what capture card should I buy ?

dendence wrote on 2/25/2006, 3:37 PM

I want to order a capture card tonight. I am sick and tired of this pinnacle studio card I have. I want to take it out of my PC and run it over with my car a.s.a.p.
What do you suggest ? I have a Pentium dual core proccesor 3 ghz., 2 gigs of ram.What works well with Vegas Mivie Studio 6. I want a capture card that is PCI and will capture from my vcr, camcorder. I have firewire ports that I capture DV camcorder with so I just need an analog capture card. I would like to keep it around $ 100. Thanks

Comments

ADinelt wrote on 2/26/2006, 11:56 AM

If your DV camcorder takes analog input, why not use it as your capture device? I do that with my JVC Mini DV camcorder. I just connect my camcorder to my pc via firewire, then connect my analog source to the analog inputs on the camcorder. Capture is done through Movie Studio and works absolutely great. No dropped frames or anything like that.

Hope this helps...
Al

Paul Mead wrote on 2/26/2006, 1:45 PM

I went thru a similar mental exercise a month ago. In the end I just bit the bullet and got the Canopus ADVC110 analog to digital converter. I had read all kinds of mediocre reviews about available capture cards; the driver nightmares for PCI cards; the comments about lossiness in USB devices, etc. Maybe I wasn't persistent enough, but after reading nothing but good things about the Canopus box I just took the easy way out and forgot about upgrading my video card, or buying a devoted capture card, or getting a USB box, or a camcorder with the ability to convert. The AV to DV converter does everything I need and does it well. It costs a bit more, but you get great quality, and it is hassle free.

There should be some existing threads in this conference on the same topic. Try searching for "capture".

s k r o o t a y p wrote on 2/26/2006, 3:09 PM

i've been in this predicament too of late and trying to figure out how to get around spending more than i did for VMS just for a capture card but spending under a hundred for a decent converter seems unlikely. here are the 2 frontrunners below as backed here in the forums. i just dropped out of a bidding war on e-bay with a guy who was content to spend $145, after shipping, on the ADS Tech model from a private seller. and that seems to be the norm. as you can see below you can spend that much storebought and at least have a receipt. but it goes to show how hot these things are right now

ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link API 555 $135*
Canopus ADVC-110 $224*

*bhphotovideo.com (if anyone's seen them lower jump in.)

the A/V Link has more input/output capabilities, the Canopus a somewhat better recreation of original picture. here is a comparison:

http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/adslink.htm

note: for the Pyro A/V Link it's important to go for the model API 555 since earlier models were buggy. for more on all that search "analog transfer unit(s)" and "importing analog video".

johnnyroy graciously provided me much of this info.

dendence wrote on 2/27/2006, 10:59 AM

Thanks all. Unfortunately my DV camera doesn't have inputs. I should have considered that when purchasing one.
I ended up ordering the ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link API 555 from newegg.com. It comes with Adobe Premier which I probably wont use since I am familiar with VMS. Their website offers it for sale with Sony Vegas software so I am assuming it will work with VMS.

s k r o o t a y p wrote on 2/27/2006, 4:21 PM

yeah really. let's get rid of the software bundle and get the price down on this dang thing people! everyone who needs it already has software!