Recommendations for analog video capture card?

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wixter

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Mar 8, 2012
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Pertinent system specs: Windows 7 64-bit, only have PCIe slots on the motherboard. I usually use VideoStudio for capture and editing.

My old pc, which I really don't want to have to dig out and actually use that thing again, well many years ago I bought a Leadtek PCI video capture card and that thing worked flawlessly. I was very pleased with it.

Well my newer system only has PCIe slots, but USB is also available, firewire I guess too. Anyway I've tried a couple of video capture cards already.

The first was Diamond's VC500: http://www.diamondmm.com/VC500.php
This USB capture device was pretty cheap and it took a while to even get the drivers working right. The problem though ended up that I could not get any sort of video preview working on my machine. Oh I could capture video just fine and it would save and I could go back and play the video file no problem. But to actually WATCH the video being played through the card, couldn't do it. Very weird, yes, but I do need to see what's being played and know when to stop and start recording. Also any audio fed through the device had an annoying high-pitched whine too it, so another strike against this device. It got returned.

The next was Hauppauge's ImpactVCB-e: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_impactvcb.html

I figured I'd try this one next since it seemed to be one of the few, simple analog video capture cards that was still an actual card and not a usb plugin device. Well, this device didn't even want to work at all. Windows would not pick up the new device inserted into the slot. I switched to different slots, I verified that the bios could see that there was something inserted into the slot, so I knew the device was working on a low level of sorts, but Windows didn't seem to like. After playing around with it for an hour or so, I managed to somehow "force" Windows into seeing a new unknown device. Oh but it got better. When it came time for me to point it to the driver files, every time I loaded the drivers the system would hit me with a BSOD. To make a long story short, the reason why is because the 64-bit drivers did not work at all, it kept trying to load the 32-bit ones which were in a different subdirectory. So I couldn't even get this thing to even run on my system.

I'm thinking of trying Hauppauge's USB-Live2 product next, not sure if it'll turn out any better though.

I'm just looking for a simple analog video capture card so I can get some old videos off of VHS tapes. So I don't need any expensive $200 cards with tv tuners and all that crap. I never thought it would turn into such an ordeal. I'd appreciate any recommendations on stuff you've verified actually works with a similar system setup as what I've posted.
 
Hi crew, I'm in the same boat, looking for something that will plug to pcie in win7 x64.
Seems hard to find anything these days, dwindling demand for such cards I guess.

My current card is a Matrox rt-x10, works fantastic but only supported in xp. Matrox don't seem to have anything in expansion cards these days, canopus have simply disappeared altogether, not great reviews for hauppauge and have tried a avermedia c027 and it's a complete disaster area for analog, too sensitive to timebase fluctuations causing dropped frames. Have emailed them to see if they can do anything about it, but I don't hold much hope of that happening. Other than that, it worked well and had a hdmi input as well.

Winxter, I'll galdly trade notes with you on a solution that works in win7 and can properly capture wandering timebase tape source.
I'm going to try my Matrox in xp mode running on hav hardware with win7 x64.
The motherboard is a Intel dx79sr which does have 1 pci slot, will let you know how I get on.

cengique, thanks for the heads-up on the riser. Didn't know such a thing existed.
 
Avermedia replied! :eek:
They said that the c027 card does not have any time base correction [tbc] capability like the matrox has.
I have responded back that they should make this known in the description of the card and that it is not recommended for capturing source from [e.g.] hand held movie camera [too much wow and flutter]

So, before buying anything, ask if the hardware has any tbc capability.
 
Update....

I returned the ImpactVCB-e card to exchange it for another one thinking the card itself was bad. I received the replacement and the new one is working fine now. So far this card is working as intended and appears to be capturing the necessary video I originally outlined.

The only problem I'm having now is getting my software to switch audio inputs. This card has an onboard audio capture port, which on the surface sounds nice but I've tried it and I get this low volume, high-pitched hiss when doing so. I'd rather use my onboard sound card input which works fine but the software doesn't want to switch to that port for some reason.
 
What software are you using? I think VLC allows capturing from different video and audio sources.
 
I'm using VideoStudio Pro X5. I've used many previous iterations of VideoStudio, even those before they were acquired by Corel and never had any issue switching to an audio port. I may try and post on their forums about it this weekend, but I don't expect any sort of resolution. I mean if it's greyed out and not able to be selected, there's not much that can be done.

edit: last update
I've tried a couple other video capture/editor applications and got them to work fine with what I want. It's ridiculous in my opinion that VideoStudio can't even accomplish something as simple as selecting the respective video/audio inputs. But the bottom line in response to the original topic is that the ImpactVCB-e card does work as intended.
 
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Seems nobody has a pci-e and/or win7 analog capture card that also has tbc like the matrox rtx cards.
Tried my rtx 10 in xp mode on a lga775 mb with native pci slot, but not a chance - seriously, what was I thinking!! [facepalm]
 
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