What TV card?

[Frink]

Hallo,

Does anyone know any good reviews of TV cards, or any recommendations.

I'd like to be able to watch/record video at a decent resolution/frame rate.

Hauppauge seem to dominate the UK market, but their resolution seems low and I've had a problem with computer freezing.
I've been looking at Jetway cards, but can find no review.

- Frink

 

[dakota81]

I would suggest ATI's TV Wonder USB as long as you're not wanting to get into any professional video work, then you'd be looking at something like Matrox's RT2000 cards.

I've got ATI's TV Wonder VE, and it's very good quality, but being the Value Edition, they have limited the recording capabilities, but there are no limitations on th USB edition.

 

[salmonsteak]

Visit Tom's Hardware at

http://www.tomshardware.com.

This website offers some pretty extensive information in all areas pertaining to hardware. There you'll find product reviews, benchmarks, critiques etc... It's actually a great source for reviewing hardware that might interest you, before going out and buying it. Check it out, it's saved me a few bucks in the past.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

I've had good luck with the Hauppauge cards - as well as being cheap, they have NiCam stereo, video capture and multiple text OLE abilities.

And they work in Linux ;-) CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[Guest_imported]

i just got the tv wonder but its not the usb edition, is it still any good?

 

[skybay]

I think an important part of the video capture setup is the video I/O what kinds of devices do you need to hook up, and what kinds of ports come with the card, or the external device. The next important thing is the format that the device captures your video in, if it only makes .avi files, and you want to produce MPEG 1, 2, 3, or 4 you have to look at what software you need to convert the files.
It seems there are issues with some operating systems, making it difficult to get good quality video output. After all, that is what all this is about isn't it? How do you make the best quality CD or DVD or VHS tape, using TV in or hooking up SVHS, your camcorder (firewire or USB): that is a wide range of kinds of input, there are some choices to be made about what you want to produce with your captured bits or TV shows (WIn media, Quicktime .mov, or .avi files, MPEG or whatever.)
Please share any experiences - good or bad - I want to set up a capture system and am confused by all the research I have been doing: there are complaints about most setups I have considered. And much of the review and info sites on the Web are for gamers who have different needs than I do. And what is good for 3D rendering isn't necessarily what you want to make good quality CD's or tapes for your viewing pleasure.

 

[Frink]

Hallo,

I've got the Jetway 878M TV card, connected up to the co-ax output from my video. Input to the video is Scart from a cable box.
This setup allows me to get good quality cable or video playback, as I have no TV aerial.

I've re-installed the software and hardware a number of times as I've had a few problems.

I had borrowed a Hauppage card from work therefore the Jetway card tried to use the same drivers, but I had problems of the computer locking up when I opened the suppplied TV software.

It's basically working now, but I cannot record (mpeg2) without the computer locking up after between 10 seconds and 10 minutes, which is a shame. Sometimes I get distortion on the picture, where lines of pixels from previous frames are visible, but this can usually be corrected by recording a few seconds of avi.

I have been advised that it's probably my mobo not working properly. I've got an Athlon 750 in an MSI 6330 mobo, based on a VIA chipset. Another suggestion was not enough power.

If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this then I'd be very grateful, although I've just about given up trying to record on it.

- Frink