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Cross-Platform Video Capture Cards And TV Tuners?
ePIsOdEOnline writes "This Christmas reminded me of the times when you were a child and your parents bought that new toy that says on the packaging "Batteries Not Included". Post-Christmas rituals always turn into spending sprees to get other things that will be compatible and complementary to the gifts we recieved. This past Christmas, I recieved a PS2 along with a mini-dv camera set. Well, now I'll need something to view these with since I don't have a television in my apartment. So, I was looking into picking up a TV-tuner card for my computer. What kind of cards has the slashdot crowd been successful with, and which ones should I steer clear of? I'd like to be able to use the card in linux and sometimes windows, to watch and record off of. What kinds of software/hardware should I invest in, and is it an easy, accomplishable task to delve into?"
I have the 8500 DV and i run my gamecube through it. It is not HDtv quality, but it is better then having to fit a tv into my tiny dorm room :)
Plus, it has people turning their heads seeing me play my gamecube on my computer. Of course, the newest ATI Radeon All in wonder probably costs around 400-500 bucks....so go for an older one
Jeff
For the actual DV you might want to look at Kino as its a stable editor for raw DV footage
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I haven't used iMovie, so I can't really comment on it. I've seen other professionals I've worked with use Final Cut and it's fantastic (but not free).
As for [sarcasm]fancy schmancy fades you describe[/sarcasm], they're not fancy schmancy if you're doing anything professional. For example, I tend to use dissolves on most of my short demos -- even if it's only a 10 frame dissolve-- because it helps create a more even flow and unified feel (unless I want a jerky, abrubt feel) and ties one shot into the next better than a cut. It's rare I start anything (especially 30 second spots) with anything other than a fade in or end them with anything other than a fade out.
But then again, that's just me in my role as a professional video producer. For your use, if you're just cutting out the commercials from whatever show you're copying (instead of paying for it so those that created it can earn a few bucks for their work), I can see why you wouldn't need it.
As far as simple goes -- I've seen a number of people who get home editing software start to do photo collections. I used to do a lot of these while I still worked for other people -- you take photos and music, lay down the music, and put the photos on video with the music background. This is something that almost always works better with dissolves and wipes. If you're doing one that's 5 minutes or longer, it can get boring (even if the viewer cares about the content in the photos), so adding a few wipes and a variety of dissovles can help. As more of the home video people do more of this, I see them realizing that what they once thought was more than they needed is really a basic part of the professional toolbox.
I'm using a WinTV-GO in Linux and (sometimes) Windows 2000. It works much better in Linux than Windows. My system has two monitors connected to an Nvidia card - the Windows driver automatically makes the right hand monitor display video full screen - the Windows app that comesa with the card works well enough but the right hand monitor's display has artifacts on the right and bottom borders. Also when closing the Windows app there are times when the image on the monitor freezes and Task Manager is unable to close the progrqam - the only thing that works is the reset button.
In Linux, TVtime and Zapping both work well, although TVtime is much better.
For recording I've been messing with MythTV which seems to work really well so far.
I'd have to say that with one of these cards your best bet is probably Linux rather than Windows. The nice thing is the hardware is cheap and the software free/open.
dude just go get a freaking tv they are dirt cheaop
Apparently, TV sets are not cheap once the prospective owner has factored in the cost of real estate. See Dagowolf's comment for details. In addition, it's hard to find a tunerless monitor with just composite, S-video, and SCART/component inputs; some national governments require all owners of a tuner to pay an annual fee to a government-sponsored broadcast network.
For just plain TV (erm, cable too) I've been using an AverTV card (www.avermedia.com). It's no frills, PCI based, and you need to connect it to your sound card via a jumper. But, it's based on the Brooktree 848 card, which you can use with your native Kernel and the Video4Linux subsystem. For the tuner software, you can use the default XawTV that comes with most applications, but I highly recommend TV Time (tvtime.sourceforge.net). It's very high quality with high reliability, low system foot print, a tidy on screen display, intuitive features, and it interfaces with XML TV to display channel information. You can also add LiRC support and use a remote control. Now, I haven't had much luck getting PVR software (freevo, mythtv) but that's not the cards fault. Freevo has too much dependancy on other applications, particularly perl modules, and mythtv is handicapped by a shoddy python install. Rumor from the developer of TV Time is that it will eventually include PVR capability.
AverTV is about the cheapest BT848 based unit out there, and they make higher models with stereo and dbx support built in, so you can check those out. I don't even own a TV, and havent for two years. I'm always in front of this damn machine. BTW, the Linux applications are far superior in stability, color, and frame rate than the included Windows software.
Go search Google on ATI All-In-Wonder audio sync, and you'll see that there are problems, especially on long captures. There's no real reliable configuration to alleviate this problem, and ATI has refused to deal with this problem pretty much since the first AIW cards were released. If you have the time and patience to manually re-sync your audio to the nearest frame, be my guest. Otherwise, forget about this solution.