best adapter to encode TV shows to hard drive?

i'm disappointed with the result i get
when i try to capture a TV show directly
to a file on my hard drive

i have a decent MSI FX5900XT VTD128 VIVO
video adapter (i've never liked the idea
of packing a large/hot TV tuner on an
already crowded/hot video board)

i used a composite cable (from a decent
external TV tuner) for the input video signal

would a separate tuner board give
better results?

if yes, could anyone please name some decent
mid-range and high-end alternatives?

thank you in advance, bill

 

"willbill" wrote ...

OTOH, combining a decent video card with decent video capture
is pretty rare. The review of this video board I found (at
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=421&catid=2)
appears to indicate that it is optimized for video gaming. There are 6
pages of descriptions, graphs & charts, screen shots of how the board
works with various games. The video capture functionality was
mentioned in a single paragraph.

What video capture software?
What file format? Which codec?
Is it just off-the-air recordings that you are unhappy
with, or is it ANY kind/source of video?

They ARE designed and bundled with software optimized to
do OTA (off-the-air) recording (rather than video games, etc.)
They are also not all that expensive.

 

interesting 7 part review.

if you mean *3D* gaming (vs. 2D), then i agree

btw, your comment is interesting in that
it implies/suggests that you think some video
boards are "optimized" for video encoding?

if yes, what do *you* consider as key
criterions for a video board that is
optimized for decent video encoding?

fwiw, to me video encoding means a) good *2D*
performance in general, b) good true color
(32 bit) performance, and c) good performance
with displaying video files (avi, mpeg2,
and the many others that now exist).
is there more to it than that?

btw, it's an honest comment/question;
meaning i'm not baiting you

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

correct, found on the 2nd page under
the sub-head of "DVD Authoring"

Nero Vision Express 3.1.0.0,
downloaded about 10 weeks ago
to update/upgrade my Nero 6 s/w

fwiw, the MSI provided nVidia drivers
and capture drivers (aka "WDM" drivers
(what does WDM stand for?) are very recent

also, the Nero Vision Express (ver. 2, upgraded
to ver. 3) is the only actual capture s/w ever
loaded on the PC (running Win XP Pro sp2)

tried at least 4 different ones of each.
with results ranging from godawful bad
to poor

reached the point where it occurred to me
that maybe it would be more productive
to ask if: a) separate TV tuner boards
give better results than video boards
with a built in VIVO chip? and b) for
some specific suggestions and comparisons

correct. TV antenna video signal (from a decent
roof top TV antenna), 6U 75 ohm coax cable (75 foot),
into an external TV tuner (a combo VHS recorder/DVD player),
pulling the "tuned" video signal into the PC
(using a 6' composite TV signal cable)

do they generally give a visually better
result than a VIVO board?


bill

 

"willbill" wrote ...

I think there are video capture products that are optimized
for video encoding. Even tuner cards are optimized for video
encoding.

OTOH, I don't know of ANY graphics cards that are
optimized for video encoding. "Vivo" appears to be mostly
a marketing gimmic they can tack on in order to charge a
bit more for the extra feature. Sounds like you are looking
for better performance than the "vivo" products were
designed for.

For general video work I literally use the cheapest and
most basic video card I can find. I never spend more than
~$50 for a video card because capture/editing/DVD
authoring makes no significant demands on the graphics
card. Certainly nothing remotely resembling the demands
of gaming, etc. I prefer very basic graphics cards not only
because they are cheap, but also to AVOID all that gaming
2D, 3D, textures, etc. etc. stuff. It is just extra overhead
that has nothing but negative implications for what I want
to do with my computer.

Of course, video capture is done with a product designed
for video capture. In many cases, this is a generic firewire
port importing DV video from a camcorder or VCR or
DV encoder box like ADVC-110, etc.

Frankly, I don't remember ever heard anything positive
from anyone doing video capture with their graphics
card. Dunno if this is because they are lousy by design,
or whether they come with lousy software, or what?

Did you try any of the software that came with the card?

If you want quality video capture, you likely need
a product whose primary design was for video capture.

Thost are all important when *generating* video (whether
generating it from scratch in a video game, or whether
reconstructing video from a compressed file like MPEG,
etc.)

But none of those things has anything to do with capturing
or encoding video. Designing a card to optimize these
things means that much less resources going into video
capture/encoding.

