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Help deciding on TBC and capture device

First, I'd like to thank the brilliant guys behind this site and how friendly they are, which is the main reason why I bought a membership. Now, on to my questions :)

I've already got a s-vhs player, but what I've been debating on is whether or not I should get a TBC and what kind of capture device I should use. For capture devices, I've been looking at the Canopus ADVC 110 for a while, but from browsing this forum, it seems Canopus is frowned upon for charging high dollar for getting little in return, while other reviews from other sites praise it. I've heard the ATI 600 usb be suggested a couple of times, and also the ATI aiw cards.

What I'm simply trying to do is capture some old VHS tapes of my dads from way back when and put them on DVD. I'm not a novice when it comes to video work, having been around the video cleaning scene for about 3 years. But I haven't dealt with the hardware side of things very much. I guess I really just don't know what capture device is worth my money, as I've also come across some ebay deals for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 and PVR 500.

Now, for the TBC side of things. The videos I have for the most part really don't have bad jitter, and what little jitter there is, is mostly taken care of by my s-vhs player. (Which is a JVC BR-S800U, in case you wanted to know)
Now, hear me out, I've seen that you reccommend 2 TBC's, but I'd also just like to check my options/open up a little bit. Could you guys take a look at some of the TBC's I've found on eBay and tell me if I'm just barking mad for looking at them or if any of them actually hold value?

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

Link 5

Whew, lot of links. For the capture method, your small guide says that MPEG is better for just small time cutting/splicing, and this is more than likely what I'll be doing, as none of the videos I have require any actual "editing" or "heavy editing", just some small cuts here and there. Thanks for taking the time to read all this and reply!

In addition to all of this, since there seems to be no edit button for posts, for the capture device, I actually would not need the ATI 600 or something like it. I don't need a tuner, and further searching has produced that DV capturing produces a better quality than MPEG. I can edit both types just fine, so editing isn't an issue. I guess I'm just hoping that there's a slightly cheaper alternative to the ADVC110 that can do DV capture and has no problems with sync'ing audio and video.

Also, I see a lot of ATI aiw cards on eBay, but they say they are the PAL format ones. Will those PAL cards work for capturing my VHS footage here, which is NTSC?

EDIT: Nevermind, my motherboard doesn't have an AGP slot. Those kinds of capturing devices will not work for me.

I want to answer this more in depth, but it will be a few more days. In the meantime, I do want to give a few brief answers and comments...

1.
Older broadcast rack-mounted TBCs generally don't have much value for VHS-to-DVD transfer work. They were designed with other tasks in mind, and do not always lend themselves to the VHS>DVD process as well as more modern TBCs, such as the TBC-1000 or AVT-8710.

2.
The DV format is good for shooting, but it has quality concerns for conversion work. Colors and values tend to get cooked a bit, and you'll see this discussed and debated quite a bit online. I'm of the opinion, as are others, that DV was not created with conversion in mind -- it was created for shooting digital video on cameras. The earliest documents I've ever seen, regarding DV tech, never discussed it as a conversion format. I would suggest high bitrate MPEG-2 is a much better choice for conversion.

3.
The ATI 600 has a coax TV tuner input, yes, but you don't have to use it. The card is excellent for capturing video, via s-video or composite input, and can record to several available formats (MPEG-2, lossless AVI, uncompressed AVI). Much of this has been discussed on the forum in the past few months.

And I'll reply more in depth this weekend.

Back soon. :)

Ok, look forward to your answer. In the meantime, I don't know how well the ATI 600 USB would work for me, as I use Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit and from reviews from Amazon, many people have a hard time getting it to work since ATI never wrote drivers for Win7. There have also been issues of frame dropping/un-sync issues as well.

Another thing, if I use something like the Hauppauge PVR 250 or the ATI USB stick, do I have to use the software included with each of those items or will I still be able to capture the video with whatever program I chose (i.e., VirtualDub or Premiere Pro)?

I would assume the ATI 600 with Vdub will work with W7 32 bit because it will work with W7 64 and Vista64 found here with instructions to get it to work on them however Admin can give more accurate and specifics on yours when he has time.
You may not even need these instructions but is given as an example.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...-pre-1727.html

I know Virtualdub plus ATI 600 will work with Vista 64, it works on mine but I have only played around with it a couple times. Because I am new at capturing to computer, there are some things I need to get ironed out, I am presently capturing to DVD recorders which is not a bad way of doing it anyway and will likely be the main way I do my capturing.
Wait however for Admin's answers to your questions so he can help you make the best decisions, I am new at video capture myself.

