VGA -> NTSC capture, suggestions, comments?

briand wrote on 2/7/2002, 12:27 PM
I've been using Vegas to edit footage from computer games for highlight videos and such. The system I've used previously was an in-game snapshot, which took 30 frames a second as png images, and then I rendered them to AVI using RAD game tools, and edited the AVIs in Vegas. This solution works fine for the one game that has the snapshot capability, but as soon as I move to a new game, I'll lose this functionality.

I tried doing capture using the video out on my 3d card (a single chip Conexant NTSC encoder) to an ATI capture card. A workable system, but the quality was pretty bad, and certainly didn't compete with the perfect 640x480 captures I could get with the in-game snapshots.

So I'm wondering, is anyone else doing VGA->NTSC capture, that actually looks decent, and what system are you using? I would seriously consider getting an external VGA->NTSC encoder box (~$150, not a really expensive on, but better than the single chip system), and a Sony or Canopus media converter (~$300) to firewire capture, *IF* the quality out of the system was worth it. Is anyone using a system like this, and can comment (or demonstrate) the quality?

Thanks

Comments

Cheesehole wrote on 2/7/2002, 3:03 PM
sorry i don't have experience with any VGA-->NTSC converters worth using. my solution would be to point my camera at my monitor (set to 60Hz to avoid flicker problems). you can get awesome results that way, but if you don't have a camera it's obviously too expensive.

if you find a good solution, please post it. i'm sure a lot of us have the same problem.