My personal bias is that quality video capture/encoding
is not done with a graphics card with "vivo". Dunno
why, but nobody has ever come to this neighborhood
(rec.video.desktop) bragging about what a great video
capture they are getting from their graphics card. They
all come with complaints nearly word-for-word identical
to yours. You can discard my opinion and biases and
draw your own conclusion from this.

Without knowing SPECIFICALLY what these were, we
have absolutely no way of evaluating your experience or
relating it to what we have found successfull. This is an
important question. Without these details, we can only
offer the most generic (and marginally useful) advice.

From what we have heard here (rec.video.desktop),
MOST products designed primarly for video capture/
encoding give better results than ANY graphics cards
with a built-in vivo chip.

You may have to ask (in the subject line) for people
with experience with specific products.

[no response]

This was a differential question and you responded only
to the first part. Without an answer to the second part,
we can'd do a differential diagnosis as to exactly what
is causing the poor performance you are complaining
about. This is an important question. If you blow it off,
we can't really help you much more.

What does the picture look like right out of the tuner
and into your TV screen? Troubleshooting 101: Look
*critically* at EACH step in the chain to see where the
signal goes bad.

Troubleshooting 102: Connect a different source into
your vivo video card and see if there is any change in
performance.

I don't have first-hand experience with either, but I'd bet
money that a tuner card would do OTA recording better
than a video card with a "Vivo" chip. One reason for my
blind faith is that most have hardware MPEG encoding
chips which people seem to find acceptable for general
timeshifting and/or archiving TV shows.

There are many additional benefits like: online listings,
automated channel switching/recording (like a VCR or
Tivo, etc.)

 

I'm happy with my MSI TV @nywhere ... the stock "best setting" with the
included InterVideo MSIPVS is as below ... it will do up to 720x480 ... but
that's not TV . I record from my Rogers box using the s-video output. Did
a show to DVD that a buddy can't get in his part of the country ... he was
pretty impressed.

[Real-time Best]
Format: MPEG-2
Audio:
Format: MPEG-1 Layer II
Sampling Rate: 44.1 kHz 16-bit Stereo
Bit Rate: 224 KBits/sec
Video:
Size: 640x480
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/sec
Bit Rate: 6400 KBits/sec




"> i used a composite cable (from a decent

 

If you have a Firewire port then the Canopus ADVC line would be good--they
have everything from high end consumer to broadcast quality. If you're in
an area where Tivo is available, a hacked Tivo, DirecTivo, or HDTivo would
be another option.

 

That would be just slightly better than the more common
Half D1 (352x480) at ~4000Kbps VBR(CQ), that I use
most of the time.

As to the OP, the hardware capture board has three basic
components and often additional features that increase the
price and sometimes add value.

The first and most important part is the "Decoder"/
Analog/Digital (A/D) Chip which turns your analog TV signal
(normally Composite or S-Video) into digital data. Some do
both audio and video, some only video. (A TV tuner card
would [in theory] be providing the better RGB signal to the
A/D Chip. ) Personally I prefer cards/boxes/and standalone
DVD recorders that use the Phillips SAA 7xxxH series A/D
chips.

There are some capture cards that just use the output of
a specialized A/D chip to support a limited firmware or more
extensive software compression of the video. They use codec
and your CPU to provide most formats. Basically, the less
compression applied the less demand on your system's
resources/capabilities. (This is where your ViVo card fits in
the spectrum.) Many have used this process to capture in
low level compression formats to AVI, such as AVI-DV
and the HuffYUV "Lossless" format. This approach was
the standard way to provide early Editing software with
a converted analog signal in a format that was "Editable".
There are still Guides at www.videohelp.com and others
explaining how to capture successfully using this approach.

There are then the next step up in capture cards, those that
take the output of the A/D Chip and provide data to the
other two basic components, a Hardware Encoder chip and
some very fast dedicated memory. There are now hardware
encoders that do MPEG4 & DivX, as well as MPEG 1/2.
(This is also the approach used in Standalone DVD Recorders
and "TiVo" like devices. ( In fact the Encoder in my card is
the one TiVo uses for their "Series 2" design, the Broadcom
BCM7040 (Kfir-II) Chip.)) Early cards that used this
approach were specialized equipment costing many thousands
of dollars, they now range from <$150 to $30,000 or so.