Well, I have to say I am a little disappointed. Paying for advice and not getting it for a week + is slightly ridiculous.

There was a last-minute change in my weekend travel scheduling. Offline for past three days. And since I'd already claimed the question, it appears others did not respond (pending my reply). So here goes...

Quote:

I've already got a s-vhs player, but what I've been debating on is whether or not I should get a TBC

While many people try to avoid the cost of a TBC, it tends to be an inevitable purchase for anybody that starts to transfer videos -- especially if you're converting dozens or even hundreds of VHS tapes to DVD.

For most people, the TBC-8710 is the best option: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...3167/KBID/4166
The TBC-1000 is excellent, too, but I generally on suggest that one when somebody is also needing a distribution amp (meaning the TBC outputs to multiple capture devices): http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...3167/KBID/4166

Quote:

and what kind of capture device I should use. For capture devices, I've been looking at the Canopus ADVC 110 for a while, but from browsing this forum, it seems Canopus is frowned upon for charging high dollar for getting little in return, while other reviews from other sites praise it. I've heard the ATI 600 usb be suggested a couple of times, and also the ATI aiw cards.
.... I guess I really just don't know what capture device is worth my money, as I've also come across some ebay deals for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 and PVR 500.

I would compare buying capture cards to buying cars.

I want a car that gets good mileage in-city or on the highway, can store some things for a trip (good trunk space), yet still has some pickup when I mash my foot on the gas. In other words, something that is versatile, yet quality.
Somebody else might want a truck because they like to haul a lot of stuff, and are willing to take the hit on mileage. But it also has to be a good vehicle for all-around use, be it driving in town or taking a week-long road trip.
And then there's going to be the person who wants to buy an expensive sports car. Although it does carry a prestige value to some, it's generally not a good vehicle outside of a race track. And even then, it can be subpar. It has no storage space, it gets awful mileage, and is unfit for general use. It's a specialty vehicle, made with one limited goal in mind: speed and bragging rights.

I would compare the Canopus card to the sports car. It does just one thing -- DV capturing -- and it does it rather mediocre. It costs a ton of money compared to other options, and you get almost nothing for the price. Further adding insult to injury, you can also capture DV with other devices for far less costs. The ATI 600 can do the same thing the Canopus ADVC 110 does. And then imagine that the sports car can only drive 70mph anyway -- this is essentially what you run into with DV. It's a fixed format. So you're buying a sports car for huge sums of money when it's not going to perform any different from a normal non-racing vehicle, as both have the same engine inside!

The ATI 600 is more like the normal car -- versatile, yet quality.

The Hauppauge series of cards is more like the truck. It's really good at MPEG, and it can do some lossless/uncompressed AVI with tweaks/hacks, but you take a hit in some areas. For example, Hauppauge is soft-focus quality compared to ATI and some others. And then the software isn't all that enjoyable to use. Great card, but it has a few minor nuisances. Sort of like having limited passenger room, no trunk and lousy mileage. But many people put up with it because it hauls so well (encodes MPEG so well).

You'd want a PVR-250 or PVR-350 only from Hauppauge, not the other models.

Quote:

What I'm simply trying to do is capture some old VHS tapes of my dads from way back when and put them on DVD. I'm not a novice when it comes to video work, having been around the video cleaning scene for about 3 years.

What sort of post-capture work will you be doing, if any? Any editing, restoring or filtering the video, etc? This does matter, and should be taken into account before video is captured. Honestly, this is one of only a few determining factors (with source quality being the other big one).

Which leads into the next quote...
Will ALL of your videos get the same treatment, or do you plan to edit/restore some and not others? If so, then you'll want a versatile setup for sure.

Quote:

For the capture method, your small guide says that MPEG is better for just small time cutting/splicing, and this is more than likely what I'll be doing, as none of the videos I have require any actual "editing" or "heavy editing", just some small cuts here and there.

Yes, assuming the source is clean enough to record directly to MPEG, and you're using a quality MPEG recording device, then MPEG is the easiest and quickest method to simply transfer and splice video. To me, anything that can be done with tape and scissors (if it were film) is not "editing" in the realm of digital video editing. That's a much simpler task than compositing, effects, titling, etc, that generally go with editing work.

Quote:

since there seems to be no edit button for posts

The edit button times out after an hour. There were some issues in the past where people would vastly change the content of posts days (sometimes weeks, months or even YEARS later) and destroy the whole topic. That's counter-productive to a forum.

