I'm planing to buy one of them but hard to decide for me which one .
Maybe one of u ( one is familiar with this two ) can give me advise and help to decide .
( As fast as possible )
Thank's on advance
bman

I did search in the web about the capture specs of the ATI AIW 9600pro, but nothing valuable found

Don't decide too fast!

WINtv PVR 250....
+ comes with a hardware mpeg2 encoder engine that lets you enjoy encoding while capturing in realtime by still using your machine to do other jobs.
+ got a nice Picture digitizing quality!
- There have been reports in here that the sound comes out in such a bad quality that you will hear this quality drop if reencoding the mp2 to for example 128kbit, even when the source is recorded using 192kbit!

About the ATI its useful to know which digitizing Chip is used .... I did tests on cards using the BT878 chip and my conclusion = No, thanks.
And of course if the ATI also comes with a hardware encoding onboard chip, no matter if mpeg2 or mjpeg .... both compressions do excellent jobs.
In case of mjpeg you just need a some more HD space.

The best would be to find a card using a latest Philips-chip including onboard video hardware encoding. No matter if Audio must be recorded via the Mainbord sound device. Because 1. CPUs today are fast enough to digitize audio fast enough (video via Card.Hardware codec) so everything keeps in sync. 2. 80% of the offered consumer Capture cards do come with a not that high quality audio chip in comparison to most good mainboard devices.

A point to BT878 chips: I got one here for testing ... standard BT878a and the anti-alaising support of my philips card chip does a much better job if recording Tv channels. That was also reported by Vhelp at Doom9.org.
Many Bt878 cards come with horizontal Line destortion.

Hi Incredible !!!
As always u are here !!!
Thank's for quick replay !
Many points to think about ?!
Each card with + & - . I really have a problem to decide which is better
Maybe u have any suggestions for me about any another card to capture with best quality and I mean the BEST with price of 100-300 euro ???
It's silly of me to search something really good in this range of prices but I let my self to dream about
By the way - Which Card are u using ???
bman

As Incredible states, the only real PVR250 issue is sound encoding. For me, the solution is to capture at 384bps and reencode to 160bps. The picture quality is very good and the ability to use the computer for other things while capturing is nice. I think you should seriously consider the PVR250 or PVR350.

Well my personal recommendation is to get a DC10 or a DC30/DC30+ card at Ebay! Well as I know, the dc10 is still sold and there are Drivers on the net for XP and Win2000, ... if not I got them!

Why that recommendation?
- They also got a Hardware codec onboard = almost no CPU power while capturing required.
- YUY2 Mjpeg video Codec = very nice to edit and import directly! in avisynth via Avisource()
- Sexy Picture Quality (excellent Broadcast conditions needed! but thats also needed for every card you buy)
- A perfect working good quality Philips/Zoran Chip using WDM Driver for XP & Win2000
- Truly supported by VirtualVCR
- No Audio in! You have to capture the audio using (IMHO the better) Mainboard Sound device, but using Virtual VCR = Clear Sound & In-Sync!
- No Tv Tuner OnBoard! But as 90% of the TvTuners on the commercial TvCards do got a poor Quality ... in general the best choice is to use a good VCR as tuner device.
- But a very good anti-alaising (= no horizontal noise) on board unit.

And at Ebay it's cheap about 60-70 Euros here in Germany, ok on the other hand you need more HD space but the money you safe by this could be a little invested in a 120GB HD.

BUT this Card is NO LONGER Supported by Pinnacle, so you have to use the mentioned modified Drivers. Well in my case everything works perfect.

So if you are not a noob in Driver management and if also you know which PCI Slots are INT shared in your Mobo ... you can end up happy

See in here the quality in case of a very good broadcast PAL signal:
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic....er=asc&start=0

Thank's very much guy's !
Now I have to choose between 3 of this fantastic cards and it becomes more complicate than before
What to do ???
To buy or not to buy (which one ) that's the question
bman

1) If you want to go MJPEG route, go with the DC10 or a DC30/DC30+ cards, as incredible suggested.
2) If you want straight and extremely good MPEG-2 quality, go with the WinTV PVRs, as nicksteel suggested.

My personal choice is #2

Edit: ( Actually #3: My Panasonic DMR-E80 )

-kwag

I have an All-in-Wonder 8500DV and it works for me, although not having tried any other capture hardware I can't say how it compares to some of the other cards being brought up here.

Just for reference, I've got a 2.26GHz P4 and use ATV2000 for capturing video (I stopped using ATI's software long ago). It natively captures in YUY2 (and also UYVY) so I usually use MJPEG or HuffYUV codecs...

