Need advice on 2 capture methods

[Michaelcz]

I purchased EMC 9 Deluxe in May 2007 for casual editing. For the past month I have read the manual, the pdf guide and about every post that would affect my projects before starting. It has made life easy creating slide shows and mini projects.

 

In the past I have used MGI Videowave 4 and Pinnacle Studio 7. I did the trials of EMC 9 and Pinnacle Studio 10. By far EMC 9 Deluxe is the easiest and most user friendly.

 

I have experimented with Chroma key, slides, music and transitions before attacking anything major. Most importantly, reading the posts of the very helpful forum gurus has made it simple. I even got my $60 rebate with no issues.

 

Now for my question. I own an old Sony Analog 8mm camcorder with tapes I want to edit. I have two methods of bringing it into to my computer. I plan on capturing about 20 minute segments. The first is Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 and will bring it in as mpeg2. The second method is Dazzle DVC 90 USB video input which came with the EMC 9 Deluxe. Which method of the 2 would be the best quality to bring my video in for editing? Thanks.

 

Michael

[james_hardin]

Have a few DVD RW discs on hand to play with while learning.

 

Try Both methods and burn projects to the RWs and take them for a test drive. Let us know what method you think works best.

[Michaelcz]

Have a few DVD RW discs on hand to play with while learning.

 

Try Both methods and burn projects to the RWs and take them for a test drive. Let us know what method you think works best.

 

Since video and audio is an imperical judgement call, I figured that I would try that. But I thought someone who had the same type of equipment would know a definitive answer. Whether capturing analog vcr tapes or analog camcorder, which might be best one way or the other described. Thanks.

[ggrussell]

Both devices capture to MPEG 2 using built-in hardware encoding. I would say that the quality would be about the same. However, the Hauppauge is very well supported and the company is good at updating drivers. Some users have had problems with the Dazzle and even the Pinnacle website states problems with certain USB 2 chipsets. With my personal experience, you will most likely have less problems with the Hauppauge capture card.

[Michaelcz]

Both devices capture to MPEG 2 using built-in hardware encoding. I would say that the quality would be about the same. However, the Hauppauge is very well supported and the company is good at updating drivers. Some users have had problems with the Dazzle and even the Pinnacle website states problems with certain USB 2 chipsets. With my personal experience, you will most likely have less problems with the Hauppauge capture card.

 

ggrussell --Thanks. That personal experience was what I was looking for. The Dazzle DVC 90 came with the EMC 9 Deluxe. I bought the Deluxe version for the software extras that came with it and not so much for the DVC 90. (the $60 rebate didn't hurt either) I did like the ease of the Hauppauge, but wanted to make sure I was not missing something.

 

Best Regards,

Michael

[sknis]

ggrussell --Thanks. That personal experience was what I was looking for. The Dazzle DVC 90 came with the EMC 9 Deluxe. I bought the Deluxe version for the software extras that came with it and not so much for the DVC 90. (the $60 rebate didn't hurt either) I did like the ease of the Hauppauge, but wanted to make sure I was not missing something.

 

Best Regards,

Michael

 

My personal experience only. If I capture with a A/D card and my sound card, I have to limit captures to about 10 minutes or I get the Audio/Video sync problem. If I use the DVC 90, I do not have the sync problem even after one hour but I think the video is slightly less sharp. That's why you have to check yourself. Capture was from a video cassette (VHS) player.

[mikiem]

If it helps anyone...

 

Video & Audio capture use different timing clocks, different sampling freq. and so on, so most capture hardware alters either the video or audio timing very subtly to maintain sync. Capturing audio separately can come in handy [i.e. recording from the SPDIF of the cable/sat box], but the result can need very serious editing throughout, time stretching or compressing about every 10 minutes as noted by sknis. Normally you always want to plug both audio and video into your capture hardware.

 

RE: Capturing VHS or SVHS video...

Because these formats actually hold less data than something like DV or current mpg2, there's a bit of debate on how nuts one should go trying to preserve or enhance quality. That said, many people capture to avi using something like mjpeg or HUFFYUV, and using DGIndex with captured mpg2 is also popular. A program called Avisynth can handle avi files or DGIndex files, and allow you to apply your choice of many, many filters that these folks feel greatly enhance the original video quality. Others use VFAPI or Avisynth to bring the video into VirtualDub: a more user friendly alternative that also has many enhancing filters available.

 

While EMC9's Media Import uses software mpg2, there are other capture apps available, some for free, that allow avi capture, including I think many that will work with the DVC90.

[Michael_j]

My personal experience only. If I capture with a A/D card and my sound card, I have to limit captures to about 10 minutes or I get the Audio/Video sync problem. If I use the DVC 90, I do not have the sync problem even after one hour but I think the video is slightly less sharp. That's why you have to check yourself. Capture was from a video cassette (VHS) player.

 

I think I will go ahead and try both ways. It make take some time to report back, but I will. Thanks.

 

Michael

[Larry]

........While EMC9's Media Import uses software mpg2, there are other capture apps available, some for free, that allow avi capture, including I think many that will work with the DVC90.

EMC 9 supports capturing DVI-AVI also, provided one has the proper hardware and drivers for it.

 

BTW, an "avi" file can contain many differnt types of video, some highly compressed, like Xvid and Divx, and others uncompressed, like DV-AVI.