Canopus DV Storm alternative?

[Kenneth M]

I did a search and the DV Storm is not available.

I am trying to get the "best of the best" equipment for my setup.

What is the best available alternative to the Canopus DV Storm capture card?

[admin]

It really depends on what you're wanting to do. You can still find those Canopus cards, if you want them. Matrox has some offerings, as does Blackmagic, Aja and Kona.

So ..... what exactly are you doing?
What kind of projects?
What do you expect the cards to do for you?

List any other software and computer/video hardware you have now, or will expect to be using in this final setup.

[Kenneth M]

Hello!

Projects include: Getting the best out of the source on the capture side. Restoring the video to look natural (Yet not soft), but as good as it can look from the source. Once captured using the best mediums, and run through an audio-cleanup via software, I will then save on a flash drive. From there I will put it on a slower computer and experiment with dirt-removal software, etc, to see what else I can get out of the digital file. Then I will save again on a flash drive and burn to dvd-r/bd-r as needed.

The only editing that I expect to do then, is either make composites of the best materials available to make a "uncut" version of films, I plan on doing fandubs, fansubs and the like. Nothing taxing or crazy...mostly cut and paste type editing.

I expect the cards to capture on the best level capture cards can capture.

This is my setup:

VCRs

JVC HR-S6970 (PAL/NTSC)
Blaupunkt RTV-950EGC (PAL & same as Panny 1980)
Mitsubishi HS-HD2000U (NTSC)
JVC HR-S9700 (PAL)
JVC SR-W5U (NTSC)

Sony SL-800ME (PAL/NTSC Beta)

Other Hardware

Panasonic DMR-ES10
Elite Video BVP-4 PLUS x2
DataVideo TBC-4000
(Need Signvideo DR-1000)

I have a top of the line (3 years ago) Sony Vaio with bd capability at my disposal (my mom is getting an apple and giving me the Sony.) Also, I have a computer that is 1 year old that was home built for my wife, that I can have if I want. ~Sorry about being specless, but I don't have any specs at this stage...~

Other than that.... This is where I stand.

Looking for purchase advice on pretty much everything. Especially the capture card, since I am trying to get the most expensive crap knocked out first.

-Kenneth

[admin]

Why would you encode on the slower computers? I setup a gigabit network here, and capture to older AGP systems with single cores. It's then transferred across the network, and restored/edited/encoded on the newer dualcores and quads. Using a new dual or quadcore for capturing is almost a waste of the resources. Finished MPEG is transferred again back to a single core system for authoring work.

You have an outstanding selection of video hardware there, the videos you make should be REALLY good.

I think you can pick pretty much anything you want:

• ATI All In Wonder AGP Radeon cards
• Matrox RT/RT.X series cards
• Canopus DV Storm NLE cards
• Blackmagic Designs Intensity card
• Aja Kona cards

It really depends on your budget and potential next-gen projects (if any). The only real issue I see is that each method comes with a different suggestion for capture software (ATI MMC, Premiere, anything), etc. If I had the money, and needed to built a new ground-up capture system, I'd think about adding HD abilities with it. I have excellent ATI and Hauppauge setups for PVR and VHS SD work, but an NLE card may be nice (Matrox, Canopus), or one of the Blackmagic of Aja cards. For me, it's a wish list. For you, it's a to-do list! Lucky you!

Those newer cards, of course, will need the newer PCIe and dual/quad CPU setups on SATA drives. And they're probably overkill for the project at hand. But new toys may take you onto other things.

Right now I'm working on Blu-ray burning/media/authoring research. Results are going to take a while.

[Kenneth M]

Okay. I really wanted to take my time answering this, mainly because I wanted to know in my heart and mind what I want to get out of this.

Going with the next-gen of HD, is a must.