But... it wasn't able to capture audio properly with the C-Media soundchip on my motherboard (the ATI drivers put it into full-duplex mode, which the chipset didn't like). It sounded like the old days of my Sound Blaster Pro (8-bit 11kHz ). Getting a Fortissimo 7.1 card for the audio fixed that (and I got a copy of PowerDVD modified to output 7.1 sound as a bonus ).

__________________
--
Chris "Bob" Odorjan

KWAG!
It seems you got a little video-"Neverland" at home
I don't want to know the model of your coffe-machine *lol

What about the quality of this DMR-E80 recording?

@ Bman

Here I gonna show you two captures.
It was my right intention to capture bad!! broadcasted (noisy) samples to show you whats about this BT878 (some models) "horizontal noise" problem (even on good broadcasts) which will not be anti-alaised by the BT878a chip.

Here's the BT878a


Can you see the strange noise architecture? Horizontal distortion (noise) and if you would see this sample in motion, these horizontal noisy lines do jump!
On a very good broadcasting capture the regular noise is off, but still the horiz.Distortion is "alive"

Here's The Philips/Zoran Chip



Ok you see noise cause the broadcasting wasn't good provided by the station (but it was in here intended for this example workout), but you can see that there's no horizontal distortion.

BOTH Cards did work under the exact same conditions -
- Same PC Hardware
- Same s-Video input
- Same SVHS VCR Tuner Signal delivering!

The conclusion: Some BT878 Chips do not contain this Antialaising (Its not the same like i.e. an software/hardware regular post denoising!) and so you have look for user (quality expecting ones) reviews, before buying a BT878 card.

I have been with this BT878a Problem in Doom9.org and noone could give a solution to this .... Vhelp replied there and told something about BT878 in combination with some Mainboard models problem.
So these used BT878 chips in some brand model cards ARE TRICKY!!

@ Bobnet
So I don't know exactly what CHIP that ATI above got, but maybe you could post a sample of a full resolution capture in here. It would be very interesting. Even if your ATI got a 878 Chip, it could be possible that this 878 chip is a newer model.

2nd: IF your ATI got a new/good one of these BT878 chips, you should "TRASH" you original capture drivers immideately and search for the good developed BT card drivers on sourceforge.net
http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

Maybe this also could solve your audio problems

@ Incredible
Pictures u post here are best visualisation method for me to see what u mean when u say " horisontal noise ".
Your explanation is so helpful , man !
Can u be more specific about DC10/30 card ???
Do u mean Pinnacle studio DC10 ( 30 ) card or another brand ?
I'm learning this capture issue . Many things that for u are obvious for me are like new unread book . So please be patient with me and give me as more info as u can . I'll be very very greatful to u ofcoarse .
bman

Well you'll end up with the same decision you have to make like at the middle of this thread

- if mpeg2 capturing: WIN PVR 250

- if mjpeg capturing: DC30/DC10

as Kwag said.

The comparisons above where made using a Philips/Zoran and a BT878a Chip! So I don't know what Chip/quality that ATI got/gives! And that's why I told him to post a sample using full res. and maybe a very good broadcast signal like a TVstation Trailer or a good Commercial used.

If you want WYSIWYG, let the owners of Cards do post their samples as explained by me one line above.

Ther'e different models of Philips and also of BT878 cards. Some do "treat" Tv broadcasted signals better and someones just do deliver it directly to the driver.

BTW. just posting a captured signal directly from a DVD Standalone doesn't count! Cause that setup gives a totally clear output where nothing has to be antialaised by the card. And so both cards would end up with the same quality according to horizontal distortions.
You have to use a TvTuner-Signal to compare (no matter if from the card's tuner or from an external SVHS-VCR) this shows you "how" the card works if capturing TV broadcastings.

And if the ATI ends up perfect ... if choosing that one you get also the advantage of its main purpose: A good graphics card

@ Incredible
Maybe I was not clear enough : DC30/10 that u are talking about which brand is that ( Pinnacle ??? or Philips/Zoran )
I've decided for me already and I'll go for this DC30/10 card but I would like to know exect model ( manufacturer) what to look for .
I googled for DC30/10 and there are many models from different manufacturers , I just want to know which one u are working with
bman

"Pinnacle" or "MIRO" (Miro was bought by pinnacle in the past).

But as I said ... you should be in driver handling!
And this card is not longer supported by its manufacturer!

