I am looking to replace my Dazzle DVCII MPEG1/2 capture card/ I was happy with the results, but it caused too many headaches. Is there something similar that has less problems? I heard good things about Navis Pro and Canopus. Any suggestions?

You wont find any capturecards with less problems - maybe different problems, but not less.
All hardware have their own issues, nothing special about the DVCII.
Besides, recommendation from others regarding problems with a device are at best useless - because noone can predict how any hardware is going to work in your specific setup.

You can find ATI guys who never had a single problem, DVCII guys who never had a single problem, Snazzi, Canopus, Navis, guys who never had a single problem - but you can also find people with every one of the capturecards who has never had anything BUT trouble - it all depends.

Just take a look at the comments people write on vcdhelp.com about their capturecards - they are for the most part pathetic - atleast 50% of the comments are downright wrong and shows the author had absolutely no idea what he was talking about when he wrote them. They proof that the first and biggest problem any hardware has to face are the big problem sitting behind the screen.

Dont listen to carefully to others recommendations unless you know for sure that they do know the whole picture - for the most part they havent the faintest idea and you will end up very disapointed.

Also make sure you do not confuse problems with the capturecard with problems related to something else. Its a very common mistake to blame the capturecard everytime something seems strange in the videocreationprocess.

Finally - what specific problems with the DVCII are you hoping to solve by replacing the capturecard ?
If we are to give honest recommendations - its important that we have as much info as possible on what you are looking for.

Well, I just put together the following AMD sytem:

AMD XP 2000+
Gigabyte 7VRX
256 DDR 333
ATI Raedon
IBM 100 HDD

It will be used primarily for capture. So when I transferred my DVCII PCI card to this new machine, it would not detect the DVCII. The card installed fine, but when I run the setup wizard to test that i'm recieving the A/V, I get an undetected error. Although I could probably eventually get it to work, I don't want to go through the hassle. Besides when I had it on my old machine, more often than not when I went to capture something I would get the infamous "A device attached to the system is not working properly".

I've done the whole tech support, writing to forums -- nothing ever worked. And I'm pretty handy with computer hardware, so I just think it's time for an upgrade.

As far as what I want...

- the ability to capture MPEG 1/2
- good quality picture
- 720x480 NTSC
- prefer USB for ease of setup but will consider PCi o firewire if someone can explain the advantages
- decent capture software
- video input (with S-video), would be nice if it had vieo output
- win2k compatible

I think that covers it.

thanks,
Kevin

I'm a big fan of the DVC II and I'm sorry you're having problems. The first response you got was extremely good and you really should consider it. Every card has its supporters and detractors. I will be honest with you - the DVC II often has problems with AMD CPU systems. Here are a few tips. Do your PCI slots share IRQs? If so, can you turn off the sharing? I can't on my PC, but it still works. You may have to try all your PCI slots. I got it to work using a PCI slot that shares IRQs with the USB driver, but your mileage may differ. Does your motherboard use a VIA chipset? It is rumored that AMD sytsems that don't use VIA chipsets on the motherboard won't all the DVC II to work, but supposedly the DVC II can't share IRQs either and I know that's not true. Finally, this may be your real problem. My Win2K system refused to install the current DVC II drivers off the CD that came with it. Win2K comes with an old version of the DVC II drivers and it will not update from the CD-ROM. This may be your problem. I remember it really sucked getting the drivers installed. I vaguely remember having to rename the drivers the system had installed and only that allowed me to install from CD-ROM. You could try going to http://www.spawns.dk and get his drivers and try installing the current one as XP may have the same problem. Some people can never get the DVC II to work, I must admit. I think a lot depends on how good you are with PCs and how hard you are willing to work at getting it installed. If you can get it to work, you will love it and it really is worth the effort.

Hi. I'm new to this, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents worth anyway!
6 months ago I didn't have a clue how video and movie files were digitalized and put on the net. I just got mine from downloads via KaZaa. Then I began looking for ways to turn the raw .avi files into .mpg files so that I could use Nero to make VCDs. I found the TMPG website and began reading all those pages on the BBS.I leaerned about VCDHelp and read all that stuff... my first understanding of video capture. Two months ago Circuit City had a blow out sale of the ATI All in Wonder 7500 packages. (To make room for the new digital version). For $129.00 I figured I couldn't go wrong... if it sucked I had 30 days to bring it back for a full refund.
The first time I ever opened up my Dell Dimension was to put that card in. I had to redo it a couple of times because I didn't take the time to read the manual thoroughly before doing anything!!! (I had a lot of anxiety but still didn't read the manual first... I can't figure that one out myself!
I did have to go into the System and change some settings (enable the DMA... whatever the heck that is)but I kept at it until I was able to capture all of the US Tennis match between the two Williams girls. Now I'm either going to have to get a new hard drive or a LOT of CD-Rs... It's the death of videotape!

Hi

I cannot urge you strongly enough to avoid Pinnacle. They are the worst company ever!!!!!! I have many first hand stories on how their products dont work properly and their support and respect for their customers is horrid!

I would recommend a 1394 card (firwire) with a canopus ADVC100. The ADVC100 converts analog to digital and you connect that to the 1394 input. It will do both NTSC and PAL and uses the canopus DV codec which is awesome quality. It also uses a method to lock audio and video on the input to avoid sync issues. It's cool cause it can be portable to use on other computers with 1394 cards. This combo providing heaps of inputs with composite, SVHS, and digital and canopus are a great company, well worth supporting.

I've heard a lot of good things about Canopus, but there are two major downsides: it is way too expensive for my budget and it doesn't capture straight to mpeg using hardware. From I understand anyway, it captures to realtime AVI files. I don't want to have to take that extra conversion step to mpeg. I have been trying again to get my DVCII working, but I am still having trouble. But I also have not heard any convincing recommendations. I'm not sure what to do next. I've actually already tried buying the DVC USB version thinking it would be cake to install, but it would not let me install the win2k drivers no matter what I tried. So I ended up returning it and I'm back with a DVCII that won't work.

Hi,

ADVC50 cost 'only' 199$ if you have IEE1394 on board already.

But... why bother realtime mpeg.
Capture 720x576 (pal)noninterlaced MJPEG with any capturecard like Hauppauge WinTV and use Mainconcept mpeg encoder 1.1 to pack it to any mpeg-format you want in 0.5- 2xRealtime.

Going to MPEG realtime with inexpensive hardware is a horrible idea... if youre at all concerned with quality.

I know there is a bit more time required to convert from a standard AVI but with the ADVC100 and a good encoder like Tmpgenc or LSX etc you'll at least have decent quality.

You are correct, but inexpensive and expensive are relative terms. The DVC II can be bought for about $220 US or less and the quality is excellent. Check out http://www.spawns.dk for some samples of the work it does. The DVC II records directly to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 with a chip on the card (hardware encoding) and it can honestly rival the AVI encoding approach in a lot less time.

Inexpensive and expensive are relative, most things are. I would think its obvious that the DVC thing is recognised as inexpensive, the results i saw from it werent particularly great, and my mate who had one encountered a lot of issues with it.

Here's a list of capture cards with user's comments:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/capturecards

I pressed "Top User Rated" and found gret reviews on this one: Canopus ADVC-100
But it seems that one also requires a firewire card.

Ronny