Capture cards

[DaJe]

I have two capture card questions. First off, I'm looking for one that has two coaxial inputs to it. If it has even more than 2, that'd be great. All I seem to be able to find are cards with 1. Even if a card with 1 inpu is my only option, I'd still like a suggestion as which one to get.

My second question, is I'm looking for one that has component inputs, that could record in HD. I've seen other peoplelooking for that before too. It's something I'venever come across. Does it even exist for users such as us?

[MaxOC]

last i heard about component is that companies arent investing in making hd capture cards yet because the system is too new for most ppl that dont want to drop 600 for a newtv 400 for a new tuner and 300 for a burner

[d_stilgar]

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr500mce.html

That one has a dual tuner. Hauppauge is also pretty much the best.

[Eclecticos]

I agree get either a Hauppauge or AverMedia.
Hauppauge is the best as far as internal capture cards go.
Avermedia is the Best for external comes with a remote.

[DaJe]

One says TV in and one says FM in. Can both inputs be used for video recording?

[Eclecticos]

What you need is a AV selector switch.
and a capture card.

If thats not the case and your planning on recording dual video simultaneously you better have one hell of a machine. .
i'm talking quad core. with 8GB of ram. :D

[DaJe]

What if it's a machine dedicated to just recording video all day long

[Eclecticos]

I would recommend 2 separate cards then for sure! Otherwise your going to have some real sound issues.

[DaJe]

Yeah, I planned on having two cards, but there are only 3 PCI slots, and there are 3 devices that need recording. And perhaps a wireless card would be used. Ah **** it, I'll just get 3 cards and then an ethernet cable. No sound needs to be recorded by the way.

[Eclecticos]

Like Video Cameras? If so you can easily do that with one card if you have Bnc Connectors.
You can swap out the coaxial for bnc just change the end adapter. Or get a coaxil to bnc adapter.
http://images.tigerdirect.com/skuimages/large/Q300-2108.jpg

[DaJe]

Yep, video cameras. And I already have some BNC to coaxial adapters picked out. I have 3 seperate cameras that each need to be recorded seperately. I also need some software for that too, so do you know of anything good? The cameras are BNC by the way.

[Airbozo]

-eck has the ticket. If you are using video camera's you want one of the cards he indicated or a professional one like this;
http://www.ezwatchstore.com/shop/Expansion-Card-for-Cameras-5-8-Business-Grade-pr-16223.html

What you need to look for is a dvr card. Basically the more you spend the better your frame rate. Just make sure you have enough disk space. You really don't need a super powerful system though. I put together an 8 camera DVR system on an older pentium4 3.2ghz with HT, 3gb memory, and 4 250gb sata drives. This allows a couple of weeks worth of recording and if they need to save anything, they just burn it to dvd. The customer can also access the camera's from any web browser to monitor the business. One of the reasons they get a couple of weeks at a good resolution, is another nifty piece of software that monitors the images and only records if there is movement. It can also be setup to monitor only a specific portion of the image for movement (so an analog clock does not trigger it for instance). Usually the software that comes with the card has this ability.

[DaJe]

The cameras are all black and white, and about 30 days at a time would need to be stored. The system I have for it has a 2.66ghz pentium 4 and 512MB of dual channelled DDR400. So, you think I'd need something bigger than the 80GB I have laying around? I was thinking of maybe getting a bigger one and making a RAID. And perhaps I could have everything backed up onto another hard drive as well. Though I have no idea how to do RAID or have it create a constant backup.

[Airbozo]

I would have to go through all my information to find the sheet that specs what drive space you would need for each minute at a given frame rate. Basically I "think" 80gb (minus the 20gb for other stuff and windows), would only last a week. I will have to find my cheat sheet or do some searching on google.

Raid is not that hard to do if your mobo supports it. It is really easy. The constant backup is a little more difficult, but any good backup program (Backup My PC by Stomp), has an unattended backup utility to auto backup _changed_ files onto a dvd. Or the whole drive if needed.

EDIT: the main difference between the card -eck showed and the one I did is the later card has all the electronics to do image compression. That is one of the main differences in cost too. You either let your cpu do the work or spend the extra money and offload the task to the add in card.

[DaJe]

If only I could use my P5W DH Deluxe. It has built in RAID and built in backup. Anyways, I'm pretty sure the other motherboard has built in RAID too. Do all hard drives need to be the same size?

