Please, I'm trying to star making my own videoCd, but I dont want to make and expensive buy. Is that external card enough? Do I better buy something more powerful but rather more expensive? Thanks...

-- JAF (jafs@bigfoot.com), March 06, 2000

Answers

If you're looking to get a PCTV, get the PCI version. They're both plagued with problems, but you'll get further with PCI version. Plus, if you're trying to make vcds (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL) resolution, the PCI version does this, but the USB version can only do video captures up to (320x240). This means after capture, you'll have to stretch the video when you encode it to mpeg which takes a very long time and doesn't give very good results.

HazyMind

-- HazyMind (hazymind@earthlink.net), March 06, 2000.

JAF, Like many people who own the PCI PCTV, I have been having a lot of problems. Particulary in Video CD creation, as the product does not generate MPEG files which are complaint with the Video CD format. And also the support for the product is very poor. Please spend some time reading the posts made by angry buyers at the following site. http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/cgi-bin/pctv/? ProductID=306&SubDocTypesID=76

If you plan to use the MPEG files only to use in a computer then this is ver good product. However I liked their Studio software. It was very easy to use, but crashed now and then. --Sai.

-- Saikumar Vasu (saikumargv@usa.net), March 06, 2000.