They work in a couple of ways.
First there is the PCI capture card. You plug into a spare PCI slot, plug a spur from your TV aerial into the RF socket and then plug in the composite input video connection from your VCR, you then (usually) put a patch lead (usually one in the box) between the sound card and video card.
Advantages-it`s neat and `out of the way`
Cons-Capturing at DVD resolution not always possible...Takes a lot of resources to grab at DVD resolution, and you can easily find your `capture` ruined because the PC simply cannot keep up with grabbing 25 frames per second, and some frames get `dropped`..get too many of these and you`re picture starts to look jerky.
Traditionally, you grab into a format called .avi, then do any editing you need to do in one of the many editing suites, then convert to MPEG2 for burning. However, direct to MPEG quality has improved a great deal in recent years, so you may find grabbing direct to MPEG2 is preferrable.
There are plenty of makes of these-look at the Hauppage range.
If you have no PCI slots, Hauppage do a range which will plug into a USB connection. They work ther same, so the above applies.
Then you can get USB capture devices that take the pressure off your processor by doing the video processing before it`s fired into your PC. Not had a lot of experience with these, but they range from cheap DY tools to professional user (Expensive)
The Canopus range is supposed to be pretty good.
The important thing to check, whatever you go for, is to make sure it can capture at full DVD size, and make sure the spec of your machine is up to it.
Now, we`re not quite there yet...let`s talk hard drives. Have you got a big one?? :) Because you are going to need it.
If you are grabbing to .avi, you filesize for a 1 hour peice of footage can easily hit 10 GB-and that`s using a good compression tool, it can get much bigger. If you are grabbing to MPEG2 directly, then allow for 4 to 5 GB, but then double that if you are going to want to do any editing at all. You should also be running Windows XP or Windows 2000 as they support the NTFS system which can handle larg files-FAT32 cannot create video files over and above 4 GB in size.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly..let `Defrag` become your watchword. Make sure the hard disc space you have is defragmented on a regular basis. If not, your capture will not be smooth. If space permits, allocate either an entire disc or a large partition just ot video capture/editing, then when you d odefrag, you are not having to defrag the entire hard drive.
Must admit, since I got the DVD and disc standalone, I barely use my capture card over and above keeping an eye on TV.
This item was edited on Sunday, 31st October 2004, 04:28