Philips, Broadcom, Conexant, and others have web sites
that provide detailed descriptions of their Chips. Most of the
hardware encoders are proprietary chips and little information
or third party support is available for them. This can make it
hard to find the most effective capture software to use with
such cards. This is an issue because the lower cost cards
generally suffer from inadequate, if not buggy supplied software.
( In my case I capture using software obtained from another
card manufacturer, that produced a card based on the same
reference design as mine.)

In the range of cards that use the two approaches I
mentioned, there are those with various additional features
that are meant to aid or improve the capture. There are
some with built-in TBC and DNR circuitry. Color correction
is a common addition.

Analog capture external USB2 and Firewire devices are
available that use either approach.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. It appears that "Snazzi*"/"V-One Multimedia" is entering
the US market thru an online store. They have cards and boxes
that can use the "Movie Mill" capture software I use.

 

I use the A/D function in my Sony Mini-DV camera to do this, and the
results are superb.

I regularly connect my DirecTV sat receiver to my camera (camera to pc
via firewire), and record programs in that manner.

I also have a VIVO capable video card and the Mini-DV camera provides
much higher quality.


(*>

 

1. Plextor ConvertX - see review in where? cdrinfo.com
Excellent all-in-one device and lets you convert to mpeg-1/2/4
formats. (mpeg-4 = divx)

2. Any ol' video card with tv tuner such as WinTV boards or ATI
All-in-wonder boards - any of these will be found cheap for <$40 for the
older models, and work fine.

3. Canopus ADVC-100 + external TV tuner device such as VCR, cable input,
etc.

4. Any ol' HDTV PCI adapter for $150-250+. These will get even better
resolution than the TV innput methods above due to the HDTV format.

 

as far as i can tell, at this point, buying a VIVO
video board (however else it may be good) has *no*
merit for capturing a broadcast TV show to your
PC's hard drive as a video file

fwiw, my last inquiry (into newegg on "vcr" showed
19 results; my interest was external TV tuners;
but having saved it then and looking at it last
night, there are several PCI TV tuner boards
that look interesting in the $36-to-$99 range

i need to look thru the newegg user comments, and
maybe do another search or two for pci/tv/tuner,
but assuming they are positive, odds are i'll
soon get one of them

thank you, bill

 

Richard Crowley wrote:

no i did not!

i told you that in my last response to you!

as far as i could tell (see the 2nd page of
the ref that you provided) it is "freeware"
and questionable

i paid for the Nero 6 Ultra package which has
the capture software (updated) that i used

that's my current thinking

my hunch is that you are wrong

which is why i was careful in my wording

maybe not much wrong, given that
encoding (normally) doesn't do
anything much on the PC screen
while it's going on

that's the current open question

but in general i'm thinking that
it is true (based on my limited
current experience)

no not a problem, and thank you very much for
that comment.

my very limited experience suggests
that you are very correct

without being a total jerk, i agree

the whole thing is a total PITA!

fwiw, assuming i get a separate pci tuner board,
and assuming i get "decent/better" capture from
it (vs what i'm getting with this hi-end
nVidia VIVO board) i'll do a post in desktop
to you with your name in the title.

btw, i'll go back to this VIVO board before
i stick my foot in my mouth.

ok and good input.

differential is a nice word.

the open issue is if dedicated TV tuner boards
give better results (to capturing to a file on
the PC's hard drive) than VIVO video boards do
(with the source from a decent external TV tuner)

doggone good!

i'm well aware of troubleshooting 101

troubleshooting 102 is gonna cost me
about $90

probably about the cheapest thing i can
do at this point

thank you for that opinion. fwiw that's
an honest thank you

bill

 

Yes, recommend that you get a digital Tuner, like the Fusion DVico model. I
use it and record to HD on my pc. Great. You just cannot get a good
conversion from analogue.

Eddie

 

"willbill" wrote...

It was a rhetorical question/suggestion.

Costs nothing to try it. It might be optimized to work
better for that particular hardware than Nero does.

My hunch is that you have been reading to much graphics
card marketing-hype.

Ask yourself why you see reviews of this card (and others
in its genre) in computer gaming circles and never in video
production circles? Or why there is 10x as much breathless
prose and screen shots devoted to gaming than to video
capture? But you are free to hunch whatever you wish.

Actually *nothing* to be precise.

It is only "high-end" for a graphics card.

