Capture Cards

I'm looking to get a new capture card and was wondering if people could suggest ones that they think do the job brilliantly.

I'm looking for one that produces a good picture for stills and video, and one that displays the correct aspect ratio without displaying it in a 4:3 frame in letterbox as my current does.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I have just got the Hauppauge HVR-1300 which I think does a brilliant job. It does everything you want, plus it has both analogue and Freeview.

Depends what you want to do with your card and what sources you want to capture.

If you want to only time shift, and live in a Freeview area, then a DVB-T Freeview card will deliver excellent picture quality, and will be relatively inexpensive.

If you want to capture analogue off-air as well then you can get combined Freeview and Analogue capture solutions, and alternatively there are some combined Freeview and analogue composite/s-video capture cards for use with VCRs etc.

However the analogue capture bits of combined Freeview devices doesn't always provide hardware compression - so you may need a resonably powerful PC to capture analogue sources this way. (Digital broadcasts are pre-compressed by the broadcaster - so take little processing power to record)

If you don't need digital TV AND want to timeshift and PVR - then a card with hardware compression (like the Hauppauge PVR range) will be a good solution, as it doesn't require much PC power to record.

If you want the best quality analogue capture - say from a Sky box or a Cable box - then you can look at the Sweetspot RGB analogue capture cards. These provide the highest quality capture - but don't apply any hardware compression, and thus require a reasonably powerful PC to compress if you want to timeshift with them.

If quality isn't much of an issue - and you only want still grabs and low resolution video capture, or have a powerful PC - then a cheap composite/s-video only device will be the most cost effective solution.

Alternatively - if you have a DVD Recorder you could record material on this and then import the recorded DVDs into your PC. (A good solution for many - especially those with RGB input capable DVD Recorders)

Something you might want to consider is whether Vista drivers have been made available for the card, or at least whether the manufacturer has given any commitment to releasing them in the future.

Also, stay away from Pinnacle, their software sucks, and I found that Hauppauge's software doesn't play nicely with other applications, say a third party PVR app.

Sorry, slightly off-topic, but talking about capture capabilities, I have this card that goes into the PC MCA . . . (whatever it's called) slot. Just wondering, do I need copyright permission to get screen shots (I'll be using a comptuer) onto Tv Forum, or can anybody do it?

Anybody can do it.

There is, or used to be, two types: A TV capture card and a video capture card. The former you use for taking pictures off a live TV broadcast (which can also come from a video recorder), and the latter type used to be unique to camcorders and what not, though the functions of these are often absorbed into the TV card side.

As has been previously stated, your source of video is important. If you want to capture straight off Freeview without having to go through your Freeview box, you need a card with the facility built in, as it makes life easier, but it can be done without it.



PCMCIA? PCI?
Anybody with the right hardware can take screenshots and posting them on TV Forum generally comes under fair use I believe. You don't need copyright permission as such (however Auntie would argue otherwise), but you do need a TV licence as the cards are classed as capable of receiving TV broadcasts therefore require licensing.

I'm still at home with my parents, who pay the license, is that okay?

People on here and around the world have posted thousands of TV caps, have they got in trouble, no. It's like indirectly promoting the channel. Although if your insecure just put (c) <Broadcaster>

don't encourage him. I can just imagine the interrobangs

I have found the reverse to be honest.

A Hauppauge Nova-T used in conjunction with GB-PVR is probably the most stable platform around, and very cheap (the card is around £20, the software is free).

Having said that just about any card now as long as it has BDA drivers will work great with such software.

The key to a good capture card is the right software. Most of the software which comes with cards is utter garbage, so third-party utilities are the way to go. Capturing an MPEG file in real-time then using other software to cut it up into chunks / screencaps etc is both easier and more configurable than struggling with badly-written native utilities.

My Hauppauge HVR-1300 (which is based off the Nova-T line and uses the same software) works fine with most 3rd party applications. Some don't work, but it's mainly down to driver incompatibilities. I have to say I myself have never needed to use software other than WinTV for the reason that it has all the functionality there. The only thing it lacks is MHEG-5, but then I haven't found a 3rd party application yet with it.

Really‽