Amateur, Enthusiast and Semi-Professional Video Capture Cards
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here for Professional Real-time Video Capture / Editing Cards
The main contenders:
The three main manufacturers of real-time video capture cards
at the starter to mid range market are
Pinnacle, Matrox (RT.X10)
and Canopus (DVRaptor RT2/RT2
Max). Pinnacle is now
"focused" on software solutions and may be dropping
out of the hardware market. It's a shame as it will then
be just a two horse race for semi- professional video editing cards.
All three of the above are reputed manufacturers and they've
been in the video editing business a long time. All of them have
products ranging in price from a few pounds to several hundred pounds. All of them have
detailed comparisons on their sites as to why their products are
superior to the other two competitors. But how do you choose
which manufacturer and which card is right for you?
Which should you choose?
You could take the easy route and call a sales person for
advice but if you wish to do your own research here are some useful
tips:
1. Spend some time on each manufacturer's site. Go through
their range of products AND browse through their forums. It's
amazing how much you can learn about their approach to customer
services and what their existing customers think of the
products. If you've narrowed down the choice of products to one
or two of the manufacturer's cards type those product names into
the search feature on their forums to see what problems (if any)
other customers are having with those products.
2. Try typing the products names in a search engine like
Google. Try combinations of the product name with other words,
eg <DV500 + problem>, <Matrox + "Video Editing
Card" + Advice>, <DVStorm2 + compatibility>,
<Video Editing Cards + Reviews> etc.
3. Consider the software you are looking to use and check the
software manufacturer's website. For example, if you are looking
to use Adobe Premiere as your video editing software check
Adobe's website support pages. They have a long list of
incompatibilities, and details of which cards don't support
which Premiere features etc.
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