External Video Capture Device

[Debbie]

Any sugestions for a possibly USB external video capturing device that supports real time full frame MPEG-2 capture ?

[Brian Ellis]

USB is the standard for a type of low cost camera called WebCams. Webcams are basically a small video camera and analog to digital video convertor with a USB interface. These devices do not provide zoom or tape storage for video. The resolution of the video from these cameras is limited by the USB interface. 320x240 pixels is the maximum you can transfer over USB at 30 frames per second.

Link

[spadnos]

That article is talking about USB, not USB2. They mention "new" USB2 cameras that are 640x480@60FPS.

Over-the-air HD channels are 19Mbits/sec IIRC, which is well within the USB2 spec (but outside USB1.0 or 1.1). If the external device does the MPEG compression and feeds the compressed stream over USB, it should be fine.

Even if you use raw files at 8 bits/pixel, 1920x1080@30FPS is only slightly over USB2 speeds uncompressed (it's 497.66Mbits, USB2 is 480).

That said, I don't know of any good USB2 capture devices

- Steve

[Nowhere]

spadnos, that stream is more something like 2x the real bandwith of USB2

That said...yeah, good question (not only for capture devices, also for TV tuners). In case of PCI cards it was simple...anything that works with dscaler will be great/without need for crappy drivers/software packaged with the card.

But with external devices...I don't see such "standard" device anywhere (and it would be good to have one, laptop only for some time...)

[ND66]

USB can’t sustain those top transfer rates anyway, if there is anything that could work for you, would have to go over the Firewire type II…


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[spadnos]

spadnos, that stream is more something like 2x the real bandwith of USB2

That said...yeah, good question (not only for capture devices, also for TV tuners). In case of PCI cards it was simple...anything that works with dscaler will be great/without need for crappy drivers/software packaged with the card.

But with external devices...I don't see such "standard" device anywhere (and it would be good to have one, laptop only for some time...)

Yeah, I know 480 Mbps is the hype, not the reality. I was mainly pointing out that the FAQ was referring to old USB1.0 or 1.1, not USB2. Anything that can compress the data, even with simple RLE, would be able to fit the data into USB2.

I know of several USB based video capture devices, but since I probably heard about all of them here, and I think they're all SD, I didn't list them (the standards: Pinnacle, Hauppage, ATI maybe ...)

- Steve

[Fluff]

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

How about that? it isnt mpeg 2 though it is 264.

[Brian Ellis]

Also, to ensure decent video transfer, you have to ensure it is connected to its own independent USB port, no other mice, keyboards, webcams, printers, scanners, memory sticks, external drives, anything on the same port.

[Debbie]

Thank you Brian et al. I should have specified USB 2. Anyway this is what I had in mind:

http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Video-Capture.html

The idea is to be able to carry the divice. I have only used a USB device once for a very short time. I do not expect that it would produce the result of my ATI All-In-Wonder 9800SE or the Asus Radeon 9600XT but should work well on a fast machine.