need help chosing video capture card

[AnnaCarrington]

O.K guys I need some help:
Heres the deal - I've been offered a free computer by my local council authority for being a dyslexic student in higher education. The computer is specific to my learning difficulty and not my course at Uni so my cries of "I want adobe Premier and a capture card and stuff" were met by a firm "NO!!!" however I am allowed to put in my own money to upgrade it - however I dont have much (well any as of yet - but I do have all of my own organs!!) Here is the spec.

Iansyst Cygnus P111 650 MB SDRAM, 13 GB Hard Disk, Matrox Millenium G400 16MB Graphics Card, Sound Blaster Live! 1024 Sound Card and stereo speakers, 48x CD ROM Keyboard and Logitech Pilot Wheel Mouse, Windows 98 SE, Midi Tower Case, internal modem.

So for example if I want the 32MB Graphics card they give me what they would have paid for the 16MB one and I put in the rest.

Now I don't know the technical terms for what I want to do are so I'll just explain how I can - I do realise that the computer may not be able to handle what I want to do and upgrading so that it will would cost too much. My problem is that I have an unlimited imagination but a limited budget!!
I have got Premier 5.1 from a mate who has decided the course is not for him (and I'm familiar with it) so this is what I want to use to edit. I want to be able to plug in a miniDV camera via a fire wire and import video throught it but also be able to imput Hi 8 and VHS some how and be able to output to miniDV and VHS. So what capture card should I get? If it all sounds too much can anyone recomend a capture card that is the same sort of standard as the computer I will be getting and what will it allow me to do? Please help by replying or emailing me at [email protected]
Anna

[Avilastimov]

If u have the money go for DV500 (Has firewire) (come with premier and in sync may well be doing their ?149 upgade to speed razor from premier, Is premier is not stable enough for you.) What kinda camera do u have? does it have DV in? if not buy a DV widget from Datavision.There are other cards but, I would lean towards those ones.
Or check out computer arts website (can be found at Yahoo!)

have fun

[Xendar]

Hi Anna,
The computer you're talking about has a fairly good specification. Other than a capture card though, you'll definetly need another hard drive for the captured movie clips. You cannot use the same hard drive that your operating system is one because Windows is constantly using that hard drive. Thus slowing the hard drive down and "dropping frames" when you capture. Obviously the bigger the hard drive the more footage you'll get on.

As for the capture card. I recomend 2.

1. DV500 by Pinnacle. This has DV & Analogue in and out. Allowing you to capture and output from virtually any source. This comes with the full version of Premiere 5.1c. And a whole host of other useful software. It will cost you approx. ?560 including VAT.

2. DC30+ also by Pinnacle. The same as the DV500 apart from no DV, just analogue in and out. Again comes with a full version Premiere 5.1. This will cost you around ?300.

There are cheaper cards on the market but most of them are very basic. If you want some further information e-mail me direct on: [email protected]

You could also try looking at Planet PCs website at: www.planetdv.net
They sell a whole range of capture cards and are the best priced I've found.

Hope this helps.


------------------
Mark Smith
Neon Films - Low / No budget films in West Yorkshire www.neonfilms.freeserve.co.uk

[This message has been edited by Xendar (edited July 29, 2000).]

[WUXflooble]

If you've got the cash it's got to be
the Cannopus DV Raptor.
It's got analogue and digital IN's and OUT's
and will produce Broadcast quality images
for under 600 quid, sans Premier 5.5
If you can't afford that the Cannopus EZ DV
is the best substitute.
It produces the same Broadcast quality images
as the Raptor, but only has Digital IN+OUT.

Oh yeah, get rid of ya Logitech mouse' cos
there crap. Much as I despise Microsoft- I
do highly reccomend there Mice over any
other brand out there.
They have a tendency to last for bloody years
and you hardly ever have to clean them.
Oh, and there comfortable to hold- which
only pays dividends on long post sessions.
http://www.datavision.co.uk <<- these guys do
some reasonable deals on the aforementioned
Raptor cards.

[AnnaCarrington]

Thanks for your help. By the way I don't have a camera myself (don't have the money at the moment - but its on the top of my lottery winning spending list!!) I borrow one from college Sony VX1000E. Yes I think it has DV in and out but not sure. However there are nice students at college who I know do have cameras with DV in and out and I'm sure I could perswade one of them to lend it to me to do DV out for a couple of pints - so that's not really a problem. Some thing which has interested me is the comment about a separate hard drive/disk. Other people have said the same thing. Well I do already have my own computer its windows 95 and handed down to me by my sister/dad. I can't tell you the specs right now cos I don't know them - I only really use it for Word. (don't worry I will be using my new one properly I get training with it!!) However my dad will know - I'll ask him. Can I by any chance somehow use that as a separate hard drive and how do I do it???
Anna

[ch4321_99]

To explain about the second hard drive:

You need one (a primary or master) to run the computer off - to house the operating system and to hold all your software, (eg mine is a 6G). Then you need a second one to hold your dv files that you have captured from the camera, (mine is a 30G). DV takes up alot of space. 30G will hold a little over 2 hours of video. You can buy a seperate second hard drive and they are not too difficult to install if you follow the instructions.

You already have a 13G, which is more than enough for a primary hard drive but not quite enough to capture alot of video so you need to get a bigger one if you intend to edit alot of video. Hope this helps!

[Xendar]

Hi,
I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but the Canopus Raptor does NOT have analogue in and out. The analogue sockets on it are for video loop through only. And there is no such thing as Premiere 5.5. The current version is 5.1c.
The EZDV is a good card but doesn't come with Premiere. If it's just a DV only card you are looking for, then go for Pinnacles DV200. It would cost you around ?300 including VAT.



------------------
Mark Smith
Neon Films - Low / No budget films in West Yorkshire
www.neonfilms.freeserve.co.uk

[pmweb]

I am sort of in the same bind as you, I have an NT (Noting works on NT and it slows everything down and dosen't support Direct X 4 or above.) with a 100megs left and my dad dosen't have the money right now but I have a couple hundred so I am going to install a removable hardrive system.

Incase you don't know what that is and most people don't and a lot have never heard of them, when your computer is shut down, you put in the hardrive you want and start up the computer and it boots off that hardrive and you can use as many different hardrives as you want. I'm getting it also so that when a new operating system comes out and I want it but don't have the space. I don't have to go out and buy a new comp but just a new hardrive.

When you go to buy the case that goes in your comp, talk to a technical person in the store cus the average person wont know what it is.

Paul Mendoza