Accelerate Your Mac! - Aurora Design Fuse Video Capture Card Review

Click for MacBook/Pro Upgrades!

Keep this site growing - Please visit my Sponsors

Aurora Design Fuse^tm Video Capture Card
Review date: 6/13/98

Fuse Performance in Adobe Premiere

Intro | Installation | Configuration | Performance | Specifications | Features | Summary

Performance

Audio/Video Synchronization:
Although the Fuse card does not have on-board audio capture capability, I experienced no problems with audio/video sync. Cards with audio capture can lock the audio and video stream timing clocks together in hardware, whereas the Fuse has to rely on software synchronization methods. Software sync methods usually are more processor/system intensive, but that was not an issue with the PowerTower Pro 180 used for test. Aurora claims to have highly optimized drivers and their minimum system configuration is specified as any PCI Power Mac with Quicktime 2.5 (or later) running OS 7.6 or later.
At first I considered the lack of on-board audio capability a negative but saw no problems with lip-sync during any of the tests. Not having audio on the card does allow the use of high-quality audio cards for true professional level audio input options.
Capture Performance:
Although I didn't have a 'torture test' sample tape to use, I did capture from various recorded tapes with high frame-to-frame image changes as a test (these were copyrighted tapes so I can't show the images here). I also used my VHS camcorder and several tapes I'd personally recorded under several different lighting and environment conditions. Other than the issues previously mentioned with the Miles PCI SCSI card, capture performance was very good using the on-board PTP SCSI and a Seagate Barracuda SCSI drive. I even had good results capturing video to the PTP internal Jaz drive, which surprised me.
640x480 video captured and played back smoothly with very good image quality and perfect lip-sync. I used 22Khz as the audio capture rate as that is more than enough bandwidth (11Khz) for the audio source (speech).
Miles SCSI card update:Aurora technical support sent a Miles SCSI Util settings example (see ID#1) that is said to fix the capture problems when using the Miles SCSI card with a narrow SCSI drive. I used similar settings without success on a wide drive array but I'll verify my settings and retest.

Image Quality:
The image to the right is a scaled down and jpeg compressed version of a full size sample (170K) that was taken with a low-cost VHS camcorder on a very overcast and cloudy day. It was taken on Skyline Drive and you can see why they call it the 'Blue Ridge Mountains', an effect exaggerated by the weather that particular day.
I think the image quality is pretty impressive, showing no loss of clarity from the original. In fact, this image was captured using the composite video inputs of the Fuse since the VHS camcorder had no S-Video connections. S-Video inputs would have resulted in an even clearer picture.

Fuse Image Sample

Considering the quality of the source material and hardware I used, I was very impressed with the Fuse's image quality. It put my old Bravado 1000 (R.I.P.) to shame.
While viewing the full size image (saved as jpeg with minimal compression), notice the uniform gradients of the sky. The lack of color blocks or watermark effects would be a sign of excessive jpeg compression on the capture or too low a data rate.The slight stair-stepping on thin lines is due to the fact this is a screen shot of a single NTSC frame (interlaced).
For examples of how data rate affects image quality, see NewMedia's review of the Bravado 1000 and Miro DC30.
The next page lists the Fuse hardware specifications.

Index of Aurora Design Fuse^tm Video Capture Card Review
Intro | Installation | Configuration | Performance | Specifications | Summary
- or -
Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM

Copyright © 1998.

No part of this sites content or images are to be reproduced or distributed in any form without written permission. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies.
Users of the web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.


Aurora Design Fuse^tm Video Capture Card Review date: 6/13/98
Fuse Performance in Adobe Premiere
Intro \| Installation \| Configuration \| Performance \| Specifications \| Features \| Summary
Performance
Audio/Video Synchronization: Although the Fuse card does not have on-board audio capture capability, I experienced no problems with audio/video sync. Cards with audio capture can lock the audio and video stream timing clocks together in hardware, whereas the Fuse has to rely on software synchronization methods. Software sync methods usually are more processor/system intensive, but that was not an issue with the PowerTower Pro 180 used for test. Aurora claims to have highly optimized drivers and their minimum system configuration is specified as any PCI Power Mac with Quicktime 2.5 (or later) running OS 7.6 or later. At first I considered the lack of on-board audio capability a negative but saw no problems with lip-sync during any of the tests. Not having audio on the card does allow the use of high-quality audio cards for true professional level audio input options. Capture Performance: Although I didn't have a 'torture test' sample tape to use, I did capture from various recorded tapes with high frame-to-frame image changes as a test (these were copyrighted tapes so I can't show the images here). I also used my VHS camcorder and several tapes I'd personally recorded under several different lighting and environment conditions. Other than the issues previously mentioned with the Miles PCI SCSI card, capture performance was very good using the on-board PTP SCSI and a Seagate Barracuda SCSI drive. I even had good results capturing video to the PTP internal Jaz drive, which surprised me. 640x480 video captured and played back smoothly with very good image quality and perfect lip-sync. I used 22Khz as the audio capture rate as that is more than enough bandwidth (11Khz) for the audio source (speech). Miles SCSI card update:Aurora technical support sent a Miles SCSI Util settings example (see ID#1) that is said to fix the capture problems when using the Miles SCSI card with a narrow SCSI drive. I used similar settings without success on a wide drive array but I'll verify my settings and retest.

Image Quality: The image to the right is a scaled down and jpeg compressed version of a full size sample (170K) that was taken with a low-cost VHS camcorder on a very overcast and cloudy day. It was taken on Skyline Drive and you can see why they call it the 'Blue Ridge Mountains', an effect exaggerated by the weather that particular day. I think the image quality is pretty impressive, showing no loss of clarity from the original. In fact, this image was captured using the composite video inputs of the Fuse since the VHS camcorder had no S-Video connections. S-Video inputs would have resulted in an even clearer picture.	Fuse Image Sample
Considering the quality of the source material and hardware I used, I was very impressed with the Fuse's image quality. It put my old Bravado 1000 (R.I.P.) to shame. While viewing the full size image (saved as jpeg with minimal compression), notice the uniform gradients of the sky. The lack of color blocks or watermark effects would be a sign of excessive jpeg compression on the capture or too low a data rate.The slight stair-stepping on thin lines is due to the fact this is a screen shot of a single NTSC frame (interlaced). For examples of how data rate affects image quality, see NewMedia's review of the Bravado 1000 and Miro DC30. The next page lists the Fuse hardware specifications.

Index of Aurora Design Fuse^tm Video Capture Card Review Intro \| Installation \| Configuration \| Performance \| Specifications \| Summary - or - Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM
Copyright © 1998. No part of this sites content or images are to be reproduced or distributed in any form without written permission. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies. Users of the web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.