a basic editing suite, but it gets the job done. What I tend to do is use it for the actual capturing to DV and creating WMV files, like the ones on the site, but its MPEG codec leaves a bit to be desired so I tend to use a free piece of software called TMPGEnc for that. It takes a very, very long time to encode using it (and my machine's not exactly slow these days) but the results are very good. If you thought you were going to get into it more, something like Adobe Premiere would be the more professional package to use.
Andy Thomas - SFXB Webmaster and Forum Moderator
Shane
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Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2001 9:10 pm

Video Capture

Post by Shane »

The baby I use is indeed a Dazzle USB unit. It's a few years old now and came packed with it's own MovieStar software. I looked in Dixons the other day and I noticed that Dazzle do a newer version which seems to have all the features of my old one but is under 50 notes. I'd certainly recommend it. It might not be the best but it does the job and it's easy to use. The MovieStar software is geared up for real video and windows media files but I've never had any problems importing files into Quicktime Pro and then converting them into other file types.I could have a crack at it, but my computers fairly weedy and I've never recorded more than 15 minutes of footage without my computer freaking out on me. It does depend on the quality though, I can get a lot more out of it with the windows media format. If you do need a hand let me know.I would heartily recommend the Dazzle USB though.Shane.
I like parties, I like fun, I want to live in a hamburger bun!
Matt Darcy
Posts: 164
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2002 1:28 pm

Video Capture

Post by Matt Darcy »

oooh choices choices,Andys looks REALLY good and the firewire interface is a big plus. However what you get for £300 needs to be looked at shanes options....for £50 HmmmmI'll invesigate and let you know how I get on.thanks all.
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