Just add new posts, as you've done, if there is a change or more to add. :)

Quote:

for the capture device, I actually would not need the ATI 600 or something like it. I don't need a tuner

Just ignore the tuner functions. Buy the card based on its other merits. I almost never user tuners either, yet most of my capture devices have them as well. Some are analog tuners, in fact, completely useless to me (because I don't have analog cable) since the 2009 digital transition.

Quote:

I don't know how well the ATI 600 USB would work for me, as I use Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit

It should work fine. Just use the Vista drivers.

Quote:

and from reviews from Amazon, many people have a hard time getting it to work since ATI never wrote drivers for Win7

I would mention that most people who leave negative reviews online are idiots, when it comes to known-quality products. You'll often find silly complaints that display their complete lack of knowledge on the subject. Rather than use the Internet to research a fix, they use the Internet to cry in public. It's really quite sad. All of the information that is available, including from this very site, yet the most effort these people can muster is "sucks, doesn't work, awful, wahh wahh". I would suggest most negative ATI 600 comments are like this.

Quote:

There have also been issues of frame dropping/un-sync issues as well.

This always comes back to the computer in use, or the habits of the user, and not the cards. Read the guide on fixing dropped frames for video capturing. It also addresses audio sync, as audio sync and dropped frames are generally the same thing.

Link: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/guides/vid...ped-frames.htm

Quote:

if I use something like the Hauppauge PVR 250 or the ATI USB stick, do I have to use the software included with each of those items or will I still be able to capture the video with whatever program I chose (i.e., VirtualDub or Premiere Pro)

You'd never want to capture with Premiere. Great editor, but way too bloated. It will cause sync issues and dropped frames, because it's such a resource hog.

You can capture lossless/uncompressed AVI with VirtualDub with most cards, it's been discussed on the forum. The ATI 600 works with it, while the Canopus ADVC does not.

For DVD-Video MPEG, you'd have to use the ATI Catalyst Media Center (ATI CMC) software.

For non-DVD broadcast spec MPEG, you can use VirtualDub with the free Matrox codecs.

Quote:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5

Going back to your TBC links on eBay, FOR-A and Leitch (former DPS TBCs) are really the only broadcast brands I'd ever consider. I had the DPS-220, and it wasn't anything special in terms of regular TBC functionality (ignoring the dropout compensator).

Most TBCs are also limited to BNC connections, which have to be turned into composite connectors. You can't use s-video with these devices, which is a quality-limiting factor for VHS work. You really do want s-video continously from VCR, through any secondary devices, right up to the capture card input. Composite is almost always noticeably lower quality video, both in detail and in chroma quality/noise.

The other big turn-off of using these TBCs is the size. The broadcast TBCs are full rack-mount devices, the same width as a VCR, half height, but at least 1.5x deep. It doesn't fit anywhere conveniently, unless you want to dedicate a portion of your office/home to a big bulky rack. I truly despise the sharp metal edges, too.

If you're in a gambling mood, there are some TBC-1000's cheap as-is untested for about $50 right now.
See http://shop.ebay.com/resellelectroni....c0.m270.l1313. And don't worry about the "no power cord" thing -- the power specs are written on the TBC label on back, and you can get one at Radio Shack for about $25.

Quote:

and what kind of capture device I should use

Going back to this, it would help to know what your computer slots are. AGP vs PCI Express, PCI, USB2, Firewire 400/800, etc. Some of that will also determine what you can and cannot use.

An older ATI All In Wonder card, for example, is an excellent card. But it needs PCI (for one model) or AGP (for most models). These are also limited to WinXP, 2000, 9x. No Vista, no 7.

And are you determined to use your current computer, or would you consider an inexpensive dedicated capture box? Sometimes a dedicated box running Windows XP is the best solution for video. The video and audio communities have no love for Windows Vista and Windows 7, as it did almost nothing for us.

Hope that helps. :)

Well, I'll start answering.

For post-production, I plan on giving all videos some form of restoration/filtering treatment, but I will tailor that filtering to each video, as each video is different.

As for the dropping frames guide (needing a better computer) and not capturing in Premiere, I do understand that it's a resource hog, but I also have a much beefier computer than most people.

Core i7 930
6 gigs of RAM at 1600 mhz
GTX 465 (Video card)
Plenty of harddrive space.

However, I will probably use VirtualDub anyway or the CMC if I chose the ATI usb stick.

