On Sat, 27 Mar 1999 22:59:22 -0700, "Thomas Stevenson" wrote:

>Derasflynn wrote in message
>news:19990327201230.25864.00001147@ng97.aol.com...
>> which is better or is there another card at a similar price that is as
>good...
>> i will be working with premiere 5.1 hopefully since i have it already...
>also a
>> little confused about what batch capture actually means -
>> derasflynn@mailcity.com

>Batch capture is a function professionals would require. A client can be
>shown the raw footage on a TV and then the Pro can set the software to
>automatically capture the best video for editing. Spark's batch capture is
>not reliable, although some may dispute that. The fact is DPS Spark software
>is flaky for anything beyond manual transfer using the Spark stand-alone
>utility. This does work reliably. And while the other DV companies - notably
>Canopus and Digital Origin - have everyone using the latest version because
>it is best and bug free, DPS has it's users using many different, even old
>beta versions. Why? Because their software sucks, if compared to the
>competition. Spark also has a ridiculous SCSI hard drive requirement. Look
>at their site for required, certified hard drives. You may be surprised to
>find that they require a $500 SCSI hard drive.
>Hey, if they would write a competitive driver I would be recommending it.
>The Usenet exists so we can share info freely. It may sound like I dislike
>DPS. Untrue! But this is our forum and these are the facts as I see them.
>This is where we should share info about what works and which is really
>best, as no one else will.
>If you want the most for your money, and most of us do, look at MotoDV,
>Truevision DV2000, and fastest rendering is Canopus DVRaptor, for affordable
>DV NLE.

While I agree with much of the above, Spark works fine
with UDMA drives, and batch capture with it, uh, *almost*
works...;-) (After spending a weekend with ver.2.02 of the
Spark software, successful 30-40 minute captures were made
with the Spark batch capture utility - but I never made it
to an entire hour of tape captured automatically (what was
captured was frame-accurate, though...). Spark is still a
reasonable choice for some purposes, though, I think...
(I have been happy with it, cantankerous as it has been
at times...;-)