About to start capturing but need help - resolution, PC-HW ?

[miniGranis]

Hello,

I am a newbie trying to understand this caption stuff as much as I can.
After spending several hours reading posts here and at tv-cards.com & doom9 I
still feel I have a few unanswered questions.

First this is what I want do do:
Capture analogue PAL-TV broadcasts using TV tuner on capture card (not from
VCR). The quality I need from this is VCR like or a bit better. All
captures will be watched on TV using TV-out from graphics card. I will not
store the majority of these captures: - Its more like capture - view on TV -
delete file. Once in a while I might capture a movie from TV that I do like
to save perhaps in DivX format.
The TV signal would come from my cableTV company and get split according to
this.

Wallsocket --> VCR --->
split ---> 32" Widescreen TV
split ---> 18" Bedroom TV
split ---> Captioncard on PC.

My long term goal is to use my PC instead of VCR to do all my TV recordings.
I would love to have the possibility to "program" my PC for captions from a
remote location (VNC) or perhaps via a email (I do run my own mailserver).
All to often I sit at work or at the bus and realises "I should have
recorded that, wouldn't it be nice to use my cellular send a mail to home
and program my PC-VCR - But that is all for the future.

Anyway, to my questions.
1, If I want to achive "bit better then VCR" quality when displayed on TV
(800x600 or 1024x768) what would be a good capture resolution ?

2, Would this old HW be Ok to run capture on ?
Old Abit BH6 with 512 MB RAM
CPU upgraded to 1.2GHz Celeron, No overklocking.
HD 120 GB 7200 rpm on original motherboard ATA controller (ATA 33 ??)
OS Win2k.

3, Capture card - I am thinking of PCTV rave due to price (about USD 40 in Sweden)
Any comment about this one ? The MSI TV @nywhere is about USD 60 here in Sweden.

4, Here in Sweden we use PAL and NICAM - you guys that only have mono cards - do you "miss" stereo capture alot ?? I do use my Dolby-digital receiver for my DVD viewing so I am kind of used to stereo. Perhaps this point towards using the MSI - but that all the SW problems...... the PCTV rave seems so much "stable" and you can pick and chose you "own" SW.

5, Timeshifting - would it be possible to have one PC running the capture
and another PC accessing the same file via LAN to view it ? This would IMHO be the ultimate timeshift but I guess the capture apps need "exclusive" file access - can anyone confirm this ?
Are anyone really using time shifting ? Cant find that many posts about it.

Sorry for the long post but I really would like to have some feedback before I rush to the shop..

Brg,
Emil - Sweden.

[fmctm1sw]

Anyway, to my questions.
1, If I want to achive "bit better then VCR" quality when displayed on TV
(800x600 or 1024x768) what would be a good capture resolution ?

2, Would this old HW be Ok to run capture on ?
Old Abit BH6 with 512 MB RAM
CPU upgraded to 1.2GHz Celeron, No overklocking.
HD 120 GB 7200 rpm on original motherboard ATA controller (ATA 33 ??)
OS Win2k.

1. I don't think you're going to be able to see a res of 800x600 or 1024x768 on your TV (assuming you have a regular old TV). Your tv and monitor are a little different in the way they present you a picture. Anyway, I'd try a capture res of 480x576.

2. I'm a little concerned with your ATA-33 hard drive. I think I could squeeze 480x480 with 24 bit color (or colour for you I guess ) with my old celeron 433 machine (ATA-33).

[miniGranis]

Hi !

I don't think you're going to be able to see a res of 800x600 or 1024x768 on your TV (assuming you have a regular old TV). Your tv and monitor are a little different in the way they present you a picture. Anyway, I'd try a capture res of 480x576.

Question - When capturing 480x576 doesnt the picture get distored from 4x3 or do you perform a resize atferwards ?

I'm a little concerned with your ATA-33 hard drive. I think I could squeeze 480x480 with 24 bit color (or colour for you I guess ) with my old celeron 433 machine (ATA-33).

I will have to try I guess !

Brg
Emil