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TV Card - Best for capturing/recording?

just Scott

just Scott

just Scott

Soldato
Joined
15 Sep 2006
Posts
4,990
Location
Liverpool
Hey. I would like to replace my TV card I have now because it's rubbish basically. Can anyone recommend a TV card, or any other device that will capture in AVI at 640x480? I need one with really good quality capturing.

I'll only be using it for capturing/recording.

If anyone can recommend something that'd be great. Thanks.
 
Best Freeview TV card I've come across is the DigiTV product. Overclockers don't do them so Google search to find who does.

It captures at the standard PAL DVD resolution (720 x 576) at whatever aspect and records the sound and actual MPEG2 stream which will give you the same quality as broadcast. If you want to reduce the resolution and convert to AVI then you'll need to recode.
 
H2F Scott said:
Hey. I would like to replace my TV card I have now because it's rubbish basically. Can anyone recommend a TV card, or any other device that will capture in AVI at 640x480? I need one with really good quality capturing.

I'll only be using it for capturing/recording.

If anyone can recommend something that'd be great. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Your PC specs also matter. Mainly fast/modern processor, RAM & HD space & its defragged regularly :)

Most (decent) cards have a hardware MPEG2 encoder chip relieving the processor, etc. So you'd rather record in MPEG then convert to AVI (DivX/XviD/etc). See here for more info ;)

Maybe...
 
I`v been looking for a very good high quality PCI TV Card with Freeview TV Tuner and Remote Control but noticed that most of the best ones need Windows XP Media Center Edition. I only have Windows XP Pro (SP2)? :(
 
Sylver123 said:
I`v been looking for a very good high quality PCI TV Card with Freeview TV Tuner and Remote Control but noticed that most of the best ones need Windows XP Media Center Edition. I only have Windows XP Pro (SP2)? :(
Click to expand...
:confused:

No they don't! Besides MCE is Pro...
Wikipedia said:
Although MCE is based on Windows XP Professional, Microsoft has disabled its ability to join an Active Directory domain post install. This effectively precludes the use of Media Center in a corporate environment. Media Center still retains most other Windows XP Pro-specific features, such as Remote Desktop and the Encrypting File System.
Click to expand...
Maybe the remote :)
 
So this mean I can still use Media Center versions with normal XP and still be able to use the software that comes with it to view the TV but maybe the Remote Control only thing that wont work? :confused:

hp7909 said:
:confused:

No they don't! Besides MCE is Pro...
Maybe the remote :)
Click to expand...
 
Sylver123 said:
So this mean I can still use Media Center versions with normal XP and still be able to use the software that comes with it to view the TV but maybe the Remote Control only thing that wont work? :confused:
Click to expand...
Yes :)

The card itself should come with drivers (normally for all versions of Windows) & own/3rd party software for recording/etc. If not you can find some free, etc ones on the net, e.g. Nero Vision 4 (in Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced).

Remote only works with MCE because its got MCE specific buttons/shortcuts :cool:
 
hp7909 said:
Your PC specs also matter. Mainly fast/modern processor, RAM & HD space & its defragged regularly :)

Most (decent) cards have a hardware MPEG2 encoder chip relieving the processor, etc. So you'd rather record in MPEG then convert to AVI (DivX/XviD/etc). See here for more info ;)

Maybe...
Click to expand...

My specs should be fine I think, I have AMD x2 3800+, 1GB Corsair Value RAM (not great, but good enough for this) and 160GB hard drive that's been freshly formatted. I defrag once every month also.

Ideally I would like to capture straight into AVI. My TV card now (KWorld TV713x) has amazing quality with lots of settings but for some reason, after a while of using after a format I always get errors saying something about "DirectShow could not be found". So no capture program (PVR Plus, Virtual Dub) will recognise the card.

I bought a Lifeview FlyTV Platinum hoping it would be better. This one doesn't have any errors, it works fine, but it has a lack of settings. I can't change the frame rate or the colour compression and the general output quality is quite bad. So this one is no good.

I've heard the Hauppauge cards are pretty good, but I really do need one that will record in AVI.

Thanks for the help.
 
H2F Scott said:
My specs should be fine I think, I have AMD x2 3800+, 1GB Corsair Value RAM (not great, but good enough for this) and 160GB hard drive that's been freshly formatted. I defrag once every month also.

Ideally I would like to capture straight into AVI. My TV card now (KWorld TV713x) has amazing quality with lots of settings but for some reason, after a while of using after a format I always get errors saying something about "DirectShow could not be found". So no capture program (PVR Plus, Virtual Dub) will recognise the card.

I bought a Lifeview FlyTV Platinum hoping it would be better. This one doesn't have any errors, it works fine, but it has a lack of settings. I can't change the frame rate or the colour compression and the general output quality is quite bad. So this one is no good.

I've heard the Hauppauge cards are pretty good, but I really do need one that will record in AVI.

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

Why don't you just recode the recorded format to avi?
 
H2F Scott said:
{snip}The only video converting I really do is AVI > DVD for burning.
Click to expand...
Wait, you record in AVI to re-encode again into MPEG2 DVD? Think you'll find it easier, better & faster to record in MPEG2 then create a DVD using Nero. Or the card does not capture in MPEG at all?

Did you look at the link I gave above (http://www.videohelp.com/convert)? I use VirtualDub (or VirtualDub MPEG-2) & AutoGK which can create both DivX & XviD AVIs :cool:
 
hp7909 said:
Wait, you record in AVI to re-encode again into MPEG2 DVD? Think you'll find it easier, better & faster to record in MPEG2 then create a DVD using Nero. Or the card does not capture in MPEG at all?

Did you look at the link I gave above (http://www.videohelp.com/convert)? I use VirtualDub (or VirtualDub MPEG-2) & AutoGK which can create both DivX & XviD AVIs :cool:
Click to expand...

Nah the TV card(s) I have now captures in AVI (which I would like to keep like that). I want a new card because of the reasons I listed above, but a card that will record in AVI. If I can't find one, I guess I'll go with a good MPEG card and recode to AVI.

Thanks for links BTW.

I convert AVI to DVD for other things. I use the TV card for something else. Forget I said about the AVI to DVD thing, lol.
 
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