Posted by Ken Maltby on 02/11/07 10:44

"youarehappyhey" <youarehappyhey@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1171169828.417235.311700@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Ken,
>
> I was the original poster that started this thread. After fully
> considering your comments, I wanted to ask you what is the best video
> capture device to use instead of Dazzle, and also what is the best
> video capture software to use in conjunction with whatever that best
> video capture device is?

As pointed out by Alpha; "best" is relative to a number of
factors, not the least of which is your budget.

Normally when talking about capturing camcorder video,
I would suggest using a device or procedure that "captures"
to DV-AVI. That could still be your best bet, to allow
for the most options in processing and editing your "old
home movies on VHS and 8mm video camcorder" video.
If you plan any complex editing or need to do extensive
processing to improve the quality of you old video, then
get an AV to DV device, or one that includes that function.

If you were dealing with already edited material, (like TV
shows or movies), or only needed to use the most common
editing procedures to make your "Home Movies" ( titling,
transitions, frame accurate cuts and joins, simple video and
audio effects, image stabilization) then you can use the faster
and simpler DVD compliant MPEG; capture, edit and author
process.




V-One Multimedia, the company behind Snazzi*, makes
the Movie Mill capture program, that has worked very
well for me. Their "Snazzi* III DVD Creator" PCI card
uses the same reference design and chips as the capture
card that I still use. (This is hardware MPEG encoder
only and you may want a model that also converts AV to
DV.) If there is a DV camera in your future you should
consider one with DV inputs as well.
http://www.snazzishop.com/vcp.asp


> Something external would be best, such as
> something that plugs into my USB port.


>Also, is an external hard
> drive that plugs into my USB port going to be sufficient for an
> external hard drive for video capture?

The "Capture" drive I was referring to is just another hard drive
installed in your computer, so that you can capture to a drive
other than the drive with your operating system on it. It is also
better to setup your processing so that a process has the input
data coming off one drive and outputs from the process go to
another drive.


Anything else I should require
> for an external hard drive? Also, I have heard about a Firewire port,
> but have never used one, and am not sure if I have one. Is it better
> to hook the hard drive and video capture device into a Firewire port
> instead of a USB port? Do they even make hard drives and video
> capture devices that plug into a Firewire port? What does the
> Firewire port look like so I can tell if I have one?
>

Firewire does have a slight advantage for uncompressed
video transfer (because of how it buffers and handles the error
detection and flow control), but neither hard drives nor video
capture devices (except those that only do AV/DV conversion)
transfer anything near uncompressed video. Even DV-AVI is
compressed 5:1.




> Sorry for all the questions, but I think this will be the last stuff I
> will need to know to get the equipment I need.
>
> Thanks.
>

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