Graphics card recommendations please !

[S.]

Hi,

I'm going to upgrade my system (on a budget - so limit is about UKP50 ...
$90), and would welcome recommendations.

New system will be Asus A8V mobo, 64-biit XP3200+ CPU and a SATA hard
drive. There will be no games, purely office apps and other lightweight
software, but I want to transfer my VHS videos to hard disk, edit, then burn
DVD's.

Rather than buying a separate VGA card and (e.g. Pinnacle) box, can anyone
suggest a graphics card that will double as a video-in processor ?

TIA


Steve.

 

[Chris Klink]

Hi,

I'm going to upgrade my system (on a budget - so limit is about UKP50 ...
$90), and would welcome recommendations.

New system will be Asus A8V mobo, 64-biit XP3200+ CPU and a SATA hard
drive. There will be no games, purely office apps and other lightweight
software, but I want to transfer my VHS videos to hard disk, edit, then burn
DVD's.

Rather than buying a separate VGA card and (e.g. Pinnacle) box, can anyone
suggest a graphics card that will double as a video-in processor ?

TIA


Steve.

Well, you can buy any ATI All-in-Wonder card as that has video in/out
but it also has TV Tuner which I guess you don't want. Just about all
the Nvidia cards have video out but not in and the one that have video
in too are usually expensive. What you are looking for is a card with
VIVO (video in video out). ATI All-in-Wonder 9600 might be your best
bet plus you get to watch TV on your PC too.

BTW, a friend of mind was using a cheapish Pinnacle card with supplied
Pinnacle software to do what you want and it compressed the video
during capture and didn't look all that great in the final stages. He
tried different compression methods but they all looked like crap and
we couldn't find a non compressed method in the Pinnacle software. I
guess you have to compress it or it takes up too much space.

 

[Dan Wojciechowski]

Hi,

I'm going to upgrade my system (on a budget - so limit is about UKP50 ...
$90), and would welcome recommendations.

New system will be Asus A8V mobo, 64-biit XP3200+ CPU and a SATA hard
drive. There will be no games, purely office apps and other lightweight
software, but I want to transfer my VHS videos to hard disk, edit, then burn
DVD's.

Rather than buying a separate VGA card and (e.g. Pinnacle) box, can anyone
suggest a graphics card that will double as a video-in processor ?

....

Steve:

I've tried going this route with an AMD 2600+, and in the end I wasn't happy
with
the results. The video either had dropped frames (and that was while I did
nothing
during the capture) or looked pretty poor. I finally bit the bullet and got
a dedicated
capture card (and here is the important part) that does the MPEG conversion
in
hardware. Wow! What a difference. Now I have no dropped frames, and the
video
looks better than it ever did. Plus, I can actually use the computer while
I'm
capturing.

I'd highly recommend something like the Adaptec VideoOh! PCI that I'm using.
Capture cards (whether video cards with VIVO, or TV cards, or whatever) that
don't use hardware MPEG conversion, will all have the same limitations.


--
Dan (Woj...) [dmaster](no space)[at](no space)[lucent](no space)[dot](no
space)[com]
===============================
"Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain
To touch is to heal / To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky / Better learn how to kneel"

 

[S.]

Hi,

I'm going to upgrade my system (on a budget - so limit is about UKP50 ...
$90), and would welcome recommendations.................

Thanks to Chris and Dan for sound (!) advice.


S.