If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Low-end (SD, S-video) video capture/playback with older PC
I've got an older PC that I'd like to squeeze some more useful life
out of. At the same time, I'd like to be able to copy movies off my DirecTV HD DVR, store them on my PC, and play them back on my TV at "fair" quality standard def. And, I'd like to do it as cheaply as possible. Forgive what I'm sure are some elementary questions, but I haven't done anything with video capture or playback to a TV before, so, let me run a few ideas by you and get your comments. The PC itself is a Dell Dimension 8100, several years old. The motherboard will take old-style PCI cards but nothing newer. CPU is a Pentium 4, 1400 MHz. OS is XP/SP2. 256 MB of RAM. Adding more RAM isn't really an option (RAM for 8100s is expensive, and it would be almost cheaper to buy a new PC). The good news is, I've played varous movies on it using Media Player Classic and Combined Community Codec Pack; I don't have to do any great amount of tweaking of OS, services, etc. to get it to work, but do have to shut down all irrelevant applications (Zone Alarm, Adaware, etc.) Once I've done that, it's got enough horsepower to play movies maximized to "full screen" w/o any jumps, burps, etc. (Video and sound cards are original equipment.) If I do what I'm planning to do and hook it to my DVR, it'll be off the Internet and dedicated to video, so I'll reinstall XP/SP2, start from scratch, and those other apps won't be on it anymore anyway. So far so good. Now ... I don't care about getting super-glossy high-def; standard video is good enough for this. I've got some AVIs that are 640x368, 25 fps, and that sort of quality is good enough for this purpose. The DVR and TV are both HD, but can accomodate SD as well. The DVR has an S-video out, and the TV has an S-video in, both of which are currently unused. So I figure the route of least resistance is to buy and install two cards -- 1) A PCI video card with an S-video out. In addition to providing the interface to work with the TV, this should also help performance in general, right? Anyway, the one I've got in mind is the Diamond Stealth S60 Radeon 7000 ($35) -- you can see it at this page: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...9667&CatId=319 2) A PCI video capture card with an S-video in. I'm looking at the "Sabrent TV Tuner Video Capture MPEG Recording PCT Card w/ Remote Control" ($17) -- it's at this page: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...869&CatId=1425 According to the web page, my PC is well over the minimum requirements, so I can't see any problems there. And I'm not particularly worried about the warnings that the tuner won't work after February, since I'm not gonna be using it for that anyway. Once I've done that, I should be able to playback content off the DVR while recording on the PC; then playback off the PC while watching on the TV. Well, at least that's how it looks to me. So ... 1) Am I leaving anything out? (I'm pretty sure I can figure out the audio part on my own, thanks.) 2) Any comments, good or bad, about either of those two cards? (I've seen a few reviews of both which range from "this works great!" to "quality is mediocre." If mediocre means "compared to HD," that's fine, I can live with that; if it means "mediocre SD," I'd like to rethink it.) 3) Any recommendations for other cards I should be looking at? 4) Etc. -- any other relevant comments. Thanks, Danny |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|