Also, I have seen those $50 untested TBC-1000s, but I just don't want to gamble on getting one that doesn't work. For Motherboard, I said before in a post that I have no AGP slots, but do have PCI and PCI-e slots. The Hauppauge cards work with PCI slots and there are some ATI AIW cards for the PCI slots, but I don't think I'll get a AIW card. More than likely I'll get either the PVR-250 or the ATI usb stick.

Windows 7 Ultimate also includes the ability to have Windows XP run in what they call "Virtual XP Mode" which essentially means it just installs the entire XP OS and you can use that for legacy things if you so wish.

Oh, I also have Firewire ports, but that doesn't mean much for the capture card or usb stick. As for the TBC's, I'll just have to wait on that.

I don't think you mentioned it, but can VirtualDub be used with the Hauppauge card or will I be forced to use whatever software Hauppauge supplies? And thank you for answering my post, good information in there!

I would also suggest it's not necessarily the power of the computer as much as Premiere just isn't coded that well for capturing. Think of it as an editing program that also has the ability to capture video -- a "value added" feature. But, as with anything else, such bonus features don't always work that well. All the R&D time went into the primary function of the program, and not the additional features. So even with a supercomputer powering the software, you may still run into sync/drops issues that are purely the fault of the software. Watch for that.

I need to try Windows XP mode sometime. I've just not used it, because I have so many XP machines. Plus that Windows 7 machine is for a specific task -- encoding H.264.

For the ability to capture to both AVI and MPEG-2, I'd opt for the ATI 600 stick from Amazon, currently less than $50 shipped.
Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B00138EOH8

For MPEG-2 only, the Hauppauge would serve you well. One of the new guides in October .... strike that.

THREE new guides in October will be helpful to you, in some way. One is for legacy PVR Hauppauge WinTV cards, and the other two are for ATI 600 MPEG capturing and AVI capturing via VirtualDub. That's the plan, anyway.

I'd say the TBC-1000 is worth it. If I had funds, I'd buy several myself, test them, add a power cord, and easily be able to sell it for double my investment time. ($200 apiece, probably!) But I have to pass on that for now, other things need doing, higher priority than flipping gear. There's a chance I'd buy duds, but it's really hard to kill a TBC from DataVideo. It's a plain metal box with no controls, and the TBC-1000 could be tossed by a tornado and likely still survive. Something to consider.

If you want to restore video, I'd really look at the ATI 600, between the choices mentioned so far.

Premiere CS3 and CS4 are proving themselves to be quite decent at restoration filter, color-wise. I may drop VirtualDub Colormill moving forward, and focus more on using CS4. I just did a project purely in Premiere, and preferred it over the somewhat-unstable Colormill GUI. In years past, this really was a weak area for Premiere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin (Post 12698)

I need to try Windows XP mode sometime. I've just not used it, because I have so many XP machines. Plus that Windows 7 machine is for a specific task -- encoding H.264.

Yes, I mainly enjoy encoding to h264, but as this little project will be for "older" things, I'll be using mpeg2. But that doesn't mean Win7 isn't good only for h264, I've also encoded other things into mpeg2 and my machine does it magnificently fast. I did also say that I'm more than likely not going to capture with Premiere Pro, but will probably use it for some part of the restoration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin (Post 12698)

For MPEG-2 only, the Hauppauge would serve you well. One of the new guides in October .... strike that.

THREE new guides in October will be helpful to you, in some way. One is for legacy PVR Hauppauge WinTV cards, and the other two are for ATI 600 MPEG capturing and AVI capturing via VirtualDub. That's the plan, anyway.

Looking forward to the new guides.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin (Post 12698)

I'd say the TBC-1000 is worth it. If I had funds, I'd buy several myself, test them, add a power cord, and easily be able to sell it for double my investment time. ($200 apiece, probably!) But I have to pass on that for now, other things need doing, higher priority than flipping gear. There's a chance I'd buy duds, but it's really hard to kill a TBC from DataVideo. It's a plain metal box with no controls, and the TBC-1000 could be tossed by a tornado and likely still survive. Something to consider.

Well, I just might purchase 1 of them just to see if anything happens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin (Post 12698)

Premiere CS3 and CS4 are proving themselves to be quite decent at restoration filter, color-wise. I may drop VirtualDub Colormill moving forward, and focus more on using CS4. I just did a project purely in Premiere, and preferred it over the somewhat-unstable Colormill GUI. In years past, this really was a weak area for Premiere.

I also have Photoshop CS5, but that's a little redundant for this kind of use and I only fool around with it every once in a while, not really any kind of "experienced user" as compared with others. But it's fun to use, clean up photos, etc. For color, I was a small fan of using TMPGenc for some things, as it had some nice color contols and was a convenient program to use. Well, it apparently seems that the ATI 600 is the way to go, so I just bought it.

