digitalFAQ.com Forum - Dazzle vs. Pinnacle 710 comparison?

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Dazzle vs. Pinnacle 710 comparison?

So fairly recently, I received a new capture card (courtesy of LordSmurf :D) to handle PAL captures more efficiently over my existing Dazzle. Upon analyzing the captures, I'm noticing a variation in color noise present on each of the captures. I can't tell if the new card is actually *losing* detail or retaining it. I noticed the black range has increased, but I don't know if it's expanded to illegal values.

Of course, showing sample clips are better than any picture can. Please let me know what you guys think, before I proceed with capturing in full!

JVC HR-S9600EU->Datavideo TBC-1000->Dazzle DVC100:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1djQ...ew?usp=sharing

JVC HR-S9600EU->Datavideo TBC-1000->Pinnacle 710-USB:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oPc...ew?usp=sharing

JVC HR-S9600EU->Pinnacle 710-USB:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SeA...ew?usp=sharing

Thanks guys!!

You also need a sample that shows highlights.

The Dazzle is mostly brighter, and washing out shadow details and color. That's expected.

About 40 seconds in on the Dazzle cap, the scene with the young tug, shows jailbar noise in the capture. That's not present on the Pinnacles.

I also think the Dazzle is a tiny % softer. So there's resizing in-chip, and it may be 640x480 native capture to 720x480 expanded capture.

The Dazzle isn't as bad as the Easycap, but it's not clean, color inaccurate, too bright. If you drew a line in the sand, bad cards vs. not-bad cards, the Dazzle would be right on the edge in not-bad territory. It's far from suggested, but it's not on the avoid list.

Neither card captures illegal values like ATI AIW can.

With this source, it may seem like nitpicking. But it gets far worse, bigger differences, with different sources.

Thank you so much for the fast response LordSmurf!! I did capture a little bit of the daylight scenes, which I'll attach here. I figured the night shots would be able to tell more, but it definitely helps to analyze both sets of lighting. Both the following are JVC HR-S9600EU->Datavideo TBC-1000. The Dazzle audio was captured Line In, the Pinnacle was direct into card.

Dazzle:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dKF...ew?usp=sharing

Pinnacle:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10pH...ew?usp=sharing

<EDIT>: I noticed in your reply, you were talking in terms of 480- these are PAL 576i captures. :)

A quick analysis on my side

Dazzle is brighter, both histograms are ok for the daylight:
Attachment 14020

Reducing a little bit Dazzle brightness to better compare honestly I see no difference in term of details and quality of the capture;

a video comparison compressed to x264 here: Attachment 14023
Attachment 14025

an image comparison here (use fullscreen and zoom options): https://imgsli.com/NjkyNjY
Attachment 14022

Concerning the night shot the blacks are crushed before reaching Y=16 for both captures, I ignore why:
Attachment 14021

For this tape/video, in my opinion Dazzle and 710 are equivalent, but my eyes are probably not as skilled as lordsmurf. Other experienced users in capture comparison (msgohan, latreche34, Bogilein) may also help you in the judgement.

Attached the script I used to compare (I do not have Lagarith codec installed). If you use it with VirtualDub you'll have better elements than the compressed mp4 attached file, and you can have your own conclusions.

Code:

video_dir_1="C:\Users\giuse\Desktop\"

video_1="VCR-TBC-Dazzle Daylight.avi"

#video_1="VCR-TBC-Dazzle.avi"



video_dir_2="C:\Users\giuse\Desktop\"

video_2="VCR-TBC-710Card Daylight.avi"

#video_2="VCR-TBC-710Card.avi"



# FFmpegSource

loadPlugin("C:\Users\giuse\Documents\VideoSoft\MPEG\AviSynth\extFilters\ffms2_87bae19\x86\ffms2.dll")



v1=FFmpegSource2(video_dir_1+video_1, atrack=-1).trim(9,0).Tweak(bright=-10) #.Spline36Resize(768,576)

v2=AviSource(video_dir_2+video_2).convertToYV16() #.Spline36Resize(768,576) #.trim(7,0)



#stackhorizontal(\

#subtitle(v1.crop(16,16,-24,-16).histogram("levels"),video_1,size=20,align=2),\

#subtitle(v2.crop(16,16,-24,-16).histogram("levels"),video_2,size=20,align=2)\

#)



f_stackhorizontal(v1,v2,video_1,video_2)

#f_interleave(v1,v2,video_1,video_2)

#f_Subtract_Compare(v1,v2,video_1,video_2)





function f_stackhorizontal(clip c1, clip c2, string t1, string t2)

{

stackhorizontal(\

subtitle(c1,t1,size=20,align=2),\

subtitle(c2,t2,size=20,align=2)\

)

}



function f_interleave(clip c1, clip c2, string t1, string t2)

{

interleave(\

subtitle(c1,t1,size=20,align=2),\

subtitle(c2,t2,size=20,align=2)\

)

}



function f_Subtract_Compare(clip c1, clip c2, string t1, string t2)

{

c3=Subtract(c1, c2).Levels(65, 1, 255-64, 0, 255, coring=false)

c4=Compare(c1, c2)



stackvertical(\

stackhorizontal(\

subtitle(c1,t1,size=20,align=2),\

subtitle(c2,t2,size=20,align=2)\

),\

stackhorizontal(\

subtitle(c3,"subtract"+" "+t1+" "+t2,size=20,align=2),\

subtitle(c4,"compare"+" "+t1+" "+t2,size=20,align=2)\

)\

)

}

This is an interesting analysis Lollo! It looks like the 710-USB is giving a more "pure analog" output compared to the Dazzle. Near Ten Cents' nameplate in the pic you sent, you can see a lot of the digital artifacts smoothed out. Maybe it's just me?

What's everyone else's thoughts?

Quote:

It looks like the 710-USB is giving a more "pure analog" output compared to the Dazzle.

I do not have that impression. They are almost identical, I could not choose one beeing better. Maybe it's just me :wink2:

Quote:

Near Ten Cents' nameplate in the pic you sent, you can see a lot of the digital artifacts smoothed out.

They look the same to me, the noise is differently distibuted, as in many other areas of the picture. I suspect that a temporal denoise in post-processing will make them even more similar.

You can enable the "interleave" option in the avs script and see how in the different frames the video changes (very very little) and compare better than using a side-by-side. I hope it helps...

Edit: maybe you can compare using a much better video, with live action and more details, as suggested by lordsmurf. It is possible that this sample "tends" to flat the differences (if there is any difference between the cards).

I believe they both typically used closely related philips video decoder ics, so the differences are mainly in drivers and usb bridge chips.

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