Equipment used to get TV shows to your computer

Okay, here's the skinny on "Roach's" capture set up.

"Realm Master" Which is my computer: Intel 2.8 Proc (Hyperthreaded)
1.5 GB of Ram pc 2700 (Super speedy)
3 Harddrives (1 - 10gb 1 - 40gb and 1-80 gb)
1 CD-Rom
1 DVD-Rom
1 CD-Burner (SCSI)
Winnov A/V Capture board (These are currently discontinued, but their new 1000 model is sweet and similar). ( www.winnov.com )
Standard Soundcard, but I do use anything from creative labs a lot. (SB live is what i used for a long time).
Two VCR's, One cable box, and a DVD player hooked up to a switchbox (audio video so I can pick what input I want to view on the computer) and one audio/video cable running to the winnov card.  (Winnov allows for composite input/red/white/yellow, S-Video, and camera)

Simply put, the video and audio comes into the capture card via the red/white/yellow cables, I use a jumper (a simple male to male 1/8th inch cable from the speaker out on the winnov to my sound card, --so I can listen to what I'm capturing live).  It plays in a little window on my desktop and you press the record button, (like a VCR) let it run for a while, then stop it and start again...renaming the files as you go.  The nice thing about winnov cards is they have onboard compression.  I use WinX hardware compression at 2:1 ratio, 320x240, uncompressed audio at 44100kHz.  This makes the files for one TV show about 4gb in size.

From here, I import those files into premiere, hack out the commercials, and export to one of the following sets of codecs.

Divx 5.02 100% quality uncompressed audio (perfect pictures) 320x240 --these I then turn into MPEGS, cause there's no loss. Divx 5.02 93% quality, 320x240 audio at 22500 Khz 16bit stereo compressed to IMA ADPCM (A good codec, so is MSADPCM) and there you have it.

Now the winnov card I used to run in my Pentium II 266, and up through all my models of PIII's so it doesn't need a lot of processor or memory juices to run. (because it's all onboard compression, the card does all the work).  It's also sweet given it will capture audio with the video (keeping it in sync) and avoiding lots of issues that arise when you have to use an external sound card.  Also, the winnov card can go up to 720x480 (DVD resolution) at 30fps uncompressed audio without issue.  (even though the specs say it won't) but the more memory more proc, and faster harddrives allow for the slack to be picked up.  So it'll do everything I ask of it.

What does become an issue with capturing is the harddrive capabilities.  Some words of note.

1. 5400 RPM harddrives are fine to use. but mine are all 7200rpms currently.
2. Don't let your harddrives get all the way full.  This will slow them down causing one to drop frames.
3. If at all possible, use a secondary drive (not your main c://) to capture to.  the main reason, when you're moving around a lot of data, it's a good idea to defragment your drive on a regular basis, (I do it weekly)  it keeps them in good health, and if you have to run defrag on your O/S drive, it takes forever.  And because with your O/S running on the same drive, it steals a good deal of your read/write capabilities, causing you to drop frames, and messes up your capture.  (it steals your resources) Harddrives can only do so much.

Some other types of capture cards I've used, (but wasn't terribly impressed with). Osprey's - they're not bad, just didn't like the interface, and their audio capabilities were a little lacking for my tastes. All in wonder's - Radeon's from ATI - they gave me grief, but are versatile enough to be utilized on a fairly competanant basis.

Some tips from Roach on video compression

Okay, it might be easier to start here.  

1. What type of capture card/video editing systems are you using?  

2. 45mb per minute of video sounds like you're running DV through a cam, which comes out at a size of 720x480 uncompressed 16bit stereo audio, at 48000kHz.  That's rather large.

3. If you're using anything like video studio, media studio or premiere, even Windows Movie Maker (though I hate it, I do use it as a final approach) you can easily make clips that are smaller. 

4  . These are the general settings compressions that I use:     

A) MPEG - TMPGEnc at vcd settings (1150 bit rate, 29.97 fps, 224khz audio, 352x240)  about 450mb per episode.     
B) AVI - For my archive files I used to use Ligo-indeo 5.11, it's a true frame by frame codec.  A full ep is about 650 mb at 320x240 at 90%-100% Quality, 44100kHz audio.    
C) AVI - Divx is great for anything over 2-3 mins, sometimes if you're below the 2 min mark, it has issues with the picture (it's just too short) but it'll make an episode to about 150-200 mb at 93% Quality (one pass  quality based) audio at 22500khz, 16 bit stereo)   
D) WMV - Though I don't like it, it does make the files much smaller.   run it for broadband settings, and a full ep will round in about the same size as a divx version. 

You can get the divx codecs at www.divx.com   if you're compressing using this, (making files) you'll need the professional version.  It comes with gain software, but it really isn't that annoying, given it's flexability.  I personally love version 5.02 but 5.05 or 5.1 is fine, just not as simple to set up for the beginner.