Also admin, can you check your pm box?

PM checked, replied.

I still find uses for TMPGEnc. The various filters for noise and sharpness, etc -- no other editor seems to have an identical filter. For example, sure, there are many NR filters out there, but sometimes the TMPGEnc version just functions differently enough to be better than the others.

It's almost hard to believe I've been using it for almost 10 years now. It's easily the oldest still-in-use tool in my arsenal.

Most of my filtering though is used through Avisynth, as it is amazingly powerful and there are many customizable tools/plugins/filters for it. If you haven't heard of it or used it, I'd suggest taking a peek at it over at the doom9 forums. I'm a particular fan of the MVDegrain function, among others.

Who hasn't heard of Avisynth and filters video!? :eek:

You should share some of your Avisynth filter work sometime. Show some examples of what you're getting accomplished, including both the scripts and the before/after samples (maybe even attach the exact version plugins you're using).

It's a great little app. Maybe not as powerful as the uber-fans would have you believe, but still quite decent at a number of tasks. It's unsurpassed at several operations, such as deinterlacing.

My biggest issue with Avisynth is the scripting. Surely some of the most common filters could have been bundled into a good GUI that plugins into an encoder? Then again, that's what you get for free, I guess. It reminds me of logging into SSH root on the server, typing DOS commands, or writing PHP and CSS. Not fun at all. Video is so visual that I feel the life getting sucked out of me by having to interact with it in such a non-visual way.

I wish more people would share their exact plugin files, as well as their scripting. I need to get better about that, too.

VirtualDub, TMPGEnc and Premiere do meet most of my needs, however. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf (Post 12717)

Who hasn't heard of Avisynth and filters video!? :eek:

Well, I wrote that in case there's a blue moon tonight :p

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf (Post 12717)

You should share some of your Avisynth filter work sometime. Show some examples of what you're getting accomplished, including both the scripts and the before/after samples (maybe even attach the exact version plugins you're using).

I wish more people would share their exact plugin files, as well as their scripting. I need to get better about that, too.

Sure. Although I'm no mastermind a la Didee. Most of my work began with doing lite/small filtering for ripping DVD's on to my harddrive, but there are other things/more difficult work that I've done, such as many kinds of anime DVD's (I enjoy these, both for the content and because anime DVD's have notorious image and interlacing problems, and I like the challenge). When my ATI 600 arrives, I'll be able to post some pictures of what I'm able to do, if anything. When that happens, I'll also post some before/after's of work on other things I've done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightshiver (Post 12718)

Most of my work began with doing lite/small filtering for ripping DVD's on to my harddrive, but there are other things/more difficult work that I've done, such as many kinds of anime DVD's (I enjoy these, both for the content and because anime DVD's have notorious image and interlacing problems, and I like the challenge). When my ATI 600 arrives, I'll be able to post some pictures of what I'm able to do, if anything. When that happens, I'll also post some before/after's of work on other things I've done.

I would think that light and small filtering would be more beneficial to others, anyway. One of my gripes about Avisynth documentation has always been that it shows examples that nobody else really deals with -- it's always some odd tracking noise, or strange color problem, ghosting error, etc. Almost never do you see a good basic filter set that shows how to tweak out 3-4 common issues that a person would likely use on 20+ tapes.

That kind of info would be good to have here. I need to share some of mine, too.

I rely on hardware a lot, and can wipe out most remaining problem in VirtualDub or Premiere, but it's good to go over some Avisynth for those common errors that aren't as easily fixed by hardware, Vdub or an NLE. Or maybe even some errors that could be fixed by those methods, but I know not everybody can have $KKK worth of hardware and software in their home or office. That makes Avisynth a nice alternative. All it needs are docs, samples and examples that regular people can relate to.

Please do share! :cool:

Bleh, I've never had this kind of trouble with Amazon before. (On buying the ATI 600) The first seller I bought from still hasn't shipped the damn thing, and I placed that order on September 27. I've e-mailed him twice and just decided to file a claim and return the item if he ever does ship it. The next time I bought it from an actual company, and 4 days after I "bought" it, they send me an e-mail telling me due to an Inventory Error, the item is actually not in stock. So I got a refund. So after waiting about 2 weeks with all this mess, I was a little fed up and just decided to buy the ATI 750 right from Amazon themselves, and put it on 2 day air shipping. It'll arrive tomorrow, thankfully. The 750 was only $54 shipping included, so not much of a price jump. All the other ATI 600's on Amazon are either $85 or $200, so I didn't feel that those prices were actually fair. Anywho, after I get it tomorrow, I'll make the follow up posts with some Avisynth scripts and some results of some of my captures.

