Advice on PCI sound cards for VHS capture?
 

Well, I'm re-building my old Gateway into a VHS capture PC with the ASRock 775i65G Rev. 3.0 motherboard, Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU and ATI AIW 9600 card.

Would of course like to reuse my old early 2002 vintage Creative Sound Blaster Audigy (not Audigy 2) sound card, but have read Lord Smurf's and other comments about potential problems with the early Audigy. I understand that those cards could not (as advertised) produce 24 bit audio. They apparently also had finicky software/drivers, although mine came loaded from Gateway at the time.

Don't know if 24 bit audio is even needed/desired for VHS capturing. Would appreciate any thoughts and advice about that card, newer Audigy or other well liked sound cards that do a good job in this regard. Then there is the ASRock onboard 5.1 CH Audio (C-Media 9761A Audio Codec), which I believe is not preferred for such tasks?

Regards

Hi colony.

I use a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz with my build and it works supremely well with my ATI AIW Capture Card.

Check out this threat where user jwillis84 goes into detail about why they also chose this soundcard:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ach-santa.html

Drivers for the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz can be found in this thread:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/comp...tle-beach.html

Thanks once again, JPMedia!

I am running a soundblaster live value which seems to do a good job. I bought the card new and it was pure luck I still had it. The card captures stereo at 48K Hz. XP Drivers are still available.

Was looking at that one but then found a NOS TB Santa Cruz with setup disc. Just waiting on the CPU so I can put this thing together! Thanks. Now I know another one that works.

Not necessary, but doesn't hurt if your system has the horsepower to handle it along with the video stream (storage speed being the main potential issue I suspect). 16-bit is adequate for VHS audio considering the S/N and frequency response of VHS tracks. A 48 kHz/16-bit sample rate is common for video.

The bits don't matter as much as the actual quality. As with digital cameras, and everything else, measuring "I have more than you!" becames marketing nonsense in the 2000s. I saw lots of high-bit audio cards that sounded like crap.

The reason that SoundBlaster is usually bad is because it distorts too easy. Whereas the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz does not.

Some time ago there were quite a lot professional Stereo and multichannel PCI sound cards. Nowadays they have migrated to USB Audio interfaces, mostly used in private studios. The professional studios use newer technologies based on AD/DA converters. I can suggest buying a second hand professional PCI soundcard, such as Terratec Phase 22. It is a 24 Bit 96 kHz card and can be found cheap. There is a huge choise from Stereo USB audio interfaces. The best are: Steinberg, M-Audio, Focusright, Edirol, TASCAM

Thanks dpalomaki, Lord Smurf and Maris 55. Your insights have helped tremendously. Now if only that CPU would arrive...!