I am not going to use any equipment, however, to capture. The only two mediums I will use for HD is through a flash drive/usb and the actual BD rom. I would have no use for a card that has an HD input. The only input I need is for my analog sources. My digital sources will be put in the computer by either the DVD rom, or flash drive/usb. So, entirely, the only thing I need the actual card input for... would be with component jacks.

Now software, on the other hand... I could definitely use HD software and get the things I need for future BD rips for BD fandubs down the road.

~Quick question!~ Does BD match PAL speed or NTSC speed? ~

I will capture with the Sony and encode with a computer we will build within your recommendations.

Okay, so from this standpoint, please keep in mind that I would like to match your preferences in gear. The stuff you know about. The stuff you think is best for my application. I have next to no knowledge prior, of all of this stuff, so I will go off of your opinion.

Looking forward to your suggestions!

-Kenneth

[admin]

For editing HD video, I would only use Adobe Premiere CS4. Is that going to be an affordable solution, or do you need other options?

I realize you've asked several things, but I want to go with this one first, as it affects other answers.

[Kenneth M]

Sure! Cost really isn't a big factor. I want the best and most familiar territory for you.

I did A LOT of research as I was buying equipment. When you talk about my equipment being "outstanding," it should be. It's what you recommended! I plan on continuing that trend...

Please, further educate me!

-Kenneth

[admin]

Well then, use Premiere CS4 on a quad-core or high-end dual-core computer, for editing HD video. Intel is better than AMD, as usual. That 3-year-old system will probably work, most likely being a dual-core, albeit a bit slower than the newest Intel i7 CPU. I had an AMD quad, and it's not the most reliable for speed. In some apps, the Intel Core Duo's and Core 2 Duo's surpass it.

Not needing to capture HD material again puts SD cards in the range of acceptability. There are ATI All In Wonder cards available for about $75 (in fact, I'm about sell 3-4 of mine for $75 each). All you need is a decent 2.5Ghz or faster AGP card slot system, Intel preferred but AMD fine too at those speeds (1.8Ghz is really minimum, but best to be above minimum).

If you really want the name-branded "pro" cards from Matrox, Aja or Blackmagic, don't let me talk you out of them. Those are all good products being mentioned so far.

Canopus, not so much. Canopus products really tanked into being overpriced consumer gear after Thomson bought out Canopus, and merged it into their Grass Valley product line. They discontinued anything professional hardware-wise (like the DV Storm series!), leaving mostly junky DV boxes. Sorry, but DV just is not needed in 2009. With a 1.5TB hard drive available for $100 range, who needs the 5:1 compression? Especially when there are questions about the color fidelity being left intact (as intact as it gets with VHS, at least) during conversion. Forget that mess -- go for YUY2 4:2:2 "uncompressed" captures (or a lossless equivalent like HuffYUV) for archival recording or editing. For the TV hobby / PVR crowd, direct to MPEG with a good card or DVD recorder beats the time consumption of a DV card, hands down.

I think you mean s-video or composite input for analog, too -- not component.

Blu-ray Disc specs still have PAL and NTSC settings. Nothing is changed, nothing is merged. It's still an "us vs them" issues, North America and Japan as NTSC, vs the rest of the world as PAL. (I oversimplify, of course -- some more countries run NTSC too, but not as many as PAL.)

Ah, I see now that you want to build a new system -- I'm replying as I read your post. Intel i7 quad core, 4GB RAM minimum, 64-bit Vista or Win7, encode away! Get at least 3TB of space for it, internal on SATA, two 7200rpm Seagate 1.5TB drives in addition to the OS drive (probably 500GB these days). Samsung SATA burner, or IDE burner. Or both. Then again, BD-R drive may be nice. I would suggest burning DVD on a DVD burner, leave BD-R burner for BD-R only. Be sure the system comes with 1 eSATA and 1 Firewire 400, minimum. USB2 is nice and all, but eSATA better! I actually bought my last quad system from HP, although I did build 3 duals from spare parts over the summer. Buy or build -- it comes down to preference and cost.

