VGA together with its extensions are in the basis of nearly all video cards used in PCs. At the same time, video cards support color modes and resolutions which are far beyond what VGA really is. The VGA standard is used in a broad range of solutions applied in engineering, medicine, science, education, etc. For a variety of reasons most users that deal with this equipment need to be capable of capturing images. Time-critical tasks should be performed through the image processing. The images can be recorded, broadcasted to the web, viewed and edited remotely. Possibility to digitize the captured images is an important function for the users of the equipment. Final choice should be made depending on the used facilities and user's purposes.
Video converters are at the lower end of the price range among the video capture solutions. VGA converters connect VGA output to the video input on your TV. VGA2Video from Svideo allows users to watch video from the computer synchronously on a TV and VGA monitor. PC-to-TV converter from Sewell provides the same functionality.
Converters and Graphic Boards
Among low-cost solutions for capturing video signal, you may choose a video card featuring video capture support. These cards are offered by all main manufacturers (Matrox, ATI, NVIDIA, ASUS, etc.). For example, an ATI Radeon VIVO graphic board features 3D resolutions (32-bit color) and 64 MB of video memory at a very competitive price. External conversion units ensure connecting analog video equipment to the computers and users can perform video editing operations. ADVC110 from Grass Valley can be connected to all digital and analog cameras. This unit requires no power supply and has no drivers to install.
Due to multiple reasons low-quality video capture may be not convenient for the users. For example, you may need to capture video from multi-camera systems with overall data rates more than 100MB/s or cameras with high data rates.
