Plug ‘n’ Play Video Capture Card

This quick and easy to use solution for putting your VHS recordings onto VCDs, comes with an added feature of a TV tuner that turns your PC into a TV. Installing it is straightforward as the card is plug’n’play and fits into an empty PCI slot. Connect the cables for the video input and the coaxial cable carrying the TV signal; and the remote sensor to the card. Installing the drivers is easier if you skip the Windows hardware detection sequence and autorun the software from the installation CD.

The software application allows you to select the input source–Video, S-Video, TV or C-TV (the last two standing for air and cable TV channels respectively). Let’s look at the encoder and TV features separately. The card takes input from an AV or S-video source. The video cable goes to the video-in and the audio cable goes to the auxiliary input through the supplied adaptor. The capture is at a default VCD resolution of 352x288 pixels. For the capture duration, you can either use a default VCD setting (that limits the duration to the amount of data that will fit on a CD) or manually specify the duration. Encoding to MPEG is done on-the-fly, eliminating the need for having a huge hard-disk capacity in case of a two-step process (capture as AVI and then encoding to MPEG).

The TV tuner’s capture feature allows you to capture video and audio from the TV transmission. For the tuner, first specify the frequency selection for your transmission, then scan the frequency bands for available channels. There is a slight difference in the way this tuner operates. The frequency bands for air and cable channels are separate functions and you need to scan and use them separately. This means shifting the input source to C-TV from ‘TV’, for some channels in your area. Capture is on the click of a button and is done at default VCD resolution settings. The capture is encoded to MPEG on-the-fly and then saved. You can also take snapshots while you are watching a show.

The best thing about this product is the full-function remote–capture a TV program by clicking ‘Record’ and replay it by pressing ‘Play’ without going through the software. This makes it easier to preview a video clip before saving. You can also switch between input source settings through the remote. A quick snapshot button takes snapshots and saves images as JPEGs or

BMPs.

The quality of video capture is good with almost no frame drops. However, we found that the audio trails a little behind the video in the capture, even though we used a zippy 7200 rpm hard drive. The capture from TV is also good. Priced at Rs 11,500, this could be an investment worth making for anyone who needs a quick solution for video capture. It does, however, lack the flexibility of capture resolutions.

VCD Plus Encoder

Another version of the VCD Plus Encoder comes without the TV Tuner function and other minor differences. Here, we’ll only look at those differences. First, at Rs 9,500, it costs lesser. This card can take four video inputs–three composite video and an S-Video. There is, however, a limitation with the audio input for the composite video sources as there is only one port for audio. Nevertheless, you can switch between video sources on the fly, directly through the software. There is a slight problem with the installation of this card over the one with TV tuner function. In its software installation script, you may have to manually specify the path of the drivers while installing the card. This card does not come with a remote. So, overall, if you need just a motion-capture card, this is good enough. However, by paying just Rs 2,000 extra, you can get an integrated tuner with a remote too.

Ashish Sharma at PCQ Labs