[eN] -- Detailed Capturing Tutorial With Screenshots

[eNet]

Well, you can use TV cards for watching TVs too, if you are asking that and if you're asking about iuVCR, well you can watch live TV via it, but it's pretty not comfortable, because view is interlanced (with lines). For watching live TV I use some software that I got from Leadtek with CDs when I bought the card..

[Flash #3]

Man, Thanks alot for that I'm new to the site so I don't really know how to do these things and this helped me a heck of alot. Cheers. Karma going your way

[eNet]

TV Tuner versus DVD Recorder

Introduction

Hi guys, I was off for some time but now i'm back, I wrote some article

This is if you want to keep your videos on pc, watch on pc, trade on pc, share on internet etc. If you wish to have a library of videos of DVD-CDs, DVD-Recorder is better easily.

I always thought DVD Recorders rocks, they are better a lot than TV Tuners, after I borrowed a DVD Recorder from my cousin, I changed my mind a bit. It's Vidoe AD-8091-S (or is it just named that, I couldn't find it in Google...). I thought it'll be great to record with this, thus I noticed that at some points my TV Tuner - Winfast Leadtek TV XP/2000 is better. I'll compare them and declare my opinion here. I used a crappy VHS player (I took a video from Video tape), I capped 1 minute of game, rendered it at exactly 2100 Kbps in XviD. I'll use VirtualDub for rendering TV Tuner's capped file and VirtualDubMod for DVDR's recorded file (because VirtualDub doesn't recognise .vob files, while VBMod does). So lets see what I got...



Versus




Contents

I) Capturing process
II) Getting data to computer
III) Rendering process
IV) Misc things
V) My own conclusions


I) Capturing process


TV Tuner

Capturing at my prefered way was easy too for me (it could seem complicated for someone though). I capped at almost Highest possible quality at this card (I set 19 of 20 quality at codec's configuration, what means it was at least 95% possible quality of the VHS tape). Some numbers: iuLAB.exe took ~25% of my CPU (on Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz) and ~32 RAM (of my 512 RAMs), which means, I could work with Photoshop and browse with Opera easily, without lots of lag (5+ opened tabs) and it didn't drop any frames of video. I capped 01:44 in time (I told it will be a minute because I will cut it to a minute while rendering) and it took 501 MB of hard drive space, it's like 4.82 MB/s or 289 MB/min. Important notice: while capturing at this high quality I couldn't watch it via PC at the same time (because on iuVCR it's like guardian of dropping frames, and also uses less of RAM and CPU Usage), it wasn't a problem for me, because I have a little TV next to me so I plugged VHS player like that I could record it on PC and watch on that little TV next to me at once.

DVD Recorder

Capturing on this Vidoe DVD recorder was very easy, easy understandable. For capturing I got a Sony DVD+RW cd (because, actually this DVDR can aceept only DVD+R and DVD+RW cd, which were tough to find, at least in my town, but lets go on..). I set the highest quality (HQ) before recording, at this quality you can record up to 1 hour of video, so you couldn't record whole game in this quality with one DVD-CD. You can also change quality to SP (120 mins), EP (240), SLP (360), I can't remember what those shortings means though. Capping was just fine (well, except some little problems with that VHS player in the beggining but that's not DVD-Recorder's fault..), it didn't lag or anything, you can just watch, record and enjoy.

My opinion:

+ DVD Recorder, can watch and record at once.
+ DVD Recorder, no need of lots of hard space.

II) Getting data to computer


TV Tuner

It didn't need anything of this part for TV Tuner.

DVD Recorder

Before rendering on VDMod we need to get that file from DVD-CD to PC, plus while opening file (it's only on DVD files, like .vob, also on some other - .mpg, no parsing for .avi files) on some rendering program it has to be parsed (don't ask me what that means, I don't really know exactly). It took exactly 20 seconds on my PC.

+ TV Tuner, no need of copying files, parsing.


III) Rendering process


Resolution of TV Tuner's capped file is 760x576 and of DVD Recorder's - 720x576 (because I can cap as at big resolution I want on TV Tuner, and on DVD recorder it depends on my using TV system (I use PAL), as DVD Recorder's resolution is lower, rendering should be faster for it, let see what I got.

TV Tuner

I cut the time of video to one minute, Rendering it to XviD/2100 Kbps, LameMP3 128 Kbps.. It took me exactly 3 minutes 11 seconds and I got a nice looking file, 120 minutes long videofile (like a full game) would take around 382 minutes or 6 hours 22 minutes to render. That's because of very high resolution, render time would fall with smaller resolution.

DVD Recorder

I cut the time of video to one minute, Rendering it to XviD/2100 Kbps, LameMP3 128 Kbps.. It took me exactly 3 minutes 32 seconds and I got a nice looking file, 120 minutes long videofile (like a full game) would take around 424 minutes or 7 hours 4 minutes to render (and also I didn't count parsing here).

+ TV Tuner, faster rendering.


IV) Misc things

This DVD Recorder (Vidoe) cost around 150$ here and it was the cheapest DVD Recorder my cousin could get here, while my TV Tuner cost like 40$.

+ TV Tuner, cheaper.

On DVD Recorder you can also watch other DVD movies, even though you can watch them on PC (as if you have DVD-Rom), but personally, I'd prefer TV as it's more comfortable for me.

+ DVD-Recorder, can watch other DVD movies.

Personally, sometimes, I also use my TV Tuner's function - FM Radio, I just can access radios that couldn't be find in internet. Also, I can rip music via this. Not all TV Tuners has this function.... So and probably some DVD Recorders have FM Radio function, I don't know yet.

1/2 of a + TV Tuner, can listen FM Radio.


V) My own conclusions

DVD Recorder is a great thing, it's more comfortable than TV Tuner, but while TV Tuner leads things at "working hard" -- rendering. I just think, if I'd decide to make a collection of videos in DVD CDs, I 'd rip with DVD-Recorder, but if I want to rip daily and share, or rip old games and share on internet, I prefer TV Tuner. TV Tuner is better overall for me. And after all, it's what just anyone likes to have,record with, it his own buisness, I just wrote this article if someone has DVD Recorder and wonders if it would be good to try TV Tuner, or vice versa.. just that

I almost forgot, files I rendered:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vbgnff
http://www.sendspace.com/file/g0hb7f

Anyway, I'm done for today..

Karma and points appreciated..

[jason nam]

wow great thread,super effort,i appreciated a lot!!!!!!
i always got a problem with capturing and maybe ur thread gomma help me!!!!
thanks,karma given!!!

and here is uivcr + crack if some1 need!!!!!!!
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jyw7q7

[astonisher]

How would you go about setting up your TV to display what's on your monitor while on PC. i.e. if you wanted to play a computer game and do so on big screen and is it possible to record that while on the TV with DVD Ripper or any of the previously mentioned techniques?

Thanx-
Astonisher

[JOHN FRUSCIANTE]

if you capture while u play game,there will be frame drop on your video
the only way that you can do that is to have a hardware capture card

[astonisher]

how much are hardware capture cards? and can you link one that you think would be good?

[lbjcavsx23]

how do u cap games do you wait for a highlight to come up on ESPN or something lol?

[jakamo31]

question?does this tut apply for mac.im guessing a no but thanks anyway