It appears to be quite "low-end" for a video capture/
encoding device. Your hunch notwithstanding, the two
functions have nothing to do with each other.

Shouldn't cost anything. Put a good tape in the same
VCR (or a different one). But you have already
stipulated that the picture from the source is OK.

 

interesting thought! thank you for that!

i follow the alt.video.digital-tv n/g
and i'll do some homework there and
see what newegg has

bill

 

understood (see below)

good suggestion!

thank you for that and your previous
thoughtful posts

LOL (mainly at myself and maybe even you. )

i'm well aware that there's a professional
video board market which is quite different
(and much more expensive) than even the
latest high-end 3D boards (nVidia and/or ATI)

but like many, i tend to forget it.
which is why i laughed (above)

i'd appreciate your suggestion for a "high-end"
video board (that does video capture well)
at a price point of $250 (or less)

thank you for your previous responses,
and thank you in advance for any video
board suggestions

bill

 

"willbill" wrote ...

I don't think such a things exists. People who use video
capture built-in to their graphics card are assumed to be
looking for only low-quality performance.

People who want more from their video capture don't
expect to find it on a graphics card.

Not clear why you want to combine these in a single card?
You will find that decision severely limits your choices and
likely eliminates the kind of quality you are seeking.

Repeating myself...
I use the cheapest/simplest graphics card (or even graphics
built into the motherboard) and then use a separate video
capture device that is designed for that purpose.

The Canopus ADVC series of video<->DV/Firewire
boxes is very popular, rock-solid, and makes very nice
looking pictures. The ADVC-110 is right at your price
of $250 (low street price). But this assumes you want
to store/edit (or at least capture) video in DV.

DV makes nice pictures and is much easier (and cleaner)
to edit than MPEGx, but it takes 13.7GB/hour of disc space.
(There is a direct correlation between file size and video
quality.) You will have to make the tradeoff/decision based
on what you intend to do with your video files?

 

money is everything when it comes
to TV! (especially broadcast!!)

VHS vs Beta is a good example

i was hoping with VIVO/grahics-card

but VIVO graphics-cards clearly don't
cut it (for capture to one's computer
hard drive!)

thank you for the Canopus ADVC-110 ref, and i checked into
it ((on newegg.com and canopus.us) and the 110 costs roughly
$261 and the 300 costs roughly $460 on newegg)

afaick, the 300 is most likely a serious
consideration for those who convert video
from a self shot video camera (motion;
and not from broadcast TV)?

right?

i'd appreciate your input (or others!) on this

TIA

what was clear (to me), from this thread, was that
to start with, i *NEED* a digital TV tuner!

so i bought one today (from Wal-Mart $198.76/USDigital,
(i don't have an easy ref to a model number from the
manual, sorry), see www.usdigitalhdtv.com)

i just plugged it in, this past 3 hours, and while my
expectations were sky high (!) (i'm in suburban Chicago
with a large attic antenna), this thing is beyond belief!!
(the BEST in comparison to analog TV tuners!!!)

iow, this thing has so far exceeded my high
expectations (broadcast/roof antenna only, coz
i have NO experience with cable/satelite) that
i'm still beyond belief!!

it also has a "USB" connector, which the manual
marks as "future"

i'll note my s/n, and call them on their 800 number
on this in the next week

odds are that as digital TV comes in in the
next 1-2 years, they'll offer a USB2/firewire
output for DV directly into one's computer. but
i doubt that this connector presently functions,
so i'm not gonna buy a USB2 cable and hope that
it might work

out of honest curiosity, am i correct in thinking
that the Canopus ADVC-300 features are not all
that useful for capturing broadcast TV to
one's computer hard drive?

all ears.

bill

 

The ADVC-300 has a TimeBase-Corrector (TBC) built-in.
The TBC allows you to capture cleaner video from old and
grungy VHS tapes, etc. If you have a nice, clean source, the
300 is likely overkill.

Absoloutely correct. Broadcast video is required by
the FCC to be very stable, so TBC functionality is not
needed.

Using you eyes also is sometimes helpful.

 

i'm trying to.

fwiw, a global/boolean search, ({canopus} and {300}),
of my local database of this n/g turned up 5/25/'04
thread "I finally x-ferred my first LD to DVD"
(18 posts) which is likely the way (~$70 TV capture
card for the video plus an audio card with spdif)
that i'll go to start with

again, thank you for your responses in this thread

bill