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Need Advice - Video Capture Device


Gordon
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I wanted to get some opinions regarding a Video capture device and could think of no better place to ask for opinions than the BC community.

I am looking to purchase one for my computer to transfer home videos onto disk. I recently purchased Dazzle DVC and I'm about to return it due to various problems, so before I make another purchase I figured it would be better to find out which models some of you might be using or would recommend. There is a few things I should tell you first, I need a device with composite audio & video as my camera's are older models so I do not have the newer firewire technology. Also it would have to be for a PCI slot or external as my primary video card (NVidia GForce2 MX400) is using my AGP slot. Any suggestions? I have done some research and have only come up with one the ATI All in Wonder Radeon 32mb PCI, if any of you are using this model I like to know what you think of it and of course any other suggestions that you may have. My budget is around $200.00 US

Thanks in advance to all who respond.

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Hey, Gordon, I can give you several ideas. However, I'm interested in what you didn't like about the Dazzle product (which dvc did you use?)

There are a few around the 200 range but knowing what you don't like about the above would help a lot.

Are you interested in editing and dumping back to tape? Do you want to make Video CDs for you DVD player, etc.?

Happy to help.

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Thanks Akira,

I had purchased Dazzle DVC DM4100, it will not recognize either of my two cameras (both have composite video) or any of my VCR's. Movie Maker stated that the "Hardware was not responding" and if I tried to use setup with my camera playing video it told me that the DVC was not connected, and of course it was. I contacted customer support, read the FAQ's but have recieved no response. I did some searching for reviews on the internet and found quite a few negative comments about it at neoplanet (I think), one person was having the same exact problems as me. I also read that their support was extremely poor. So the long and short of it is that I would like a device that will work with Windows XP and not give me huge problems. Some of the people that commented stated that they had to dump all of their system drivers and reinstall in order to get it to work.

Yes, I am trying to capture home video that I have on tape and put it on disk so I can view it on my DVD player. Along with making a video for work related purposes.

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Well, your main problem is going to be WinXP. There are few sub $500 capture devices (non firewire) that have updated drivers working in XP.

Normally, for generic homevideo going to video cd i'd recomend something that captures mpeg-1 as it cuts down on the horendous rendering times.

Give me a little bit and I'll have a couple of good recomendations.

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Thanks again Akira,

Dazzle tech support responded to my email, they told me to update my VIA 4in1 drivers but I had already did that due to SC's post regarding VIA drivers. I also sent an email to Pinnacle Systems asking about their capture cards (Studio AV)it looked to me that their card would only capture video and not audio but I'll wait for their response. In the mean time I'll continue to work with Dazzle tech support since I have until the 19th of January to return the product. Your right most of the problems are most likely due to Windows XP although I did try to get the DVC to work on my kids machine PIII - 500mhz. The product seems like it would do a good job if I can get it to work, but if there is something that is better I would return it in a heartbeat.

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Sadly, Gordon, that Dazzle product is going to be your best bet for the price.

However, and this choice may work better for you, there is always the All In Wonder from ATI. The newest, 8500DV, has everything you need, and is more likely to work with winXP. Sadly, it also will require you render your edits a second time to the mpeg-1 format. That can take some time, unless you have a beefy system.

If I were you, I'd stick with the Dazzle product and get it to work. It is by far the cheapest solution. The next up the ladder would be Ati's product at $300, then a leap to products in the $1000 range. Sadly, none of them are advertising WinXP compatibility.

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Hi Akira,

I went to CompUSA last night and picked up the Xtasy Everything Video card for $200.00. It installed without a hitch. Basically it is a less expensive device than the ATI but does the same. It comes with a GForce2 MX400 64mb vid card which goes into my AGP slot. It captures in mpeg 1&2 along with VCD and others. The only issue that I have is that my sound of a recorded playback is quite choppy, but beyond that I'm quite pleased with the product. Since it has all that I needed along with TV it will suffice until I decide to upgrade to a digital camera. Thanks again for helping and have a great holiday season!

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XP is still a bit new for the capture drivers to be mature.

I had to go find the version 1.05 WDM capture driver to get it working on my Nvidia card with Svideo in. And there were still one or two quirks I had to work around.

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Thanks Akira.

Advil, that's the truth I had to d/l version 1.08 WDM capture driver because the WDM included in Nvidia 23.11 drivers would not work but Vision Tek the makers of Extasy Everything had it posted on their site so I knew ahead of time.

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