Video-Capture Reviews

The resolution is about equal to VCD quality, maybe slightly better, but it does what I wanted it to do. My monitor is flat panel 15" and I used it on 2 computers, a 500MHz w/ 128MB RAM and a 1.5GHZ w/ 512MB RAM. It worked fine on both although the 500MHz machine kinda slowed down quite a bit when 2 other applications were open (actually screwed up the video twice making everything huge and had to reboot to fix it).

It takes the power from the USB port, so that's nice, but the USB cable is permanently connected to the device which kinda makes it a pain (I like to just keep the USB cable connected to the PC to make it more convenient and connect whatever device I want later). Also, my USB port is on the back of my 500MHz machine, so that's even more inconvenient for me.

Anyway, overall, everything isn't too bad if you don't mind the lower quality of the video. If you want better quality, I read the internal TV tuners are much better. I wanted convenience though.

Oh yeah, there is a slight but noticable out of sync-ness between the audio and video, but it isn't too bad. You cannot get closed captioning and there is no FM tuner or remote control for this one (but those features would have made this model more expensive).

If there were an option, I would give it a 3.5. It deserves better than a 3 - but because of the VCD quality and price (this is kinda expensive for VCD quality) I can't give it a full 4.

I bought a WinTV-USB tuner for my laptop because I was tired of not being able to watch my shows when all of the house TV's were being used by my wife and kids.
This unit works great, just as advertised. This unit plugs into your computer's USB port. I had to download the drivers from the Hauppage web site in order to get it to work with Windows XP (the drivers on the CD did not work). But after that, I was off and running.
The only problem I notice is that sometimes there is a slight lag between the video and the audio (about 1/10 second). This may be due to the speed of my laptop (I have a 1.6 Ghz Centron) or my video hardware. But I'm happy with it. I plan to get another Hauppage capture card (PVR 250) for my desktop pc so I can capture and compress video real-time.
The WinTV-USB can also do this, however it does not do compression so its impractical to use as a poor man's TiVO.

I was a little doubtful about the efficiency of an external capture card with usb 1.1 kind of interface. Than I read somewhere that the bandwidth offered by even an old usb interface is more than sufficient for SD video. Well , I went and bought this product. Installation was really a snap ( I actually downloaded softwares from its web site instead of from the included CD just to be safe and most updated). After installation , the video/audio came just fine. ( I used my dish set top box RF out for video ).
The quality is not as good as on a TV ( afterall the original signals are interlaced which are postprocessed for the computer to be progressive scan and its not a $100+ piece of hardware !!) but good enough as a secondary TV when the mainTV is captured by the rest of the family.

I replaced my previous MSI 5600 FX with this card cuz
I thought "PNY 5900 128 MB" gonna give my games some "Magic"
but I just seen a little improvement and of course this not enough for a Crazy Gamer like me !!

I suggest to choose one of "ATi Radeon 9800 Pro" Series
cuz current nVidia FX Series not as good as ATi.

Finally, I gonna switch to ATi Products and my choice this time is "ATi 9800 Pro 128 MB" cuz this card like M*O*N*S*T*O*R moreover, its price so fair !!

Trust me dude !!
I'll not let you down :)

Attention! I don't have the exact same card as the one that I'm supposed to be reviewing right now but I have a pretty similar one. I have GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256mb 8x AGP card and it's pretty much the same only that Ultra versions run a bit faster and it is 256mb card. This is one of the newer cards that I own and it's great. Even though it is slower than the rival card, Radeon 9800 Pro, but this card is now a bit cheaper on eBAY and it runs almost the same as Radeon 9800 Pro. So you can buy a cheaper video card that performs almost equally as well as the new Radeon 9800 Pro. Also run games like Painkiller, Unreal Tournament 2003, or Quake 3 and this card will beat the Radeon 9800 Pro in frames per second. Not only that, look forward to the upcoming Doom 3 which is supproted by Nvidia Geforce chipsets unless you want to play Half Life 2, then get Radeon 9800 Pro. Those aren't the only reason why I chose this card over Radeon 9800 Pro though. I am also a big fan of the Nvidia and GeForce chipsets so I decided to get this over the Radeon 9800 Pro. Sadly, there are new video cards like GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, GeForce 6800 Ultra, Radeon 9800XT, and Radeon X800XT so both cards won't match up to the 4 extreme new cards if you want the most out of Half Life 2 or Doom 3 but both cards are still recommended depending on what games you play. And you don't even need those next generation cards yet because many games can be still even played on GeForce 2s or Radeon 8000s. But look forward to more upcoming cards from both Nvidia and ATI. This card is a must have but you should wait until it drops its' price even more.

