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Hi, I want to transfer about 600 video tapes (programmes I've taped from TV over the past twenty years) to DVD. I initially bought a very cheap (£25) USB box called V-Stream Xpert USB2.0 DVD Maker. This produced clean video on the PC, but it looked 'pixellated' i.e. you could clearly see it was a sample of a much better, smoother looking picture. When I watched the source tape on my TV, next to my PC monitor, the picture was much better on the TV. The PC version was about half the resolution, so I presume this is because the USB box wasn't sampling the picture very well. I then bought a H&B TX100 box, and this produced similar results: while the picture looks fine in a small window, when you blow it up to full screen size, you can immediately see that half of the resolution of the original has been lost. I've tried adjusting every setting I can find, finalising the video (or whatever it's called) to DIVX, HQ DVD, etc.etc. and none of them look very good. I don't want to spend months copying over tapes to find I could have got better quality copies.
I've looked all over the 'net for reviews of the quality of the various capture boxes and PCI cards, and I've found nothing. There are some reviews of various devices, but most of them hardly mention what sort of quality video they produce! I don't mind spending £200 if necessary, as this is a big job that will take me ages and last me a lifetime.
I've bought a cheap standalone DVD Recorder, a Cyberhome 1600, and this gives better quality on its highest setting (but only one hour per DVD). On its two hour setting it's not as good, so I don't want to use it. I've heard the Panasonic range give the best visual quality recordings at SP (2 hours per DVD), so I'm thinking of trying that route instead, and then just putting the DVDs into my PC to edit them down afterwards. Is there a PCI capture card that will give me the same or better quality as the Panasonic range of DVD Recorders can?
I'm also happy to save the video to DIVX format as it seems to be extremely high quality for such a small file. (I got a copy of 'Team America' from a P2P network that was only 700Mb and the quality was literally as good as a full size 4.7Gb DVD.) Is there a way to stream the video into the PC in extremely high quality, making a big file, and then let the PC take its time to convert it to DIVX? That sounds like the ideal option for me.
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