Capturing the Imagination

(Issued By Frontier Electronics, Johannesburg, 23 August 2004)

Take any of them. All basically perform the same tasks. Once you add a TV tuner tool to your computer, you can:

One, watch TV on the computer monitor.
Two, save TV programmes on the hard disk drive.
Three, burn the programmes on CD or DVD discs.

Between the steps two and three you may intervene creatively: play with the footage, cut out the boring bits, add video clips, sound or stills of your choice.

Either way, at the end you get your own personalised video library. The TV tuner devices that Frontier Electronics currently stocks suit different needs, budgets, and - last but not least - different levels of computing power you may have at your disposal.

Boxed appeal

If elegant appearance takes precedence in your books, you will want to opt for one of Frontier's two external TV tuners. Both connect to the computer via the USB port.

Provideo TV Tuner Box is a delightful piece of design with compelling features, all in the name of taking the drudgery out of creating home video library. However, do not be tempted by it unless you have a fast, cutting-edge machine at home.

While Provideo is of vertical stature, 3DeMon TV Tuner Box is meant to lie on your desk in horizontal position. This device's solid performance is coupled with modest requirements: Pentium II with USB interface will do for this trooper.

Out of sight

Vision DTV Digital Satellite TV Card, 3DVision TV Tuner Card and Provideo MPEG 233 Card all fit inside the computer, into the PCI slot. Neither of them is too finicky and will willingly perform with lower-spec computers. However, extra memory power and large (often very large) hard disk drives are advisable when handling data with pictures in it.

All of the mentioned PCI TV tuner cards are impeccable performers in the normal TV watching, capturing and editing category. But it is the digital satellite TV card that really fires the imagination.

Into the digital era

The VisionDTV Digital Satellite TV Card brings digital TV to your PC in the time it takes to install it into the PCI slot. With this card, you can have it both ways. You can watch free satellite TV channels on your PC monitor. You can also watch video footage from your computer's hard disk on TV screen.

VisionDTV has some lovely features, like letting you to watch part of a recording while the recording continues in the background. You can also grab stills from programmes, time recordings to start when you are out, and view broadcasting schedules.

The grabbing bees

Video capture tools belong, strictly speaking, to another category. The category that's tailored for converting your tired video tapes into the smaller and more durable CD and DVD discs. You may choose to exercise some editorial interventions in the process, but that is entirely up to you.

DV/AV TWINS MPEG Card will make a dent in your budget, and it will also give you excellent DVD quality output. It fits into the PCI slot, as does the Provideo MPEG 231 video capture card.

GrabBee video capture tools stand out with their unusual shape. GrabBees are basically a set of cables (one side goes into your computer's USB port, the other is for video and audio input) protruding from an unobtrusive rectangle.

Video Home GrabBee X+ carries the promise of more advanced features, like higher resolution video capturing. It also requires a more powerful machine, while VV Mer GrabBee III will work with even a vintage 166MX computer. Some versions of video capture tools handle only video, while other ones do the audio as well. All four tools mentioned here do picture and sound as well.

Author: Lana Stevic

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Video Capture