Does it matter what app I use for capturing? Quality?

[Wile_E]

I'm doing analog to DV capture using Sony Vegas Movie Studio, and a Canopus ADVC-300. I get some dropped frames sometimes.

I was recommended to try WinDV free capture program because it has a buffer. It works, but I'm concerned if there are any quality differences between capture programs? Once my Canopus ADVC-300 converts the signal to DV, does it matter what program you use to capture?

[upshot]

not really... unless you are converting it to another codec on the fly.

[Wile_E]

okay thanks. So the capture software doesn't really do anything with the video stream data, except converting it to an AVI file.

[upshot]

If I understand it correctly, your actually just 'transferring' a type 2 DV file onto your harddrive with a .avi header (or container). There is really no 'conversion' happening. Unless you use something like iuvcr and set the codec to .mjpeg for example. read up a bit and youll understand...