Dazzle Vs. ATI All In Wonder 128 32 Bit Which one is superior

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Can Someone please help me. I want to create vcd's and want to know which capture device should I use. I am debating on either the Dazzle paralell/usb capture device Vs. The ATI All in wonder 32bit Card? I am looking for the the simpliest way to to convert my tapes to vcd with the best picture quality. And what other programs should I use? I just plan to record my tape over to cd, do I need editing programs? Please help Thanks in advance

-- Ryan (Prodgee021@aol.com), April 01, 2000

Answers

Your best plan of attack would be to get an internal capture device not tied to your video card. But if you are deciding between the two products above and want to capture at higher resolutions and bitrates you are better off with the ATI. I have an ATI and a parallel device. The ATI has far better capture quality compared to the Parallel device I have. If you plan on having near perfect quality with either of the above products you will need editing software such as iFilm edit and encoding software such as the stand alone Panasonic Encoder. Of course you will also need software that will make video CD's. There are several on the market and they all have their own litte quirks. Read through all the archives and 90% of your questions will be answered there. I recommend that, as then you will have a better picture of what some of the quirks are and what you can do in advance to avoid some of the same problems others have experienced. You will also learn the work arounds to solve these quirks.

-- TR7110 (runyont@usa.net), April 03, 2000.

and if you go with a dazzle, get the USB version as it has better video pickup then the parallel version.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 03, 2000.

You want simple and cheap? go with the Dazzle USB. If you want simple and good quality buy a middle of the road priced product like Broadway 4.0 or the Vitec RT-6. I bought the Broadway after buying the Dazzle and returning it. It cost me $720. It is easy to use. Best quality when you capture to avi through your Broadway card and then encoding to mpg1. If you have a petium II it will encode to mpg at a rate of about 2 minutes to every 1 minute of video. If you have a pentium III you will get near real time encoding. This is important as software encoders are SLOW!!!! Some use as much as a 20:1 ratio. Spend the extra bucks. Most people who have had the Dazzle will tell you it's a piece of crap.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 03, 2000.

i can still guarantee you Al that i get roughly the same results you do in the end.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 04, 2000.

Let's set the record straight so no one gets misled and buys a Dazzle thinking they are going to get good results. You are using the Dazzle to cature an AVI file and then using Panasonic to do the encoding. The encoding is the hard part. You are basically using a $250 card to do nothing but capture the video. ANY CHEAP CARD WILL DO THIS!!!!!You are not getting the same results by capturing and encoding with a Dazzle and you never will because the Dazzle is not capable. I know because I had one. I had some great results with it to by doing the same thing you do and then waited for hours while a software encoder did all the work. I was lucky enough to have discovered this while there was time to return it and buy something else. The Dazzle is not even in the same league with a Broadway Pro or Vitec Rt-6.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 05, 2000.


Get yourself the ATI from their trade-in program. Final cost $120. You get decent 3d, output to TV, and plus a few games.

-- K. Tran (k3tran_2000@yahoo.com), April 05, 2000.

Al,

Somehow, someway. i would love to see some of your vcd results. I know the Broadway is a damn good card so im not knocking it at all. But even Ross who does methods similar to you even agreed the results i got were damn good. But also not everyone has the 750 for the broadway card. when i first got into this i too looked at the broadway as i have heard quite a few things about it, then i heard it was (at that time 700-800 dollars). That money i do not have to spend. Another benefit the dazzle does allow since it does things in mpeg is that you can save a longer file then the 20min file avis are allowed on windows.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 05, 2000.


Also with the broadway, do you not end up re-encoding to mpeg so you can make a video cd. as you said "ANY card will do this", so just to be a wise ass for the moment you spent 750 on a card to "just capture video" any card will do this!!!!!

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 05, 2000.

doug 1 al 0

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), April 05, 2000.

Do you really not see the difference????? The Broadway first of all is a capture and encoder. The Broadway will capture straight to Mpeg or to AVI and then encode to MPEG. Everyone on this site will tell you that it is better however to capture to AVI and then in encode to Mpeg. The Broadway card is a hardware assisted card meaning that it can encode in realt time. 1 Minute of time to encode 1 minute of avi file. But my whole point which you obviously don't get is that The Dazzle is only being used to capture the video which is the onlt thing I ever said. The Panasonic encoder is what is creating you stunning mpeg files. Any cheap capture card will capture an avi file. I'm not suggesting buying a $700 Broadway card. I am suggesting buying a capture card and buying the Panasonic encoder. No card on the market will capture straight to mpeg and do as good as a job as if you capture first to avi and then encode to mpeg. You don't want to do this anyway because you can't edit a mpeg file. You first capture to avi, edit and then encode to mpeg. Unless you want to sit there and stop your video everytime a commercial or something you don't want to include in you video pops up. Is that so hard to understand? I'm sure the Dazzle can capture AVI files with the best of them I have a STB TV/FM card that came with my computer that captures great AVI files and I took it out. I made video cd's using the Dazzle and they were unwatchable with all of the blockiness. It just does a poor job of creating MPEG files. Evidently the Panasonic does a great job of encoding but what is the time ratio? I'm just glad I don't have a Dazzle anymore and if your going to spend $250 for a capture card that's your business I'm just trying to help people here to not waste their money when they can get the same and better results for a heck of a lot less money. This is the last I have to say about Dazzle and I'm not keeping score.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 05, 2000.


