VGA and Video Capture Card

Hello.
Can anybody reccomend an integrated VGA and video capture card?
I have seen various dedicated capture cards, but would rather have to shell
out only for 1 card as I need to upgrade my graphics card anyway.
The cheaper the better! Obviously if i have to sacrifice too much quality
then I am willing to pay a bit more.
Thanks for your help.

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 14:02:54 +0100, "Martin Aitken"
wrote:

Hello.
Can anybody reccomend an integrated VGA and video capture card?
I have seen various dedicated capture cards, but would rather have to shell
out only for 1 card as I need to upgrade my graphics card anyway.
The cheaper the better! Obviously if i have to sacrifice too much quality
then I am willing to pay a bit more.
Thanks for your help.


There are two types of card that do this, Martin, AIWs
(All-In-Wonders) which have a TV tuner incorporated, and generally
will accept a video input, and VIVOs (Video In Video Out) which don't
have a tuner but will accept video input.

Ati make AIW versions in most of their ranges, but AFAIK don't make
any VIVOs now better than the 9000 or 9200 range. However, many OEMs
do.

If you get a good one, and have an appropriate system and software,
capture quality can be excellent. I would suggest posting more
information about what sort of system you have have and just what sort
of capture and performance you want from the card if you want more
specific information than that.

patrickp

- take five to email me

Thanks for the reply Patrick.
I am running a 2800+ Athlon, with 512 DDR400 memory, Abit KV7 mboard, with
plenty of disk space.
All I really want the card for is capturing old videos from my VCR. I dont
really play that many games.
I presume that would mean I would be better off going for the VIVO option
then?
I notice that you are in the UK aswell. Could you recommend any good online
retailers that I could get one of the cards from?
Thanks again for your help.

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 09:52:08 +0100, "Martin Aitken"
wrote:

Thanks for the reply Patrick.
I am running a 2800+ Athlon, with 512 DDR400 memory, Abit KV7 mboard, with
plenty of disk space.
All I really want the card for is capturing old videos from my VCR. I dont
really play that many games.
I presume that would mean I would be better off going for the VIVO option
then?
I notice that you are in the UK aswell. Could you recommend any good online
retailers that I could get one of the cards from?
Thanks again for your help.


Well, if you're in the UK, Martin, you're probably stuck with getting
an OEM rather than a Built by Ati card. On the one hand, this means
that you can get VIVO versions for much better ranges than the 9000 or
9200 ranges that are the best Ati do; on the other, it means that many
of the OEM cards you get, while having a Rage Theater chip (does the
capturing), don't have one that the Ati MultiMedia Center TV
application will recognise. I have a Sapphire 9600 Pro VIVO card (I
specifically got a Sapphire card because of their reputation for being
the OEM with the cards most comparable to Built by Ati ones) which
will work superbly with all the other Ati apps, but just won't run the
TV player :-(

And for PAL TV playing and capture, Ati's MMC is far and away the best
- despite the constant panning it gets here, I've not found anything
that compares for capture quality, TV picture quality and ease of use.
I suspect that most of the other apps people say they get great
results from may be optimised for NTSC video but not for PAL/SECAM,
and it may be that Ati's is the only app that has been properly
written to work with VIVO cards - and even the MMC 8.x and 9.0 TV apps
don't seem to handle VIVOs that well, although they do work.

In fact, what I use mostly is Amcap, which is a little app from, I
think, the DirectX SDK; was just doing a search for it on
Microsoft.com and couldn't find it. Can email you a copy if you want.

I got my VIVO from http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/ however, although
AFAIK Sapphire still list the optional VIVO version, no-one seems to
stock it any more. RL list a Sapphire 9200 128MB VIVO for £54.27 (inc
VAT) or a Sapphire 9200 64MB VIVO for £48.52 - probably worth getting
the 128MB for the money. AIR they don't charge much for postage,
either. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ is £54.05 for the 128MB card
and £50.53 for the 64MB. All these are retail box versions, by the
way. With your system specs, you should have no problems capturing
with any of those. You'll also notice that those prices are much
lower than for the comparable AIW cards, too.

HTH

patrickp

- take five to email me

Thanks for the advice.
I think Im going to go for the Sapphire ATI Radeon 128mb card from
Overclockers.co.uk. Seems like a good deal.
Cheers.

