Capture Performance

I did a large number of analog tests for resource measurement and other purposes and never once had problems with capture through WME. The quality of the captures seemed fine, though it was only an eyeball test. Audio capture tests were trouble-free when done via WME, and the results sounded good.

There are a few shortcomings of the product, however. To feed live video to a streaming server other than Microsoft's Windows Media Server, you must use the board's "Osprey 100" compatibility mode. While the Osprey 100 is a widely used and solidly performing board in its own right, using this mode obfuscates many of the 500 DV Pro's capabilities — including digital video input. For non-live encoding, a Direct-X 8.0 Windows 2000-only utility called "WMCap" can capture to an extended AVI file, which can then be fed to the encoder of one's choice, such as the RealProducer Plus. Unlike WME, WMCap kicked and spat at me, and because it is undocumented, I had to keep tinkering with the settings to get it to work properly.

The Osprey 500 DV Pro also has no video or audio output capabilities, though this is minor since most users will already have audio monitoring of some kind, and video can be displayed on screen. (There will be video and audio outputs in the Osprey 2000, a next generation board to be released later this year. The Osprey 2000 will also capture SDI audio.) And finally, the documentation, which is excellent for the most part, has a couple of omissions that may require some tinkering or checking in with tech support to fully grasp.

The Bottom Line

For those who need a full range of video and audio capture capabilities, this is a great product that merits serious consideration. For those who need to feed live digital video data to the Windows Media Encoder, the Osprey 500 DV Pro provides first-of-its-kind functionality, which Microsoft's Digital Media Division had a close hand in developing. However, for those who need simple video capture or who need to feed live data to an encoder other than WME, the 500 DV Pro is not the best use of financial resources.

All in all, this is a well-built product that breaks the digital video barrier, provides unparalleled support for the Windows Media Encoder, and offers excellent scalability.

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