This product is awesome!

I upgraded from an nVidia GeForce 5200 to this card and the gains were amazing! In Star Wars Galaxies the fps gain was very substantial. I went from averaging a shakey, stop-start 10-20fps to almost always getting what most people have said is the max: a smooth 29fps. Even on the offline games I own I have seen a drastic increase in the quality of the 3d images that are splashed in front of me especially in higher resolutions. I can't wait until I get that shiny new LCD screen to watch them pop even more!

That being said, perhaps this may not be the case if you are already running a 5600, but if you have a 5600 then you can afford to make the leap up to a 5950 or wait until the next generation of cards come out. My personal opinion is to wait to jump at least two generations ahead when it comes to video card technology. That way you notice a sizeable difference in the quality of your picture and don't have to degrade a product because you don't have as good a perspective as you might. It helps keep the prices low too.

I bought two of these cards (...). One for myself, and one for my son. I have an PIII-750 processor with a via chipset on the motherboard. The card installed fairly easily, although I did have to get the upgraded drivers as I initially got the dreaded blue screen of death warnings with the original drivers. Since then it's worked great. I mainly surf the internet and do word processing type of things. I've noticed the colors are better than my old 4 mb video card, and the speed of everything has increased. My son has an AMD K6-2 550 chip and a via chipset. I could never get the video card to work on his machine, and ended up taking it back. I tried all the newest of drivers that I could find, but have to admit I never contacted the company for help. He's big on games, and we decided to get the 64 MB MX2-400 Geforce card for him instead. Costs a little more(no rebate), but the hours spent trying to get the Radeon to work are behind me now.

The Radeon VE is an great video card with excellent drivers for Windows. My dfather bought the Radeon VE shortly after getting a new computer with a Savage4 Chipset that did not work. The Radeon VE works really well with windows but it was hard to find drivers for Linux (Suprisingly it is the only Radeon not supported by xfree86). ATI boasts the dual-display support which is relatively confusing, although most people will probably buy the card because it is the cheapest AGP Radeon. All in All, it is a very good card worth the money!
One of the majors FLAWS is, the Radeon VE/7000 does not have hardware T&L, which is very much needed for demanding 3D games.

Ati DV Wonder is a great ALL IN ONE card for DV editing beginner.

It includes
: DV capture card with 3 IEEE1394 (Firewire) ports. Allows you to connect your DV and 2 other IEEE1394 devices. like external hard drive.

:Ulead Video Studio 5.0, which is a better than average DV editing software. It is everything a home movie editor need. It makes editing very easy. It has plug & play capture. You can edit, erase scenes, add special effects, insert new scenes, make titles. You can save the movie in MPEG-2 (save you a lot of hard drive space!!) or other formats. Then you can burn it on a CD.

:INCLUDES A IEEE1394 cable!!!! (6pin to 4 pin) (save[d] me ...[money], cause my Sharp VL-WD450U (bought at Amazon) doesn't include firewire cable)

Pro:
This ... DV editing package has everything you need for startup..(even cable) and back by grahic card giant Ati. It has easy to use editing software and a fast IEEE1394 card.

Con: I wish they come with Ulead Video Studio 6.0 or 6.5, but hey ...its [less then] [inexpensive].....what more can you ask?

Compare to Pinnacle DV Express, hardware-wise they both come with a IEEE1394 w/ cable. The only difference is software, Ati's Ulead has more functions. The only thing Pinnacle DV express 's software can do and Ati 's Ulead can't, is create DVD ready CD or DVD. But i rather have a well function software than a software that can't do anything but capture and burn DVD ready CD. ...

