Video Capture

charter2K wrote on 9/15/2002, 11:23 AM
I am a real newbie to digital video and I hope this posting make some sense. I have just purchased a new DV camcorder, a Canon ZR50, to replace my old analog one. I have been using an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon video card with Video Factory 2.0 with the analog camcorder and now that I've 'gone digital', it was suggested to me that I purchase a capture card compliant with IEEE-1394 standards. Is that the same as a "firewire" card? I know there are many cards available, but I'm really confused as to which one to buy. I have heard that DV is far superior to analog and I can't wait to get started. I'd like to get a fairly good one, and not too expensive either. Is there any for about $150 or less that are good and will work with Video Factory 2.0. My system is a PIII-733, 384 MB ram, and running Windows XP. Thanks for your inputs!

Comments

randy-stewart wrote on 9/15/2002, 1:27 PM
Charter2K,
I bought the COMPUSA standard IEEE-1394 card (compliant) for less than $40 and it came with a firewire cable and 4 ports. Took 20 minutes to install and Windows recognized it with no problem. Works great for me. I'm running Windows ME on a Dell Inspiron 4100, 866Mhz, 512Ram, 70GB hard drive (two drives), with an nVidia 32Mg graphics card. There is a good review of cards in the recent Videomaker magazine if you want to pick one up. But for my purposes, the card I got works fine. I think the quality really depends upon the input source (i.e. DV vs MPEG-1, MPEG-2, etc.) rather than the firewire card. May be wrong on that as I'm not a pro. Hope this helps.
Randy
Former user wrote on 9/15/2002, 1:30 PM
YOu need to make sure the Firewire is OHCI compatible and has the Texas Instrument Chipset. I paid $15 for my card and it works great.

Dave T2
BillyBoy wrote on 9/15/2002, 4:41 PM
I have a Canon ZR45 and it works great with Vegas Video. As long as you get any IEEE 1394 (firewire) compliant card, you should have no problem. About the firewire cable; to save you a trip, there are two kinds, one has the larger PC connector at both ends, another has a PC connector at one end and a camera (smaller) plug at the other. You'll need that type. There's no need to get an "expensive" firewire card, it only serves as the interface and one is made as good as another, more or less. You shouldn't have to pay more than $15-40 tops.