It gets bad around this time of year, October-January, ordering anything online -- referring to "oops, it's out of stock, sorry" type issues.

I'm not entirely clear on the functionality/software of the ATI 750. ATI made some changes after the 600.
Keep in touch, once it arrives!

This is a little depressing :( It just came in and I got everything set up pretty quickly. But, using the software that came with it, (Arcsoft Total Media 3.5), the S-Video source is TERRIBLE. I couldn't believe how bad the video was. When I hook it up to my regular Home Theater, the quality is perfect, but when viewing and even capturing with their included software, it looks like utter junk. I'm going to try now with VirtualDub and see if I can't get better results. If not, I think I'll have to return this as well :( I'm hoping that it's just the software and not the actual S-Video connection that's bad on the ATI 750.

EDIT: Damn, it's no better in VDub either.

EDIT EDIT: Decided to return it. Not going to deal with this. I'm just going to buy an actual capture card. Probably going to be a Hauppauge PVR 150.

Actually, it might be the PVR-350, not the 150. If you have any other suggestions for PCI or PCIe capture cards, I'd love to hear those as well.

The ATI 750 is different hardware from the ATI 600 that's suggested. If I'm not mistaken, the 750 is different from the 650 as well, which is supposed to act similar to the 600 (although it's different hardware there, too).

Any time ATI supplies third-party software, you're in for a rough ride. The only ATI hardware that is ever suggested is hardware that comes with custom ATI software to control it. The ATI 600 card, for example, came with ATI Catalyst Media Center (ATI CMC), which was pretty similar to the classic ATI MMC of yesteryear.

Much of that was covered here, this summer: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/show...-jvc-2312.html
Too bad you didn't see those posts before getting the 750!

Don't get the PVR-150, as it had issues with IRE and audio. Definitely look for a PVR-250 or PVR-350 if you want to use a good Hauppauge analog-in MPEG hardware capture card. My only complaint about Hauppauge PVR cards is that the encoding is a bit soft-focus -- not a lot, just slightly. It's not true to source like ATI has been, on its good MPEG-encoding cards (ATI 600, ATI AIW series, etc). But it may be one of your only choices, so it's tolerable. On a big HD screen, you won't really notice anyway. It's most obvious when 1:1 or so in a computer editing window.

All's well though. I get a full refund, so it's not that bad. Yeah, I actually did read over much of this forum before I registered, I only bought the 750 out of spite over so much trouble with Amazon I suppose. I realize the Hauppauge cards are somewhat old, are there any "somewhat current" ATI all in wonder PCI cards that you might suggest over the Hauppauge cards?

Got any screencaps? I'm interested to see what the input looks like as I was toying with picking up the 750 for its ATSC tuner. Also have you tried adjusting the capture device's onboard proc-amp?

For PCIe cards, your choices for uncompressed capture are going to be a bit limited. Most cards have built in MPEG encoding these days and don't have WDM drivers to use in VirtualDub.

I landed up with an AVermedia HD DVR PCIe card. Supports VirtualDub and has HD input. Just be aware that the SD inputs are very sensitive to video sync on this card and that a TBC is a must in order to avoid random frame drops.

Yes, I toyed with as much as I could toy with. Tweaked many setting many different times and no, I don't have screencaps. I already re-packaged it and sent it back. Also, I never said I was going to capture uncompressed, so that's not a very big deal for me, even if it does give a slight boost to quality. As for the Tuner aspect of the 750, you should definitely get it. The tuner worked just fine for me, but the s-video connection did not. I would only use that usb stick for viewing TV, nothing else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightshiver (Post 12853)

are there any "somewhat current" ATI all in wonder PCI cards that you might suggest over the Hauppauge cards?

The only ATI All In Wonder series cards were made for the Windows XP generation of computers. (There was some success, however, with Win98SE, WinME and Win2K, seeing how several of them were designed pre-XP. But latter ATI MMC required XP.)

I have one ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7200 PCI card available for $75. It's my only one left, if you're interested. The other two cards I have left are for AGP slots. And then I'll be out of extra ATI AIW cards.

The "downside" is that AIW's do not work with WinVista or Win7, but you honestly should not be using that OS for serious video work anyway. Most good video/audio software works best (or ONLY works) in Windows XP.