This card is great ! It comes with Firewire card and a 6 pin to 4 pin firewire cabe, which will cost more than ($) in .... . The software Ulead videostudio 5.0 is above average. It should be good enough for avg or beginner home user. It lets you capture the movie from your DV, lets you edit it and burn it on a CD. This product is great for it's price, better than Pinnacle DV Express since it can't save movie in MPEG-2 mode, which will eat up your hard drive very fast.

I have had my card for two years and if you are looking for a decent tv tuner for your computer, I would go w/ the Hauppauge Theatre. But. Yes, there is a but. When I got it, it was still relatively new and it was built for the 98/2000 operating systems. Since upgrading to XP I have had minor problems. First, you will have to download a new set of drivers from the website. That isn't an option as there are no xp drivers on the cd (maybe they updated the cd...dunno). Second, I don't know whats up w/ the audio. On 2000, its great, but on XP there are occasional problems like random muting (not too often), and the piercing noise after you close the application. That latter part is so bad that I don't even run the tv card anymore.

Final Assessment: Good card for XP but better for 2000/98 Operating Systems. If the price is still 130.00 - I wouldn't get it. This is an $60-80 at best at this moment.

Hauppauge products work great - 100% stable, great video quality.

I have used the USB version and was fairly happy with it, so I thought going to the PCI card would be enhancement (though I still did not have access to digital inputs). Well, yes and no. The picture is much cleaner and it provides stereo sound. The remote would have been great, but I cannot get it to work. The big disappointments are these. (1) It takes 90% of my 1.8MHz P4 CPU (apparently it is converting the analog signal to digital). What a joke! I had assumed this would be done on the card so that using the computer for other tasks would not occasionally interrupt the video. (2) The digital picture from the analog signal is limited to 640x480. The workarounds on their website don't work well for me (change resolution of the monitor to standard VGA when watching, or reset an option and go into TV mode).

I've been using this card for the past 6 months. This card is much better than the leadtek cards that i've used. It is very stable and picks up all the channels on my cable line. I use dscaler with it because it's a little better than the software that came with it. If you buy this card, you wont be disappointed.

Yes, this is surely one of the greatest products I have ever seen. Imagine, you have a rare item or something on a video game and you want to take a picture of it to flaunt it to your friends. Well now you can do it!!!! This little device can take pics at one click of a button from a game. I have done this before and think that it is just...AWESOME. I couldn't stretch this enough, "GET THIS ITEM!!!". Seriously, when I want to take a picture to put on a site from a game I have, I use the handy little Motion Picture and Still Image Capture Device to do the trick. So, in my final words...GET IT!! What was that name? Ariston iView USB Motion Picture and Still Image Capture Device by Ariston Technologies. Oh yeah, that was it!!!!!

I have a G4 500MHz (sawtooth) Mac that came originally with ATI Rage 128 Pro graphic card. I thought that I could get my Apple Cinema 20" Display to work connecting it to the ADC port on the 9000 Pro. But, I was disappointed to find that it did not work. I went on the internet and found that Radeon 9000Pro does not have enough power to work ADC enabled monitors when the card is installed in G4 macs older 500MHz or less (sawtooth and previous G4 models will not work.) I will have to buy an DVI to ADC convertor from Apple which costs a hundred dollars. That means I will have to use the DVI port on the 9000pro, leaving the ADC port useless = I cannot use dual monitors. I wish I knew before. Other than this problem, the card is fine.

This is a very fast, very good card that provides sharp text, great 2d-imaging, and blazing gaming on the Macintosh. It also has very good Full-Screen-Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), which smooths out images on the screen to make them look more natural as if they were real. If you own a macintosh and are into image editting, gaming, or just plain use your mac a lot, this is a great card that delivers graphics that are very pleasing to the eyes!

having gone through a nightmare with an aiw 9800 pro (read my review on it, and you'll understand), i decided to take my refund and get a radeon 9800 pro 256mb for two reasons. one, i couldn't find any retailers with the x800 in stock, and two, brand loyalty. anyway, you can turn up the graphics on any of the recent 3d games and not have graphics-related issues. it's not as fast as the newest cards on the market nor is it as functional as the aiw 9800, and it's definitely not cheap. but if you can afford it, it's definitely worth it.