Good Capture Card For Full Res Pall

vvvv beta question
1

For VJ-ing fun, I want to create a patch (already patching) on 2 seamless edge blended projectors (using awesome Multiscreen Node).

I would like to input the output off my video mixer (edirol V4) into vvvv and add some cool realtime effects over the mix.

So now I am looking for a good capture card that can do this, no idea what to look for, all I know I need full PALL Resolution on at least 25fps, and with the lowest latency.

I know good cards don’t come cheap, I hope I can stick below 250 euro.

Or can I skip the edirol and use a 4 input card straight away?? Or do I need a very good computer for that stuff??

Any advise is welcome!! :)

2

HI West
i have not done multiscreen on vvvv so might not understand ,but from my humble experience i had to the the opposite getting another output card apart from the dualgraphic output ,something
like firewire , usb to video or vga(http://www.canopus.com/products/scanconversion.php)
and then get a video splited in 2 and trigger the 2 parts with midi ,i guess that old fashioned way ,
But you want to have an input to your computer , that depends , i have a midle range capture card edius Nx which does not work with vvvv ,i so somepeople on the forum having trobles with the middle and pro range cards , and then i have a 40euro pal video to usb that works fine , if you have a laptop you may get a video to cardexpress or video to firewire you will find those for less than 200 ,

cheers

3

Thnx for the reply.

I am talking about a PCI(express) card, because I think that those cards will save CPU time and have better latency. Also, an Edirol V4 gives composit signal.

For the dual screen part, I can use a PC with 2 SLI graphic cards, so I can even patch a nice/simple interface for controll. Don’t have a suited MIDI-controller (yet).

LOL at the deviding and scratching video sugestion :)
(working with real time video makes it hard to scratch to the future)

Hope some people know a decent brand off capture card.

4

I’ve got a dfg1394, which is good quality and low latency, appartenly you can run 2 per firewire bus
i have a spectra8 4 channel card, that the quality isnt great on and I’ve only managed 3 ins with.
Look for bt chipsets with capture cards in general, and for uncompressed capture. For the 3 in card I was using a 3000+ AMD and a nvidia 5700 gfx card, seemed to work ok, except for the slightly dubious capture quality!

Cat

5

we had some discussions about this topic here

6

One expensive firewirecard that dfg1394 is, but I take your word and try to hunt for a Dutch reseller. The Specifications look impressive though!!

But I will also google for the bt chipset.

Nasty to hear your 4 input sprectra isn’t producing any decent results.

I know it should just be trial&error, but I am not the postition to just go and test 10 capture cards…

@oschatz, that topic is sooo 2005 ;) Than again, the dfg1394 is soo 2001 ;)

7

i use the dfg1394 as well…cool box
but cat, how do u overcome the interlace problem ?

8

Im fairly sure you can get it do 720x288, thats the method I use for mos capture cards! TBH I dont use it as much as I thought I would, at least partially because it messes up the picvideo codec in vvvv!

9

Sorry, just reinstalled windows and got picvid and the dfg working.
The dfg will do 768x288x32bit which gets rid of interlace issues.
I had to use filmerit |http://paul.glagla.free.fr/filmerit_en.htm| and drop the merits of the IUY decompressors. after that picvideo was fine again!
Just a heads up!

Cat