I use a lot of (). Need to finesse my writing. Such a mix of thoughts and info going into posts lately.

[Kenneth M]

Okay! We're getting somewhere!

I would like to go ahead and summarize, want to make sure I am understanding all of this 100%.


Capture Card: Anything will work. From $75.00 for an ATI to a way overhyped $1200.00 Canopus, I am going to basically net the same result. A capture. Spending an extra thousand dollars will net next to little, or no difference of quality.

Capture Computer: Go ahead and use the Sony 3 y/o computer for the capture computer. Then, transfer uncompressed VHS capture to flash drive.

Encode Computer: Transfer uncompressed VHS capture from flash drive to computer with:

* Intel i7 quad core
* 4GB RAM (minimum)
* Windows 7
* 3TB(+) Memory internal on SATA
* 7200rpm Seagate 1.5TB drive x2 (in addition to the OS drive)
* Samsung SATA burner
* Lite-On IDE burner
* Sony BD burner
* 1 eSATA and 1 Firewire 400, minimum.


Okay, as long as all of this is correct, then I won't need much more info on hardware. We'll get to software once I get this together at some point in the next 5 months.


~On the other stuff... Interesting to hear about the Canopus stuff! It's kinda like when Sherwood (I think) bought out McIntosh. Quality went sub-par, yet the uninformed are still shelling out $thousands$ for an inferior product.

I think I meant s-video or composite connections, too. LOL, it truly goes to show how freakin naive I am about this stuff. Just don't tell my wife, tho. She thinks I'm like the super-ninja-guru when it comes to this stuff!

Depending on what happens, if I spring for an ATI all in wonder, I'd rather buy new. I try to get new equipment on everything electronic when I can. Naturally, like the BVP-4 Plus, the VHS, Beta, etc, stuff I really can't, but when I can, I prefer new. That said, I'll be happy to (and rather) donate $75.00 to the site as we continue to shed the layers of complexity of archiving analog to digital mediums!

And your writing style is kickass. Don't you (dare) change it.

-Kenneth

[admin]

Capture cards...

No, there are definite differences between the pro $1,000+ cards and the sub-$500 consumer-made cards. There is also a big difference between ages of the cards. But for your workflow and projects, it won't make a lot of difference, no. On several occasions I've been able to make a better DVD using an ATI AIW card, compared to a high-end Matrox of Canopus card. The card itself is not the only variable. I could explain more, but don't really see the need. It's complex, something planned for a future guide update.

New ATI AIW cards...

There aren't any. ATI All In Wonder AGP-slot Radeon-series cards were made from 2001 to about 2005/2006. Newer ATI cards are just crappy PVR cards, not really "capture cards" as we want them to be. Since AMD bought out ATI, the selection has tanked even more. I have a new ATI TV Wonder card, and it's crippled compared to the older model cards. Good for PVR, sucks for anything else. Again, PVR is recording TV direct to MPEG or DVD. Not from tape or other sources. You'll have to buy used.

Computer specs...

• 3TB and SATA refers to storage space = hard drives, not memory
• RAM is memory, and you need at least 4GB. Note that you can ONLY use more than 3.5GB on a 64-bit OS
• Pioneer now uses LiteOn for their newest DVD burners, remember this for sales
• don't do RAID 0, SATA II is plenty fast as is

[Kenneth M]

Found some 256MB ATI All-in-Wonder 2006 Edition. They are new. Not the PAL version with scarts, either. Worth picking up?

-Kenneth

[admin]

That specific card ONLY works with final-version AGP slots. I believe it requires an 8x slot. My systems were all 2x/4x, so this card never worked for me. I only used 7000-9000 series 2x/4x/8x AGP cards.

[Kenneth M]

Crap. Just realized they aren't the "AGP."

Is the "AGP" necessary?

-Kenneth

[Kenneth M]

Okay. Lemme link this site. It took a while to find. See if you can find something that is "New."

