Apple Video System

[MacFox]

Anyone here ever used this card?  It's a video capture card for select models of Quadras, Power Macs, and LCs.  It supports s-video and composite and it allows you to use your Mac as a monitor for game consoles as well.  I saw it on ebay and it looks pretty neat, but I would have to buy one of the compatible Mac models in order to use it.  The box doesn't specify the exact model numbers that support the card, so I have to look online for a list of compatible models.

Do you guys think the card is worth getting?  I'm already thinking of getting a desktop 68k Mac anyway, so this would be just a nice bonus/incentive to get one.

Thanks in advance

 

[Macdrone]

depends as alot of the performa 6xx that you find have them already.  Also the 5xxx and 6xxx (minus the 61XX series) may have it installed.  Get the mac first then ask here if you need it.

 

[MacFox]

Forgot that some already have the card.  I guess I should have re-phrased my opening question: "is this a good video capture card?" instead of "should I buy this?"  I obviously know it's not HD, but is it good by SD standards?

Also, forgot to mention this in the opening post, but the ebay listing also mentions that the card comes with Avid Videoshop on CD-ROM.  I know the Avid brand is a good name, but does anyone have experience with this particular Avid software?

 

[rsolberg]

No, it's not good by SD standards. The card captures video at 320x240 pixels and is typically saved as such, with an instruction to interpolate it to 640x480. The effective resolution is one quarter of the 480i SD specification. Full HD has more than 27x the resolution of 320x240. That said, the video quality is about par for mid-1990s consumer grade digital video and is fun to play with. Videoshop is fun to play with too, but mainly for nostalgic reasons. Consumer grade video editing didn't really mature to SD quality until the next decade and the iMac DV with iMovie. Consumer grade computer hardware couldn't handle the bandwidth required to capture, save, and edit 480i video. Try setting a YouTube video to 240p and fullscreen to get an idea of resolution.

 

[Macdrone]

yup, its fun to play retro games through a mac tho.

 

[MacFox]

No, it's not good by SD standards. The card captures video at 320x240 pixels and is typically saved as such, with an instruction to interpolate it to 640x480. The effective resolution is one quarter of the 480i SD specification. Full HD has more than 27x the resolution of 320x240. That said, the video quality is about par for mid-1990s consumer grade digital video and is fun to play with. Videoshop is fun to play with too, but mainly for nostalgic reasons. Consumer grade video editing didn't really mature to SD quality until the next decade and the iMac DV with iMovie. Consumer grade computer hardware couldn't handle the bandwidth required to capture, save, and edit 480i video. Try setting a YouTube video to 240p and fullscreen to get an idea of resolution.

Good to know.  240p doesn't bother me, so that's fine.  I like playing around with old multimedia apps, I do that a lot on my Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 9 setups.

 

[MacFox]

yup, its fun to play retro games through a mac tho.

Saw some people on Youtube do just that.  Would love to do that too.

 

[Macdrone]

the cable tv tuner or the rca jacks work as does the S video so its nice to have any kind of input available.

 

[Unknown_K]

320x240 is basically not even VHS quality

 

[rsolberg]

Do note that the tuner isn't always included with the Apple Video System board-- there was a different bundle called the "Apple Video/TV System" that included the optional TV/FM tuner as well. I believe the tuner was also available separately for those who already had the AV-in board.

The Apple Video System board is compatible with the LC/Performa 580, 588, and the LC/Performa/Quadra 630-640 68k Macs. It's compatible with the Performa/Power Mac 5200-5440, the Performa/Power Mac 6200-6420, and the Power Mac 6500 PowerPC Macs.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have a 6400 with 6500 motherboard with the A/V option, TV Tuner option, AVID Cinema PCI card, and the remote control. The remote will turn the whole machine on and off.

 

[Gil]

I have a 6400 with 6500 motherboard with the A/V option, TV Tuner option, AVID Cinema PCI card, and the remote control. The remote will turn the whole machine on and off.

As is true with all the 5x00 and 6x00 machines from the x200 series onward. Also most regular remote controls that are programmed with a Sony code will do the same.

 

[Unknown_K]

Can't remember where I got them, but I have extra Apple remotes.

 

[Paralel]

IDK, 320x240 sounds about right for VHS.

No, it's not good by SD standards. The card captures video at 320x240 pixels and is typically saved as such, with an instruction to interpolate it to 640x480. The effective resolution is one quarter of the 480i SD specification. Full HD has more than 27x the resolution of 320x240. That said, the video quality is about par for mid-1990s consumer grade digital video and is fun to play with. Videoshop is fun to play with too, but mainly for nostalgic reasons. Consumer grade video editing didn't really mature to SD quality until the next decade and the iMac DV with iMovie. Consumer grade computer hardware couldn't handle the bandwidth required to capture, save, and edit 480i video. Try setting a YouTube video to 240p and fullscreen to get an idea of resolution.

Does it capture 240p or 240i?

 

[waynestewart]

Have one of the boards in a 6500, it can record at 640x480. The Apple Video Player records video in it’s window size. The default is 320x240 but it can be set to 640x480. It can be set to smaller sizes but not larger than 640x480. The captured video is poor in any size. It’s helped by turning off virtual memory and video compression. It’ll work with a G3 card but that doesn’t seem to help matters. A faster hard drive also didn’t help. I’ve never been able to get it to work with a video card. Because of the poor video capture I haven’t used it a lot or in some time.

 

[CelGen]

-duplicate post. Oops.-

 

[CelGen]

IDK, 320x240 sounds about right for VHS.

Does it capture 240p or 240i?

First, NTSC standard VHS is 480 lines, so the Apple Video System records and operates natively at HALF the resolution of the NTSC standard. The CODEC is cheaper and doesn't undermine the more high-end hardware that was available.

Second, so long as you use composite or S-video, the captured media will ALWAYS be interlaced. 480p only becomes available once you have a device with RGB/component, which Apple's video options never supported.

The Apple Video System is nice if you want multi-region A/V support built into your mac but it comes at the cost that the resolution is poor and the A/V bus is too slow to properly record constantly at 30FPS, so it will often drop down to 15 or even 10 frames.

 

[Unknown_K]

That's why I got the AVID Cinema card, it connects with a cable to the A/V port. Still not the greatest thing made but much better.

 

[Paralel]

First, NTSC standard VHS is 480 lines, so the Apple Video System records and operates natively at HALF the resolution of the NTSC standard. The CODEC is cheaper and doesn't undermine the more high-end hardware that was available.

Second, so long as you use composite or S-video, the captured media will ALWAYS be interlaced. 480p only becomes available once you have a device with RGB/component, which Apple's video options never supported.

The Apple Video System is nice if you want multi-region A/V support built into your mac but it comes at the cost that the resolution is poor and the A/V bus is too slow to properly record constantly at 30FPS, so it will often drop down to 15 or even 10 frames.

Well, even if one is capturing interlaced, if it is captured at 60 fields per second, you can merge the two fields and just make it progressive at 30 frames per second. No good reason not to deinterlace it.

240 lines does sound about right for SP VHS.