need hardware recommendation

[lloydering]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the boards here, and it looks like I've found an amazing resource. I have a newfound interest in importing audio/video signals into my computer, and need some recommendations on what hardware and software I'll need to get set up.

My goal is to import audio/video from my camcorder via firewire, as well as import a live audio/video signal (maybe two live audio/video signals) via composite RCA. I may just leave the video on my hard drive, or burn it to DVD. It would be a nice bonus feature if I could also watch/record a TV signal.

I'm in the process of putting together a shopping list for my first build, and here's what's on the list:

EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard (has onboard 1394a firewire)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2000MHz Dual Core Processor

X1800GTO or 7600GT graphics card, depending on what deal I can find.

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Case with Antec SmartPower 450W PSU
OR Lian Li PC-60BPLUSII Case and Coolermaster RS-550-ACLY Real Power 550W PSU

OCZ EL "Platinum Revision 2" 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR 400 Dual Channel Memory

Seagate 160GB SATA-300 Hard Drive

LiteOn DVD/CD Burner

Video Capture Card (KWORLD Video Magician Video Editing Kit, Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150, WinTV-PVR 500???)


Does my system sound capable? Any improvements to be made for A/V capturing purposes? I'm not sure which video capture card to buy, as I'm not familiar with the quality/reputation of these companies and I'm simply not familiar with what is available or what quality to expect for the money. My A/V capturing budget is limited to somewhere around $150, if it's necessary to spend that much. And as for software, is GBPVR all I need?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[csy]

This all looks very good, in fact quite high spec. The PVR150 has a good reputation and is quite popular and has good support across all PVR applications. Make sure you get a PVR150 that has remote control and IR pickup. Note it has hardware MPEG2 encoding.

You will need a soundcard or onboard motherboard sound chipset. You will want 6-channel audio out for DD/DTS5.1 or 8-channel if you have additional speakers for 7.1 sound. Many people use the soundcard SPDIF-out to feed the digital audio to an external audio decoder (receiver), but you can use internal decoder software for DD/DTS which works very well and produces a good quality audio output. The sotware audio decoder consumes very little CPU cycles (you won't notice it). Don't bother with a soundcard that has hardware DD/DTS decoding because PVR applications cannot take advantage of it.

Video card capabilities are very important, and you have opted for high-end cards so this is not a problem for you. What video inputs do you have to your TV? If your TV has component (YPrPb or YCrCb) inputs then buy a brand that has the component-out dongle supplied.

You will need software video and audio MPEG2 decoder software. This is supplied with the PVR150 or you can get other decoders off the Internet (some free). The video decoder is CPU intensive and this is key software that uses your CPU, but any CPU over 2GHz is ok, so you don't have any issue here.

512MB RAM is min, and 1024MB RAM recommended.

Your PVR150 recordings will be MPEG2 which generates large file sizes when recording with high quality bit-rate and therefore causes problems burning onto DVD's due to lack of space, therefore many people are transcoding the MPEG2 files into MPEG4 which reduces file size without reducing quality. Transcoding is extreamly CPU intensive, so a fast CPU and 1024MB RAM is recommended if you wish to transcode.

If you are not worried about MPEG2, I believe there are MPEG4/ASP (aka DIVX) TV capture cards on the market (I haven't looked into this myself).

[sub]

If you are not worried about MPEG2, I believe there are MPEG4/ASP (aka DIVX) TV capture cards on the market (I haven't looked into this myself).

There are some, but they're pretty crap, and produce very large files. I'd suggest sticking to popular cards that are well supported (Hauppauge PVR150 etc).