I agree with Doug. I have a Dazzle DVC parallel port unit. I have encoded many, many DVDs and TV straight to MPEG1 with it and am VERY HAPPY with the results. I am always looking for ways to improve and am glad I found this board. However, I get sick and tired of the "Mine is better than yours" posters. The whole point is to share knowledge and improve. Anyway, I don't encode at VCD rates (1,150,000) because I don't need it for standalone playback and like to fill the CDs completely. I usually encode at 1,250,000 or 1,400,000 depending on the length of the movie so it will completely fill 2 CDs. I admit that playback on a MONITOR will have some slight artifacts present. HOWEVER!!, I usually send it to Video Out on my videocard and play it on a regular TV. Please remember, a TV has much much lower resolution. The output to TV of any of my encodes is, in my opinion, equal to VHS. I have even played some on a friends bigscreen TV and it looked even better.

I even do ASF encoding for some TV stuff. I can fit 2.5 hours on a single CD at 600k encoding rate and have acceptable results. Lets face it, no one will be perfectly happy until we all have full MPEG2 and DVD-RW (hurry up Panasonic!!, already out in Japan with built in MPEG2 encoder for $2800).

Anyway, I just wanted to get above off my chest. I would very much like to see an actual comparison of a DVD source MPEG1 done on a Dazzle, Broadway and ATI128 all done at the same bitrate. If anyone is interested in participating, contact me and I will act as central collection point. I will do The Dazzle Parallel port version.

-- EG Marshall (4me@schoolmail.com), April 05, 2000.


Al, Yours last post is wrong, wrong, wrong!!!

#1: I have a Dazzle DVC and encode DIRECTLY to MPEG1. #2: Dazzle does NOT capture to AVI. #3: MPEG is EDITABLE! My Dazzle came with the best MPEG editor and I have tried a bunch! It's very easy to use and no rendering required. #4: There is NO RE-ENCODING necessary of a Dazzle MPEG file unless you captured it at higher than VCD rate and want to re-encode to VCD rate.

Sorry, but your post says to me that you don't know anything about the Dazzle... but yet you claim to have owned one????? Go figure.

-- EG Marshall (4me@shoolmail.com), April 05, 2000.


ok, in Al's defense, I NEVER CAPTURE using the straight mpeg vcd template, to me the qulity at that level is unacceptable. i always push the Dazzle to the limit at either 2900 or 3000 bitrate, then re- encode it to a vcd or highrate vcd. That was one of Al's main complaints about it, why bother spending 250$ when you have to end up re-encodingg it anyway, but for me personally i found it very convient and im satisified with the final end results i get with the added re-encoding time from the panasonic.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 06, 2000.

Last Fall I got a Gateway computer, 300 mhz, with a STb TV Tuner card. I was excited about the possibility of converting VHS tapes to CD's and watching them on my television. I went out and purchased a CD Re-writable drive and a Philips 82 DVD player. I now had invested about $450 in this hobby only to find out I need authorware and an mpg1 encoder(I assume most people went through a similiar process)Next I researched and ended up with EZ CD Creator and The Dazzle USB. I didn't completely read the rave reviews on Dazzle because after I had it about a week and got poor results(By My standards)I noticed that the raves were about the features and every single one mentioned the video quality was marginal at best. I now had invested another $350. I was lucky enough to have bought it at Best Buy and returned the last possible day. I spent from October until January researching the encoders and finally convinced my wife to get me the Broadway Pro 4.0 for my birthday (January)The difference was tremendous. Yes the Dazzle has great features, video quality is not too good. It does capture to AVI as well as MPG but does very poorly. You cannot edit an mpg file very easily, for example, Like filming an episode of a television program directly to MPG and then come back later and edit out the commercials. Because of the way mpgs are compressed it is very hard to edit them once they are created. An mpg is created by only saving the parts of each frame that change for the last frame, that is how they compress the files and this makes it very difficult to edit them. Your best bet is to create an AVI file and do your editing, then compress it to mpg1, but because you are limited to 1150K/bits(unless you go to a higher bit rate)there is going to blockiness in videos with a lot of motion. If I use the standard bit rates on videos I made of my kids ballgames there is blockiness around the people that are moving, using a higher bit rate eliminates this. As far spending $700 for a capture card, my card captures, has an avi editor, also come with videowave III, and is a hardware assisted encoder. I hope that answers any questions. This is not directed to people who have a Dazzle and are trying to make the best of it but to the people who are looking for the best available product for not an enormous amount of money and for me the Dazzle was not the way to go nor did I like software encoders because of the time they take to do the encoding. I had to learn the hard way because I didn't know of this site until after I had spent many frustrating hours trying to create a video cd that was watchable. Oh yeah I also returned the Philips DVD player and exchanged it for the Pioneer 525 but that's another issue entirely. Bottom line....If you want godd quality for a low investment buy a decent capture card, the Panasonic encoder sounds good, EZ Creator, Nero, or NTI are good softwares and use the best CD-s you can afford. I recently bought NTI's software for $39, Adaptec's(EZ CD Creator) is around $79, a good capture card can be had for under $100, and I don't know what Panasonics software encoder costs but I'm sure the good people here will tell you.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 06, 2000.

