I'm in the market for a capture card / stick. First of all, whats the difference between a card, and a USB stick? Performance I would imagine...? Anyway, I need it to capture old VHS tapes (Home Videos!) mainly. But I'd also like to capture some gameplay from my PS2/PS3/Xbox for Youtube quality stuff. And if they arent too expensive, perhaps HD stuff from my PS3. But thats optional. Anyone know of an easy / cheapish / reliable stick or card?
Also, what kind of programs should I have for editing this footage? I thank you very much.
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Also, if any of theose VHS tapes are commercial movies, they may have that annoying ass Macrovision "protection" on them (it fucks with the picture so if goes extremely dark, then extremely light when copied). You'll want to get a capture device that ignores Macrovision protection.
http://www.videohelp.com/
^^^ They're a lot of help.
Personally, I'm still using an extra old Matrox Mystique 220 w/Rainbow Runner Video Capture add-on in a P3-1GHz machine running Win98SE (no drivers for anything newer than 98SE were released). I still have it 'cause it never stopped working and for converting my VHS collection to mpeg and xvid it's perfect. The included editing software is definitely not Premier, but it's fine for this simple task.
Thanks again! :^: And actually, I just got Premiere recently! So I assume those will work nice together? (PS, I would like to be capturing some PS2 gameplay via Component! )
You can grab generic cheap capture cards that do standard definition NTSC/PAL for much less, though. You could also spend a little bit more for a brand name one - I think one that was recommended a while back was the Dazzle (which logic7 has already mentioned). I don't remember the thread that it was recommended in - I think it was a "How do I do a Let's Play?" thread about a year ago now.
I personally use a cheap Gigabyte branded PCI video capture card, and a D-Link branded USB capture card for video capture. I find the PCI capture card gives me less lag and a bit more flexibility in terms of video formats (but ends up using more CPU power), but the USB one is much more portable (I can use it with a laptop, say).
I also end up using virtualdub for simple editing (cutting frames and stuff)/recompression and AviSynth for a few of the more complicated effects (picture in picture, fading). They might be a bit overwhelming though since you end up being faced with a million and one options.
For some reason the last time I was looking at capture cards I couldn't find one that supported 480p for a sane price. I'm not sure why, but every single one was over $1,000 USD. They supported progressive scan for higher resolutions (almost all of them did 720p/1080i, some did up to 1080p), but not 480p.
I'm guessing it might be something to do with the amount of bandwidth required for uncompressed video data at that resolution?
I remember finding some cards - they were PCI-X or PCI-e for newer hardware - none of them were PCI.
The Mystique/RRS combo that I have does compression in hardware on the fly (mjpeg), that's another reason I keep it in use. NTSC resolution with ZERO dropped frames in this machine (thanks, in large part, to the u160 SCSI card and 10K rpm u160 drives in the machine).
I thought this was a good video as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVH1_9HhX9w&feature=related
When they said they did 720p/1080i/1080p, they were talking about ATSC/QAM stuff, not uncompressed video from a component port.
Straight-up video in is still limited to 480i on hardware that can be had for reasonable money.
Careful. Under the tech specs for the card, it basically says that it does not support HDCP:
If you were to use this card with your PS3, say, chances are good that all you'll get is a black screen since the card does not support HDCP.
The "Pro" version, however, says that it supports high-definition component video input, which is of course not encrypted.
As far as I can tell (and read, and experienced), it uses it everywhere.
I tried to hook up my PS3 to my non-HDCP monitor via an HDMI to DVI adaptor, and I got a nice black screen when trying to start it up.
Edit:
True. I had automatically gone for HDMI video, but HD component video would be an excellent alternative.
Though it's actually a lot more expensive than it's price tag implies.
$350~ for the card itself.
$300+ for HDDs. You need a minimum of 3 drives striped in raid 0 to record uncompressed video, and it uses gigabytes per *minute*.
Optional: A high quality component switcher and spliter/amplifier. Since I record off several consoles the switcher is just a for convenience of not unplugging stuff all the time.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009QW4MM
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S1CEQ4
The Splitter/Amp is so I can actually play the game on my TV well recording, otherwise you have to play it on a window inside the recording computer at a laggy frame-rate with no sound. Which is OK if you're just recording a small segment, not so OK if you're recording an entire play-through.
Generally speaking for recording HD or full-quality uncompressed game footage, you're going to be spending at least a grand or more, not including video editing software or the computer itself.
So yeah, the next step up from a Dazzle or the like is pretty big jump =/