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Originally Posted by NJRoadfan (Post 12854)

For PCIe cards, your choices for uncompressed capture are going to be a bit limited. Most cards have built in MPEG encoding these days and don't have WDM drivers to use in VirtualDub.

This is almost an understatement. :(

With their wallets (mostly by way of returns to big-box stores like Walmart and Best Buy), consumers destroyed the digital video recording industry. They cried about devices being "too hard" as compared to a VCR -- nevermind that few took time to read instructions or try to understand video in any way. They never went online to seek help or advice. A TiVo/DVR/PVR was the only style of item with any success, as it was easy to use. Of course, the downside was an inability to keep recordings. Anything that allowed you to keep recordings took extra effort to understand blank media, editing, etc.

As time went on, idiot-proof "PVR-style" video recording cards replaced true capture cards. These took the dummy-friendly PVR format of operation, and mixed it with barebones recording "to keep" abilities. To keep it easy, these new PVR cards only record in 1-2 formats, generally MPEG-2 for DVD-Video and/or H.264 stream downloads, with limited presets (if any), and software that treats you like a child (or a moron). It was designed for the lazy, which is sadly your average consumer. A few have "extra features" to record in "Youtube format" or Divx -- both of which are terrible ideas, as neither should be used as a direct-capture format (it looks AWFUL).

Since much of the PVR style aspect of the card required hardware, software interfaces (WDM) like VirtualDub were locked out. So these don't even work well as AVI capture cards. It's crappy MPEG/H.264 A>D encoding, ATSC/QAM stream download, or nothing.

To AVermedia's credit, their "MediaCenter" software does support AVI capture either uncompressed or compressed with one of your installed DirectShow codecs, in addition to the "user friendly" MPEG2 (pretty much a must with HD unless you have a fast RAID) and h.264 iPod formats. The only thing I wasn't crazy about with it was its stability. It crashed... a lot. It also seemed to process the video, making it darker. It might have also tried to deinterlace, but I have to test that. The good news is, I can use VirtualDub to do "raw" captures. Note that this applies to the PCIe version of the HD DVR, which has NO hardware compression chips. The USB version does have a hardware MPEG encoder and it may not support WDM capture.

In terms of old ATI AIW cards, your choices are limited. The only PCI card with the original Theater chip was the 32MB version of the AIW 128. the 16MB AIW 128 along with the AIW Pro and original AIW (which I actually own) have a Brooktree Bt829 capture chip and use ATI's ImpacTV2 chip for composite/s-video out. As far as software support goes, the bt829 based cards will work with Windows 3.1x(!) and 9x. They may work with 2000/XP too. The original Theater chip should work in Windows 2000/XP as well. Just keep in mind that these cards will likely have only VfW drivers, not WDM/Directshow.

Fun Fact: The bt829 is well supported in Windows 9x because the ATI All-in-Wonder was the first official card to be supported by Microsoft's failed "WebTV for Windows". When I was beta testing Windows 98, I knew it was going to fail early on. Nothing but a bloated and buggy piece of software, but I'll save those details for another post.

Found this on another forum and have no idea exactly how accurate or how much it affects capturing.
There was no mention of the ATI 600 so not sure if it relates to it either.

"First the ATI 650 has a problem with its over-aggressive automatic gain control. It sometimes crushes blacks and blows out brights. No amount of adjusting the driver's proc amp controls could fix this."
"This is also true for Ati HD750. Theater 550 don`t have this issue. The reason behind this is that Theater 650 have a new Auto Gain and Auto Color over the Theater 550. There is no user way to fix those."

The hardware in the 600 should be different from the 650 and 750. The 650/750 hard MPEG-2 hardware encoders, while the 600 series relied on ATI's older software/hybrid method (which was superior in quality, as strange as that may sound to some!).

I believe the 650 and 750 are related, possibly sharing much of the same hardware -- most like the Theatre 650 chipset.

The 600 USB (and PCI-e) is based on something older, be it a dedicated 600 chipst, or maybe the ATI 500/550 Theatre chipsets. I've not had time to look into it. After the Radeon All-In-Wonder (AIW) series ended, and the 550 chipset came out, I lost interest in ATI. AMD had been plundering it, as far as I was concerned. When the 600 cards came out, I was pleasantly surprised to see a return to "ATI quality" video capturing options.

Chipset data is missing, but you can compare the cards at http://www.amd.com/us/products/pctv/...ct-matrix.aspx
And then I've archived a PDF of it, too -- in case AMD/ATI deletes the page later on.

