I have been researching video capture cards for a while, and I still have one question. If all I am going to do is transfer VHS to VCD, will a higher end capture card to anything for me, or should I go with the $300 range? If the Broadway Pro will give me better results, then I will consider it, but if the Dazzle VCD unit will do the same for me I will go with that.

Any information on this will be helpful!!

-- Ken (kinterke@msu.edu), October 12, 1999

Answers

I have a dazzle capture card and it works good for VCDs. However, I've heard that the Broadway Pro has better results. I do know that with the Broadway, you should capture first in AVI, then convert it. So you would need at least 10 gigs, and even then you could not capture a long clip. You would then need to convert from AVI to MPEG with a encoder like Xing of LSX. Good Luck with deciding what to go with.

-- Jay (jlinkhome@yahoo.com), October 12, 1999.

I too have a Dazzle USB version. It does fine but after a long session the audio lags behind the video to the point the VCD becomes a comedy !. I am talking about 45 min session.

-- Kiam Oey (ktoey@gte.net), October 12, 1999.

I bought a Studio MP10 external capture box and boy was that a mistake. I've also heard that the Broadway Pro has good quality. I wasn't that anxious to spend too much money, though. I went with the Studio PCTV and I capture to avi first using the MPEG4v3 codec and encode to mpeg1 vcd specification with Panasonic MPEG Encoder. I get pretty good quality doing things that way and because of the MPEG4 codec, I haven't gone out to buy a huge hard drive. In fact, the one I'm using is only 4gigs. I'm sure there's better ways for more money, but this works for me. Hope that helps a little. Oh yeah, the PCTV card was only about $65.

HazyMind

-- HazyMind (hayzmind@earthlink.net), October 13, 1999.

I have Broadway Pro and Dazzle DVC. Broadway Pro quality is considerably better than Dazzle when capturing to AVI first, then compressing to MPEG. Capturing to VCD-quality MPEG directly on Broadway produces about the same quality as capturing to VCD MPEG on Dazzle. I use the Dazzle to archive video where I am not too concerned about high quality. I use Broadway to archive high quality video (e.g. I made VCD version of Independence Day and the Star Wars Trilogy - they look exactly like the videotape). When capturing at a high-quality AVI rate (75 MB/min) on Broadway you can only capture in 30 minute segments. No big deal since you can edit with frame accuracy with Broadway, combine the resulting MPEG files with the "copy /b" command and then burn to VCD with great results.

Kevin

-- Kevin (delgadil@cisco.com), October 16, 1999.

I am using a Snazzi card I bought in Taiwan for one year now. I bought it for $425 dollar but my, I think I spend so much for it. At first its just okay because I just use it for personal materials only, but when I set up acomputer business here in the Philippines, I 've seen that I needed more quality VHS to VCD transfer card because all my costumers are wedding videos and the quality of vhs decreases when transferred to vcd. I'm looking forward in buying more quality one. Please email me for best buy.

-- Jerry Mayona (pcbaguio@digitelone.com), November 28, 2000.