If you can't find something "New" for my app, lemme know...

http://www.l7inc.us/Search.php?start=300&MFG=ATI

[admin]

Yes, it's important.

• ATI is the company. (Now owned by AMD, as of 2006-2007 or so.)
• All In Wonder (AIW) is a series of dual-function cards, where computer graphics AND video capture are provided by a single card.
• AGP is a card slot on your motherboard. In the past decade, we've had 3 major card slots for computer graphics cards: PCI, AGP and the current PCI Express (often written as PCI-E, PCIe or PCI-e)
• The "Radeon" series of ATI card referred to the graphics portion of the card.
• The Radeon series ATI cards that were "All In Wonder" were coupled with either the Rage Theatre chipset for video (on the 128 Pro, 7000 and 8000 series cards) or the Theatre 200 chipset (on the 9000 series cards).

So all of these things exist at the same time: AGP + Theatre Rage/200 + Radeon (with the exception of a couple of PCI versions of the 7000 series, but let's not get into that one)

The thing that confuses people most is the fact that the "All In Wonder" designation outlived the AGP/Theatre/Radeon era. You can still find an AIW card in stores, but it's a piece of crap using a DVR chipset (also using a chipset named Theatre, but at a higher number like Theatre 500). But these newer cards are not AGP slots, they are PCI Express slots. They're also not using the "Radeon" designation.

That store you linked had a 9600XT card new. This computer right here that I'm typing on is power by a ATI All In Wonder Radeon 9600 AGP-slot card. I think 9600 and 9600XT is the same thing. This 9600 card has dual monitor support, so I can have two monitors going at any time (or a monitor + TV set).

But...

But at $200 new, I start to wonder if one of the other cards (Matrox, Blackmagic, Aja) is a better choice. One of the benefits of the older ATI card is they're available used for less than half of what they cost new. But again, it all comes back to preference. It's still a savings of at least $100, from what I can see.

[Kenneth M]

Hmm... the only thing I am feeling sketch about is that the interface is 8x only. Do you think that will cause problems on installing in a 3 year old computer?

-Kenneth

[Kenneth M]

Okay. I just read your "BUT..." at the end of your last post.

Somehow I thought it was part of your signature my first time through.

Anyway, lemme know. I know these ati cards are pretty good quality. I installed one in a computer many many years ago and never had any issues with it. So, I wouldn't hesitate to own another.

Let me know.

[admin]

Last time I tried to stick an 8x card into a 2x/4x slot, it didn't boot. I had to use an AGP 2x/4x card, or a PCI card. I believe there's some kind of tab preventing wrongful insertion, but my board lacked that tab. It let me stick it in, even though it probably should have been disallowed.

There's more about AGP slots at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port
It's a rambling, techie read, however, for most of the article. In the "compatibility" section, it mentions the exact problem I ran into, with motherboards sometimes having full-open slots and not blocking cards as it should.

The only way to know if you can use 8x is to read up the documentation on the motherboard ... and hope it's accurate. Mine wasn't.

I like ATI cards. So I have no hesitation recommending them, and I have three of them in current production use. (Plus a few extras just in case of breakdown or in case I want to add more systems.) What I do try to avoid, however, is insisting somebody buy something. You've made a good list of products, all of which I can recommend. That's about the point I feel comfortable stopping.

[Kenneth M]

Oh yeah, dude. You are of some serious help! I can completely understand about where you feel you should stop.

I went ahead and ordered two new 9600xt aiw's. Three hundred for a new video card, with a backup, is phenomenal when you consider I was about to spend a thousand dollars more.

Thank you so much for your help.

I will be coming back here in about 5 months when I start the computer build. (Just bought a house, am having to pay for some remodeling, and I am building my workshop room, complete with shelving on all four walls, etc. .... so, it'll be a little bit before I finish piecing all of this together. )

Thank you.

-Kenneth