- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Hello.
I work as video editor, so I thought I'd help you out.
There are several analog cables that transmit video. In order from lowest to highest quality, they are:
Coaxial
Composite (RCA)
S-Video
Component
There are capture cards that capture each type of video. Lowest quality costs less, so it depends on how much you want to spend versus how good you want your video to look.
A standard television image has the resolution of 720x480. Most low-end capture cards only offer resolutions up to 360x240, which is half resolution. You'll want to find a card that boasts full resolution.
I've used Dazzle before, two versions actually. I had a Dazzle USB1.1 hookup, which only offered the one-half full resolution. I traded that in for a PCI Dazzle card, which is fine, except when I started working as a non-linear film editor, it wasn't as good a quality as capturing IEEE 1394 Firewire. I have it packaged up and was going to sell it on Ebay (used of course). If you're interested, send me a message.
My current setup, which would capture Xbox video with the included RCA hookup (yellow, red, white cables) OR the next pack up (the one with the S-Video hookup) is a CANOPUS ADVC-100, which converts analog signals such as S-Video or RCA to a digital IEEE 1394 firewire signal. I then run the Canopus firewire signal directly into my PC, compressed as DVAVI files (a compression that is very close to uncompressed quality).
I used to use Windows Movie Maker to capture these DVAVI files, as it's free with Windows, but I now use Adobe Premire.
One thing to note: if you're not running Windows XP then your harddisk is formatted with the FAT or FAT32 file system and cannot accept files sized larger than 4GB. Video editing DEMANDS A LOT of hard disk space, and one file of raw footage (such as you playing Halo) can run much larger than this file size limitation. If you are running Windows XP, you need to check to see if your harddisk is formatted as NTFS, which eliminates this limitation. You can convert a FAT or FAT32 file structure to NTFS with the convert tool, but I'm not going to explain how to do that here, because I don't want to be blamed for you accidentally erasing your harddrive! Go to the Windows help forum at www.microsoft.com to find out how to use the convert tool.
So there you go. Xbox into Canopus into Firewire card.
Firewire cards are running cheap nowadays, so you're good there. I have the Canopus on loan from work so I don't know how much it costs, but similar products can run anywhere from $100 - $500.
If you want REALLY high end quality and near HD or HD resolution, then I don't know much aobut that except that capture cards, such as ones used in Hollywood 'standard' Avid Express editing systems and other NLE hardware based systems, can run into the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.
The best thing to keep in mind is what you want your outcome to look like. Remember, in all video (except digital, which is 1 for 1) there is a visible generational loss. Meaning your output will have less quality than your input.
TaDa! A crash course in basic video capturing.
If you have any questions beyond what I've covered here, feel free to PM me or email me at:
[email] sbre_cinema@yahoo.com [/email]
with the subject line: XBOX VIDEO CAPTURING (your name)
Hope this helps, and have fun!
-MTN