And you will need more HD space if choosing the DC10/DC30 because the mjpegcodec does need more bitrate than the mpeg2 codec of the WIN PVR 250! So you should take the time and decide carefully as the WIN PVR also gots that antialaised/very good picture quality.

My intention is only to show FACTS in here but I'm argumenting with caution cause I (by myself) would never "definitive!!" recommend in the outside to personally unknown people a product which is not longer supported by the manufacturer (I should correct this a bit afterwards, sorry). You know what I mean by saying this my friend? It would be unprofessional if not saying this.
Because there do exist (I donno why) some very few users which do got problems using that WDM DCxx driver in Win2000 or XP (I use Win2000!) and I don't know if it depends upon their hardware/system setup or if they are too much noobs

The facts above only should tell you something about Philips and BT878x CHIP! qualities (and in the case above its a 878a!)

So wait until he posted an example of his ATI ... do look around the WEB for reviews! Ask users in special capture interests forum like at
http://www.tv-cards.com/

(a must-Link if you are interested in TvCards )

So ask there too cause here you only saw MY explanations, and maybe there's also a very good mjpeg hardwarecodec based card using a very good chip on the market which an actual model and which is Supported by the manufacturer! And which is brand new.

Philips and BT are the chip manufacturers which do deliver these chips to the card manufacturers.

You also have to know that these DC10/DC30 cards are NOT supported by Virtualdubs capture engine! As Vdub needs VFW drivers and the DC Cards do work using a WDM in Win2000 (my system) and XP, ...thats why I talked about VirtualVCR

Some users do report that Philips chips are more difficult to handle (doom9 threads) but I can't duplicate that in MY case and MY card.

BTW: If you choose an used DC30 (if you compared with patience!) .... and if the used hardware is in a correct state ... you will get my full assistance

@ Incredible
U are so clear and helpful !
I already have TV card and I think I'm getting quite good quality to get TV on my PC .
TV captures with WinDVR (from cables) are quite impressive for my eyes too.
I need this new card to capture video from my VCR tapes .
With my TV card even with 9000kbps and 720x576 I see noticable degradation in picture quality .
So , Is my desicion right to go for DC10 to get my above explained target ????
I hope - YES ( please , feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
bman

Well one of my first passions is analogue Tv Capturing.
Watch what I found out (nice and a full overview of whats going on according to reviews! So take a cold beer and read paciently)
http://www.tv-cards.com/messageboard/viewforum.php?f=26
http://www.tv-cards.com/messageboard/viewforum.php?f=15
Because the internal mpeg2 encoding of WinDVD is not what I call Quality!
I tested it a lot (also PowerVCR) ... no thanks!
Whats that kind of card you got???
Maybe everything is ok and its just a matter of settings????
FIRST GET RID OF THAT WinDVD! and change to HuffYUY or even better picVideo mjpeg!
Well watch my (now) carefully written lines. I do love my DC30 (same hardware quality like DC10 imho). BUT have a patient close look at the link above where almost all cards are reviewed ... I didn't have the time to get all that into my mind of these reviews, but maybe (as I said) you'll find one with the same quality, same (or even better) hadware codec and so on WHICH COULD BE brand new

@ Incredible
Follow your recommendations about onboard Zoran chip I get to WinNov VIDEUM 4100 capture card
http://www.winnov.com/products/capture/videum4100.htm
Can u give me your professional opinion about this card ??? (if it's not too much bother for you)
bman

Bman,


This is a semi-Progessional Créme de la créme video in card
including also 4 sources (incl. 3 for component RGB input).

If you're going to capture from a BETACAM SP or something else in this quality sector, you would need it.

But in your case of TV captures you would ...(as they say in germany) "...Try to shot little birds using cannons"

So safe that money! (but to mee it still seems cheep for its real purpose).

Let's look around a bit more .... it does not has to be a Zoran/Philips chip.
Just a Philips chip or a "very good" BT878 based card works also for your purpose. I watched yesterday there a little around and it seems that some 878 cards like the PCtv from pinnacle does excellent jobs! But it doesn't come with an internal onboard codec .... an thats what we have to look for.

Incredible Hi !
I totally agree with u !!!
Most of all as u say in germany : "Hunt little birds with cannon"
According the links u mentioned I found Pinnacle PCTV as very proper for my purposes .
Thay have now new PCTV pro version of this card and (I hope I'm not wrong) this one has onboard codec
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPa...03&Langue_ID=7

or this ASUS card with advanced video/audio decoder – PHILIPS SAA7134HL on it

http://www.asus.com/products/vga/tvfm/overview.htm

bman