In fact, according to that chart, if I'm reading it correctly, all of these cards come with ATI Catalyst Media Center:
ATI TV Wonder™ HD 650 Combo USB
ATI TV Wonder™ HD 650 Combo PCIe
ATI TV Wonder™ HD 650 PCI
ATI TV Wonder™ HD 600 PCIe
ATI TV Wonder™ HD 600 PCI
ATI TV Wonder™ HD 600 USB

I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate. Do those listed 650 cards come with ATI CMC?

AGC issues have been problems on other cards in past years, such as the Hauppage PVR-150 (if I'm remembering correctly). While you'd like to think such problems would disappear over time, sadly it's just not the case. So many errors get repeated in the DVD recorder / capture card / PVR box market, such as blocky video encoding, insufficient bitrtes (720x480 Half D1, as dumb a move as that was), audio issues, etc.

I've got an ATI 600 USB that's been on the way for over 2 weeks. Hopefully it will be here sometime this week.

The HD 750 appears to be a new chip. A true world tuner with ATSC and DVB-T in one chip. Video encoding is software with hardware assist only with ATI video cards.

AGC problems scream overactive Macrovision protection to me for some reason. I can't say its a problem with the AVermedia card I bought, I have my VCR hooked into a TV and the monitor with the capture preview side by side and no strange brightness/contrast shifts. The drivers are wonky though, but thats a problem with most video capture cards.

Avery Lee makes a note about problems with some capture cards and AGC calibration, ATI is called out as being an offender: http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=35

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AGC problems scream overactive Macrovision protection to me for some reason.

Very astute observation. I would have to agree. :)

Quote:

Avery Lee makes a note about problems with some capture cards and AGC calibration, ATI is called out as being an offender

In all the ATI All In Wonder Radeon AGP/PCI cards I've used to date, I never ran into AGC issues in terms of it affecting quality. Potential anti-copy, yes. But quality issues, no. Whites and blacks are proper, as are colors.

Hauppauge, on the other hand, I've seen with some pretty wonky output.

You know, out of sheer curiosity, what are your (kpmedia), lordsmurf, and admin's personal configurations for transferring VHS? Meaning, what player do you guys use, what TBC, what Proc Amps, Capture Methods, everything. Just curious as to what all of you guys use yourselves :)

Small update. The ATI 600 USB just came in, and I have to say, I'm impressed. The quality is MUCH better than the 750, and there is much more control that I have in the CMC than in the other software for the 750. I'll be posting a small sample of video and what I've done with it in a little bit.

JVC HRS9600U
DataVdeo TBC-1000
Elite Video BVP-4 Plus
JVC DR-M10S or ATI All In Wonder 9600XT

That's the primary. :)

Lot of other gear available, too, but that takes care of the bulk of what I need for personal use. That's my setup for my own tapes.

I have a chance to get a Datavideo TBC-3000 for $100, used but in great working condition. Should I go for it?

Sounds like a great price to me. :)

Is there anything radically different between it and the TBC-1000 that might harm anything I do, or is just a straight up upgrade?

It's not an upgrade -- just different.
Compare features: DataVideo TBC-100, 1000, 3000, 5000, 7000 Time Base Corrector user manuals

TBC-1000 was a full-frame sync/TBC with distribution amp.
TBC-3000 has no distro amp, but instead has some testing features, and some mild proc amp controls.
Base TBC is probably identical. Just different secondary features.
Each model differed in secondary features, but that was really it. I think the 7000 model is like a 1000+3000.

TBC-100 is a TBC only -- nothing extra, not even a case. Bare card. ("100" is not a typo.)
You don't see many of those anymore.

What's funny is everybody seeks the TBC-1000 because it was, when this site was founded almost a decade ago, the lowest-price TBC that worked well. Therefore it made it into the guides you see here, as well as posts by members of this site on their posts on other sites. Fast forward a bunch of years, and everybody is so busy looking for the "1000" models that they overlook the others, which can be taken for a steal on the used market, as the demand is lopsided towards the 1000. Go figure. Take advantage of this now, before anybody else catches on -- because I'm going to tell them with posts like this! Not that the other models can be found all that often.

Well, I bought it and now I'm selling it :) Wonderful device. Thought I'd try to sell it here first before going to eBay.

Is their a comparison list on this forum of the many different PCI capture boards? It is time for me to buy something that supports HD and need some assistance. Budget allows up to $250, was looking at AverMedia HD DVR and BlackMagic Intensity or ? ? Any thoughts are appreciated.

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