DT-3154 RGB frame grabber?

[grey]

You know you're in trouble when your googling around for hardware, and the most relevant post you end up finding (in usenet at least) is from from someone else you know in the same area of interest.  You realize that your interests are probably way too obscure.

Anyway, that happened to me a few weeks back while trying to find some sort of RGB frame grabber.  Looksee here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=scart+fr...et.or.jp&rnum=1

(for those interested the search terms were: scart frame grabber on google/deja's interface).

Ok, so what _I_ was looking for when it came to something like this was a frame grabber that I could hopefully stick some SCART plug into and capture RGB, duh.  I have also been trying desperately to find other things, in a more economical sense.  Found some almost leads in the hauppauge pvr-350 line, since apparently in Europe you can get a scart connector.  Thing is, I think it's for output, not input (damnit) and that seems to be par for the course.

Once you get into higher end vga/rgb frame grabbers (meant stupidly enough for security camera work 95% of the time it seems like) useful technical information about them seems to plummet, prices go up, and worst of all I think the chances to use them in any sort of effective way for standard high quality AV purposes looks like it just gets to be a big pain in the ass.

So, now I'm curious - Lawrence, what the heck did you end up trying to use this for?  I'm guessing it wasn't a roaring success since you're selling (sold?) it, but did it come close to your intentions.  Have you found anything that has?

Curious mind(s) want to know.  And I'm wishing I got an MS in EE or CE right now so that I could just build the damn things that I want to use myself as I can't buy them off the shelf. ;-)

[NFG]

It was originally purchased for screenshots, but there's a 2-5 pixel horizontal blur that I just can't eliminate, so it's not as good as I was hoping.  There are some amazing capture cards out there with pixel perfect accuracy, but you're looking at $1200-1500, there's simply nothing reasonably priced that does a decent job.  Even the DT-3154 is an $800 card.

When I contacted the manufacturer about the blur, they said "Oh, we didn't make it for games, It's only designed for 3 channel RS-170 video input.  We won't help you."  When I pointed out the game system output WAS 3 channel RS-170, they stopped replying to my mails.  Fuck Data Translations, I say.

I still have the card, it still does a much better job than any consumer-grade card, especially with colour purity.

[Tom61]

Damn it. I actually found a RGB and component capture card for like $350 the other day, but I can't seem to find the link anymore. Some hobbist card for running video through a de-interlacer program (DScaler) for use with HTPCs to HiDef sets. Even had direct digital connection for some DVD decoder card. Maybe that'll give you enough data to find it.

Edit:
Found it. The damn thing is called the 'SweetSpot' of all things. http://www.pluggedin.tv/sweetspot/

[grey]

Interesting, on both counts.

The sweetspot card I've seen (or at least similar products) for HTPC type people.  hivizone.com sells one or the same thing.  I got the impression that they just have component/colour difference inputs though, and not RGB, but looking at the site now apparently the RCA jacks can be used for myriad inputs, INTERESTING.  I've also tried googling for whatever PDI is in the past (I'm familiar with SDI) but I still am rather clueless.

They seem like interesting cards, and some people swear by DScaler (though usually with svideo inputs), but I'm not quite sure if they fit the whole RGB capture market as much as they are for htpc stuff.  I dunno, a card like this could do with some further looking into I guess (would be sweet if it just had a scart input though).

[NFG]

I'd be very interested in seeing captures made from this card's input.  Anyone seen samples?  The site didn't have any that I could find.

[davidleeroth]

It seems that Sweetspot is a European name for PDI Deluxe which is sold for $229 here. Did I miss something?

At that price it would be worth a try even if it wouldn't turn out to be "amazing". I haven't heard a bad word about this card to date, though.

[NFG]

I haven't heard a bad word about this card to date

Probably haven't heard from anyone not using this for home theatre either.  It's quite a bit more expensive to demand pixel-perfect results.  =/

Someone buy it, test it.  =)

[Tobio]

(bump)

relevant thread
http://nfg.2y.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1678