FAO NorthernYankee

[Player0]

Hows your video capture box coming? I think you said you were working on one too right?

I need more cooling on my XP2000+. I have an AX7 with 80mm fan, and my temperatures look okay, but im not quite stable at 1800mhz. This same CPU used to do over 2000mhz easily on the Cube system. I have the FSB hitting 200mhz easy though. This system certainly has some kick but...

The highest resolution I can record TV at with ShowShifter and DivX Pro 5.02 is 480x480. I'd really like to get 640x480 working, but it drops too many frames. I just optimized my Windows XP services tonight with only a slight improvement.

DivX at 480x480 does look pretty good though. I may settle for that for now. Im thinking of getting another 2600+ for this PC, or maybe even doing dual CPUs. However, im not sure DivX encoding will really benefit from two CPUs. It will let me do more with the same system tho. The other option is to go watercooling, maybe get another 100mhz that way. That or get a larger air cooler, maybe that new Swifttech/Peltier system which is air cooled. Noise is a huge issue for this box though, its almost too loud now.

I still dont know much about codecs. I thought I could record in WMV, but im not sure how to set up the codec for that. I am also interested in recording in Mpeg2 format, which requires less CPU, and I can burn these to DVDs. I could get a DVD burner. ANyone know where I can find a mpeg2 recorder codec?

[NorthernYankee]

Well I am almost there I just need a New Vidcard and a big HD for it. But the way you are talkin I may not have enough CPU for it.

My system so far...

Iwill KK266R @160 FSB
XP 1600+ right now at 1600mhz but it will do 1750 with an Alpha8045 and a low CFM fan
256MB Crucial PC133

I am going to be buying a 8500DV soon or maybe I can talk my GF into buying me it for my B-day this month. What does your Mem usage look like I think you said you have a gig and I wanna know if I have enough RAM.

But did you try the Ati software? They supposedly have a format called VCR which gives really good quality and has a low overhead...but I do not know if you want to use the more widely known formats for sharing or something.

--NY

[WesM63]

Hey guys,
Actully i might be building one too. I just got and older ATI A-I-W 128, (Model right before the radeons came out.) Right now it's in my PII400 I was tryin to import a video from a vcr just to see how it works, but i could'nt even get that to work. I was thinking something like this:
1800+ (I have)
(mobo)
1Gig of Cheap ddr
A-I-W 128
20gig hdd

Who knows i might con my mom into gettin me some goodies for x-mas.

[Player0]

Hey NY...if you hold off, maybe I'll sell you my 8500DV. Im starting to rethink the 9700 AIW, if for nothing else but Mpeg2 encoding hehe. Im just waiting for it to come out. Might let it go for say $120 in 2-4 weeks hehe :)

Nah, ram isn't that critical. HD certainly can be, of course youll probably burn the movies on to CDs and such. CPU definately seems to be most important, if you want to record realtime Divx anyway.

[NorthernYankee]

Yeah do need to get a new HSF for that CPU the stock AMD one is not cuttin it, I'll prolly pick up another Alpha.

Yeah let me know if you wanna sell it I'll snatch it up.

--NY

[Player0]

NY, I just measured my memory usage. While capturing DivX video with ShowShifter, I only use a total of 118m of ram. This is after optimizing XP which shaves about 40m off that total hehe.

Playing back the 800m Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon DivX uses 136m.

I'll use over 200m playing Unreal 2003 or N64 roms.

So no, memory really isnt a big deal at all in terms of video capture. I think it all just goes to the hard drive, and uses under 10MB/s disk transfer rate anyway.

Now, video editing is a completely different story. Still looking for an mpeg2 codec as well :P

[Player0]

Think im gonna keep it NY :) 9700 probably wont like my 200+ FSB which i need for DivX capture.

[NorthernYankee]

No problem m8, hopefully I will be getting mine soon.

--NY