Video capture dilema...

tacojohntacojohn
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
My friend wants to be able to capture video and cable into his powermac G4. Are there any cheap internal solutions? Right now his options are:



Canon DV camera

Formac DV/TV

eyeTV



We can't seem to find an internal soultion and the eyeTV is cool, but not as good of quality as the others. The formac is expensive and the software is not good from what I hear. The DV camera wouldn't be bad, but it would be a lot of wear and tear on the camera, just using it for analog conversion and cable capture.



Whats the best option?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    defiantdefiant Posts: 4,876member
    <a href="http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv"; target="_blank">Formac Studio TV/DV</a> is gooood.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    xionjaxionja Posts: 504member
    The DV camera would be the best choice in my opinion. Your friend could use it to capture the analog footage onto his computer, and then use it as his main camera, thus defeating the analog/digital problem. If you want to put footage onto your computer, a dv camera is the nicest. . . i had the same problem till i bought my panasonic, but I can still get the old footage off my hi-8 through it.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    gspottergspotter Posts: 342member
    [quote]Originally posted by Defiant:

    <strong><a href="http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv"; target="_blank">Formac Studio TV/DV</a> is gooood.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The only problem is, it is made by formac. This company has a track record of abandoning support for older products. (I have a SCSI card without OS X drivers, same situation for users of their graphics card. I'm also interested in something like the formac studio myself, but I would prefer a company with a better customer support. (I can understand their situation to some degree, as it is costly to support the older stuff, but as an affected customer, it doesn't feel good...)
  • Reply 4 of 4
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    I just recently sold my entire video capture rig (Dazzle DV bridge, etc etc) for an Eye TV, and I'm incredibly happy.



    It works. It does what it should. The VCDs look great. And...you don't have to spend 8 hours exporting DV to MPEG-1. That along makes it worth it.



    There are cheap solutions available as well (various USB dongles), but the EyeTV gets my vote for a "general" video capture apparatus. But then, it depends upon what you want to do. I just capture TV shows I like and archive them as VCDs rather than on videotape.



    Also, there is some talk at EyeTV about allowing the unit to capture and export in other formats.





    Cheers

    Scott



    [ 03-01-2003: Message edited by: midwinter ]



    [ 03-01-2003: Message edited by: midwinter ]</p>
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