[SWLUG] advice requested re: video capture

[James Edgeworth]

Julian Hall wrote:
> bascule wrote:
>   
>> full disclosure: this isn't a linux question
>> i'm considering buying some hardware for my daughter so that she can get her 
>> videos off her camcorder.
>> i've been looking at around the £50 mark, namely a usb box from pinnacle and a 
>> pci card from the same, they are both just for capture, unlike some cheaper 
>> products that also do tv and stuff, the problem is that while the usb box has 
>> audio inputs it doesn't seem to capture to anything other than its built in 
>> hardware compression formats, mpeg1/2/4; whereas the pci card will capture to 
>> avi which i believe will make for much better editing but it doesn't have 
>> audio inputs leaving the audio to be captured by the sound card, and i read 
>> via google that that can lead to sync problems. so i wonder what suggestions 
>> or observations/experience people might have.
>> my daughter has a low end dual core with at least 1gb ram (i can't remember 
>> how much i put in it), i just want her to be able to take her camcorder and 
>> put her vids onto disk, do some editing/playing and then put them onto dvd
>>
>> bascule
>>   
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>>   
>>     
> Beware of Pinnacle.  If you *should* want to use the PCI card in Linux 
> you will *not* be able to.  I had a Pinnacle DC10 which allegedly works 
> in Linux.  No longer - Pinnacle now use a proprietary 'Bendino' chip and 
> refuse to give anyone the technical specs for it.
>
> If you get a PCI card make sure it uses a standard chipset then you will 
> have no problem with *any* OS.
>
> The only thing I will say for the Pinnacle is that the quality is 
> superb.  If you're convinced it will never need Linux then go for it :)
>
> I use a Winfast VC100, and although I don't have it working *yet* in 
> Linux it has a standard chipset, and I just haven't gone into how to do 
> it yet.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Julian
>
>
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>   


Also be aware with Hauppauge cards - in Linux, they are excellent for tv 
- kaffeine lets you record/pause/whatnot tv. On ubuntu, the tv card is 
detected "out of the box". The trouble is with Windows - the software is 
incredibly unreliable. You end up with probably 10 minutes out of an 
hour of recording - no matter what media player ive tried to play the 
recorded files, they end up skipping huge chunks. The software is also 
very slow, and feels very cheap (afaik, the same software is used on 
their range of TV cards).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-009-CP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=169 
- this looks pretty good, but Ive had no experience with it - I remember 
someone saying that to capture from a camcorder, it just needs the 
Composite or S-Video, but I cant back him up on that. It also doesnt 
seem to do AVI files (saying that ive not actually personally seen one 
which does do AVI).