Best TV Capture software/hardware method

[debug]

Hi all,

I'm having a bit of a problem capturing video off my Panasonic camcorder. I'm using McFunsoft's Capture/Convert/Split/Merge/Record software and then capturing via the usb2 port (no tv tuner). It seems after capture and encode the app drops frames and the video and audio is going out of sync.

Any ideas or alternative method suggestions welcome.

Regards
d

 

[Paul_S]

For best results you want a hardware based TV capture and encoder card plugged into a PCI* slot.

Most of the cheap capture cards (<R1000) don't have any hardware encoders on them - they rely on software and the CPU to do the encoding which is a recipe for disaster if you try to do other intensive stuff on the machine while it's encoding.

What you want is a decent hardware MPEG2/4 encoder built onto the capture card so that it can save the stream directly to the hard disk in real time.

 

[debug]

Yes I suppose a Hauppauge or ATI All-in-Wonder card would be my best bet. Am thinking of getting one for TV/DSTV capturing too.

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr350.html

and for a portable solution

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html

Wonder if USB2 would be able to handle full speed capturing ? They both have Hardware MPEG1/2 coders built in so that's very kewl tool.

What software would be best ? I think the huappauge comes with it's own sweet software. Is there Freeware solution ?

d

 

[Gambit]

Does your camera have a firewire port. I have found saving footage from a digital camera using firewire to be a million times better than usb. Even had awesome results with a slow pc. USB2 was pretty much a waste of time.