[Airbozo]

No, not all drives need to be the same. it is better if they are, but not necessary since you can do "partition raid" by breaking the drive up into bits. If you raid the HD's then all the drives revert to the size of the smaller one. You can still use the rest of the drive if you partition it correctly, but it would effect the performance.

[simon275]

So, you think I'd need something bigger than the 80GB I have laying around?

On Newegg 500gb WD HDD $129.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

[Spawn-Inc]

well i i would stay away from ati all-in-wonders have a 2006 pci express edition and the only good thing on it is the video card part. seeing as how you want this for a security camera setup for the deli across the street then i would go with -ecks idea. i'm not sure if this is a good deal or not but it looks like it is. http://cgi.ebay.com/Four-IR-30-LED-Camera-DVR-Card-power-Stand-CCTV_W0QQitemZ300101593689QQihZ020QQcategoryZ48629 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

or if you already have camera's then here is just the dvr card http://cgi.ebay.com/New-4-Channel-CCTV-PCI-DVR-Linux-Video-Capture-Card_W0QQitemZ270109891705QQihZ017QQcategoryZ48634 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[DaJe]

Well, the one you linked to, Airbozo, seems to be exactly what's needed, although I'm not too fond of the price.Can raid be done with IDE drives? Or do they have to be SATA?

[Spawn-Inc]

280!?!? the link i gave was only 50 tops and i'm think its the same card.

[OvRiDe]

We have been looking to replace our dying Time lapse security VCRs. I spoke with our sales guy at TigerDirect about these (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1080978&CatId=1425), and he got one of the Q-See techs on the phone with us. The Q-See tech said that this would work ok for our needs, but since we were going to do a full 16 channels he recommended the 16 channel version of this (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2283681&CatId=1925).

If you want to take the whole PC equation out of the picture.. This (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2844170&CatId=1925) wouldn't be a bad solution either.

Hope this helps..

[Airbozo]

Well, not the same card, but way more expensive. There are about three levels of those cards; enthusiast, amateur and professional. Again you get what you pay for. At the price of the card Spawn linked, You could get away with that since the system will not be doing anything else.

IDE raid depends on the motherboard, read the manual, for that info. Hehe or my favorite line; RTFM!

[OvRiDe]

AB is right on with that.. The major difference in the price of the cards come down to if they can do onboard encoding of the stream or if they rely on the computer to encode it. The onboard encoding will give you way better results and allow you to use more cards per PC.

We chose the standalone solution because it takes the PC out of the equation. By doing this we don't have to worry about keeping a OS patched, Viruses, Vulnerabilities, etc etc..

[Crimson Sky]

last i heard about component is that companies arent investing in making hd capture cards yet because the system is too new for most ppl that dont want to drop 600 for a newtv 400 for a new tuner and 300 for a burner


Yup...there are currently no consumer level HD capture cards except the kind that take broadcasts from off the air and encode it. You could always drop $10k on an Avid Mojo for true HD :neutral:

[DaJe]

I think that $280 one that Airbozo linked to will be what I'll get. Seems to have everything needed and a lot of great features. And it will be used professionally, so I suppose it's not too much really. Think I should get more than 512mb (256MB dual channelled) to run this? The motherboard only has two ddr slots. And one question about that DVR card. It says for 4-8 cameras. Does that mean there needs to be at least 4 cameras hooked up? Or does it just mean that ther are 4 camera inputs, yet each one can have two cameras hooked up to it?

[Eclecticos]

You will need a bigger hard drive thats for sure you can get a 250gb from newegg for like $65.00

$280.00 for a capture card? My god. You can get one of those BNC capture cards for $20.00 look on ebay.

I will try and find one for ya.

[Eclecticos]

EDIT: the main difference between the card -eck showed and the one I did is the later card has all the electronics to do image compression. That is one of the main differences in cost too.

This is true.

Here is one for around $25.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/4CH-PC-PCI-Cctv-DVR-Card-Video-Capture-Record-L87_W0QQitemZ320105125137QQihZ011QQcategoryZ88755Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Thats not my seller account name. I will never tell. :D

That auction says Hong Kong just search for similar products, if you need it soon.

The $25.00 one will rely on your system. A good $75.00 and you got frame compression. which is what you need.

Here is a Great one. 120FPS
http://cgi.ebay.com/CCTV-surveillance-16-channel-120fps-DVR-PCI-Card_W0QQitemZ250106239146QQihZ015QQcategoryZ48839 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem