Video Capture cards

[digital_biscuits]

I'm buying a new pc, mostly for editing, but for other stuff too. Anyway, I was looking at some specs on the p.c's offered by editing p.c specialists. All of them have Pinacle (etc) Video Capture cards. I've used digital editing suites in the past using DV decks and via firewire from dv cam on comptuers that dont have a video capture card.
So basically i want to know, what is the advantage of a video capture card? Are they worth the ?300+ for them?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 28, 2003 11:04 AM: Message edited by: digital_biscuits ]</font>

[machead]

It depends how seriously your taking things. I shoot miniDV, so firewire is perfect I could lash out extra on a capture card but the only advantage would be some effects and transitions would not need rendering. I'm very happy with the work flow I achieve, and transitions only take a second to render.

in my opinion you'd be better off spending the money on a better camera,

[digital_biscuits]

Dont the video cards allow you to take footage from analogue sources as well. Even though i use MinDV as well, it would be nice to be able to wack in some other vhs/tv footage if you need a specific effect. Is this possible without a video card??

[machead]

You can get a DV bridge (start at about ?200) You may find that your editing package will have a filter that can give you the VHS effect (most people want the film look)

[Xendar]

Hi there,

Phantom is partially correct. As computers get faster and more powerful the need for dedicated hardware (such as Pinnacle's DV500 for instance) will become less and less. However, at the moment many people require the features that dedicated capture cards offer. Here are some of the examples...

--Real-time playback of effects and transitions--
As Phantom mentioned Avid and Premiere both offer realtime previews of certain effects using only the computers CPU and memory. This is only a preview though and rendering is still required for the final output. You also need a powerful system for the real-time previews.
Dedicated cards such as the Pinnacle Pro-ONE RTDV, Canopus DVStorm 2 and Matrox RT.X100 all offer real-time playback of filters, effects, transitions and titles to analogue & DV. This can be a big bonus to people who need to get work out to a deadline.

--Analogue & DV input and output--
Most capture cards (including the ones I've mentioned allow you to input and output from DV, S-Video and composite sources.

--Real-time MPEG2 encoding--
Most capture cards now offer realtime MPEG2 encoding for DVD creation. Again this is a big bonus to anyone who is producing DVDs to a dealine. Programs like Premiere etc. can export MPEG2 as well on there own but this can take a very long time.

As I mentioned before, dedicated capture cards will not be required as much, if at all, in the future. Pinnacles Edition DV background renders, so that you can continue editing whilst the software renders any effects in the background. You can see that computers are already becoming powerful enough to process the large amount of data required to edit video.

So, whether you need a dedicated capture card or not depends very much on your own personal needs.

[digital_biscuits]

what if i had loads of old super 8 /svhs video i wanted to digitally edit, would i need any additional stuff to do that? Would I need use a video card?

[phantom 309]

I've had a Pinnacle DV500 for about a year now. The ads about realtime this and realtime that are pretty much misleading. Indeed some filters are realtime, like six or something.... For all the other filters you still have to wait till they are rendered. Most editprograms like premiere 6.5 and Avid Xpress DV do exactly the same but they solved the 'realtime' capabilities with their software. So the cheapest way out would be to get a firewirecard and an editprogram (or kazaa).

The only plus about an editingcard is -as you mentioned before- that you can use other formats than DV. You can digitize VHS and S-VHS with most capturecards. So what you really should ask yourself is: do i want to use other formats than DV?

Capturecard manufacturers also claim that the rendering will be done faster with their card. Buying a faster processor and More DDRRAM would in my opinion be a much wiser solution.

Laterz.