the panasonic goes for about 80$. AND for those that wish to do highrate vcds (all i do now), the NTI, Video pack 4 and nero will allow the higher bitrate for this. ezcd will not. Although i still slightly disagree about editing with the mpeg file, i find it rather easy and can get the results to an exact as to where i cut it. Although Al you still are mixing up the Dazzle with (porbably) the studio mp10. the Dazzle does MPEG ONLY. the Studio mp10 allows for avi and mpeg. For me if i have to converet to avi i use the virtual dub as the results still look like my original file (setting at 100% compression of course) with no quality loss and its realtime encoding.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 06, 2000.


That may be true about the Dazzle. It's been a while since I had it. I do remember capturing an episode of seinfeld directly to mpeg and deleting the commercials but some of the frames before and after the cut would still show up in the finished product. I also remember that I captured to something other than mpeg because I had to use that very slow software that came bundled with it to encode to mpeg. It took 20 minutes for every 1 minute of captured video I had a 45 minute weeding video that took forever to encode. It really seems like it was an AVI file. I captured it on the best possible setting that Dazzle had. Maybe it was mjpeg. If your doing your editing before you use your Panasonic encoder I have a feeling it's not a mpg file. Didn't you say that you were not capturing directly to mpg? I know that even Broadway has came out with a mpg editor just in the past few months that allows on the fly editing but it's supposed to be a new thing. It wasn't available until late in January, after I bought my card. Anyway I am pretty much happy with the product I am getting. I wish I could get rid of the blockiness at standard Video CD bit rates. I'd like to try using an m-filter before capturing but it cost somewhere between $300 and $700 by itself. Until then I'll just have to stick with the high bit rates. My last one played fine on my DVD player but media player wouldn't open it.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 06, 2000.

Hey Al,

no i dont capture to mpeg at 115 rate if that what you mean. My files are mpeg but at a higher bitrate. I have had that slight editing problem you mentioned before but dazzles upgrade wiped it out. You know what you probably used the ULEAD program the Dazzle came with. THIS TOOK forever to do a simple 30second mpeg title, avi took super long as well. I bet thats why you thought the dazzle did avi. ih aveeditied stuff before and after with panasonic. although for these highrates i HAVE TO edit before because of the vbr buffer rate, otherwise for some unknown reason after i edit, the sound skips in the dvd player.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 06, 2000.


I have tried a number of capture devices, and am really impressed with the ATI capture cards for a number of reasons. Firstly, they do not cost a whole hell of a lot, and secondly they are capable of encoding directly to mpeg, and feature an impressive array of other features.

I have found that the quality of capture with these cards depends more on the speed of your system, since you can encode a higher bitrate mpeg stream, with a faster system, then use good re-encoding software to clear, crop, and bring down the bitrate of the originally encoded Video. If you have a slower system then you will want to capture to .avi format to get a better quality capture, the downside, is that you can only encode short clips. I am using a pentium3 500 and can encode in MPEG1 format at 4mbs at 29 frames per seconds and get near perfect picture rendition.

Funnily enough tho' I have noticed that the PCI tv wonder ( about $50.00 ) and AGP all in wonder Pro ( almost $300.00 ), capture at roughly the same quality level, The reason I think, is they are more dependant on your system to be able to encode at your desired quality because they are all dependant on software based encoding technology.

I ran accross this discussion because I am upgarding to a 1.7ghz pentium 4 system and am looking......hehe.... for a better capture card, Any reviews on the ATI radeon All in Wonder and Matrox GTV cards would be appreciated.

I hope this has helped aout a few, and not angered the rest :o)

M.B.Denham

-- M.B.D (denham@cybertrails.com), October 21, 2001.


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