Well, if you're in the UK, Martin, you're probably stuck with getting
an OEM rather than a Built by Ati card. On the one hand, this means
that you can get VIVO versions for much better ranges than the 9000 or
9200 ranges that are the best Ati do; on the other, it means that many
of the OEM cards you get, while having a Rage Theater chip (does the
capturing), don't have one that the Ati MultiMedia Center TV
application will recognise. I have a Sapphire 9600 Pro VIVO card (I
specifically got a Sapphire card because of their reputation for being
the OEM with the cards most comparable to Built by Ati ones) which
will work superbly with all the other Ati apps, but just won't run the
TV player :-(

And for PAL TV playing and capture, Ati's MMC is far and away the best
- despite the constant panning it gets here, I've not found anything
that compares for capture quality, TV picture quality and ease of use.
I suspect that most of the other apps people say they get great
results from may be optimised for NTSC video but not for PAL/SECAM,
and it may be that Ati's is the only app that has been properly
written to work with VIVO cards - and even the MMC 8.x and 9.0 TV apps
don't seem to handle VIVOs that well, although they do work.

In fact, what I use mostly is Amcap, which is a little app from, I
think, the DirectX SDK; was just doing a search for it on
Microsoft.com and couldn't find it. Can email you a copy if you want.

I got my VIVO from http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/ however, although
AFAIK Sapphire still list the optional VIVO version, no-one seems to
stock it any more. RL list a Sapphire 9200 128MB VIVO for £54.27 (inc
VAT) or a Sapphire 9200 64MB VIVO for £48.52 - probably worth getting
the 128MB for the money. AIR they don't charge much for postage,
either. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ is £54.05 for the 128MB card
and £50.53 for the 64MB. All these are retail box versions, by the
way. With your system specs, you should have no problems capturing
with any of those. You'll also notice that those prices are much
lower than for the comparable AIW cards, too.

HTH

patrickp

- take five to email me

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 16:08:38 +0100, "Martin Aitken"
wrote:

Thanks for the advice.
I think Im going to go for the Sapphire ATI Radeon 128mb card from
Overclockers.co.uk. Seems like a good deal.
Cheers.

Good luck, Martin :-)


Well, if you're in the UK, Martin, you're probably stuck with getting
an OEM rather than a Built by Ati card. On the one hand, this means
that you can get VIVO versions for much better ranges than the 9000 or
9200 ranges that are the best Ati do; on the other, it means that many
of the OEM cards you get, while having a Rage Theater chip (does the
capturing), don't have one that the Ati MultiMedia Center TV
application will recognise. I have a Sapphire 9600 Pro VIVO card (I
specifically got a Sapphire card because of their reputation for being
the OEM with the cards most comparable to Built by Ati ones) which
will work superbly with all the other Ati apps, but just won't run the
TV player :-(

And for PAL TV playing and capture, Ati's MMC is far and away the best
- despite the constant panning it gets here, I've not found anything
that compares for capture quality, TV picture quality and ease of use.
I suspect that most of the other apps people say they get great
results from may be optimised for NTSC video but not for PAL/SECAM,
and it may be that Ati's is the only app that has been properly
written to work with VIVO cards - and even the MMC 8.x and 9.0 TV apps
don't seem to handle VIVOs that well, although they do work.

In fact, what I use mostly is Amcap, which is a little app from, I
think, the DirectX SDK; was just doing a search for it on
Microsoft.com and couldn't find it. Can email you a copy if you want.

I got my VIVO from http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/ however, although
AFAIK Sapphire still list the optional VIVO version, no-one seems to
stock it any more. RL list a Sapphire 9200 128MB VIVO for £54.27 (inc
VAT) or a Sapphire 9200 64MB VIVO for £48.52 - probably worth getting
the 128MB for the money. AIR they don't charge much for postage,
either. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ is £54.05 for the 128MB card
and £50.53 for the 64MB. All these are retail box versions, by the
way. With your system specs, you should have no problems capturing
with any of those. You'll also notice that those prices are much
lower than for the comparable AIW cards, too.

HTH

patrickp

- take five to email me



patrickp

- take five to email me