Need considerations in choosing a video card

[slnorth]

I'm in need of a new video card and am having trouble getting consistent and reliable info on what to choose.

My 3-year-old Maxi gamer prophet 32 mb card just fried but prior to that, amazingly all went well with Pinnacle studio deluxe and a Panasonic PV-DV701 camcorder.

System:
ECS k7s5a main
WD 80GB 8mb cache 7200 HD
AMD 1800 thoroughbred
512 mb pc100 ram
HP DVD200I
Pinnacle Studio Deluxe
Some 16mb video card (temp)

I was about to order a XFX GeForce FX 5200 256MB DDR AGP8X with TV & DVI Video Card for $99 (seemed like a good deal) when I thought of including capture abilities with this upgrade. I then started to look at ATI all in wonders but they drop the RAM considerably and then raise the price. I would like to hook up the TV for recording shows etc now.

Is there such a beast as having 2 cards - capture and video? What features are good to look for?

Does having more RAM on the video card speed up the rendering/burning process? Is 256 ram that much better than 128 on the video card?
It took nearly 12 hrs to render & burn to DVD 60 minutes of video of my boys' football game. That didn't include the capture process.

Next on the upgrade list is better Mainboard ram, sound card, another Hard Drive dedicated to video work.

Any advise on this or added suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank You,
sln

[Will Hay]

Your system is not disimilar to mine, I love the K7S5A.
How great are your needs for gaming?
If you place capturing higher on your list than gaming then I suggest you go for the ATI AIW.
I have an ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo and love it.
It's at the lower end of the market for capture cards but its been wonderful for me and only cost £35 ($50-ish).
Beware though...
....I'm sure you'll be the first to admit you're coming into this rather niave, and simply choosing a card on recommendation is by no means the end of your problems.
You'll have to contend with out of sync audio/video and dropped frames, all of which are unique to each user's system.
You'll have to contend with huge file sizes and lack of storage space too.
My suggestion would be to read, read, read (the guides on this site), pick an ATI card and perhaps a second HDD too (capturing to your primary drive isn't wise and is often the cause of frame loss).
Then post back, possibly in the newbie section (you'll experience more patience there).
Good luck
Will
Ps. Oh, and I have Studio 8 and would never recommend it for anything other than DV, it has horrednous audio/video sync issues for anaolgue capture. I use Virtualdub.

[Will Hay]

Oops, missed one

Does having more RAM on the video card speed up the rendering/burning process? Is 256 ram that much better than 128 on the video card?

Yes, but not for speeding up the encoding and certainly not for burning.
Encoding is dependant on both your system RAM and processor, and buring speed is (of course) depenedant on the speed of your burner.

It took nearly 12 hrs to render & burn to DVD 60 minutes of video of my boys' football game. That didn't include the capture process.

Twelve hours seems a long time to me, but you haven't said what you encoded to (which format) but I'm guessing it's mpeg2 (DVD).
I'd expect my system to encode a 60 minute clip to 8000CBR (quality of encode) mpeg2/DVD in around five hours.
Will

[Will Hay]

System:
ECS k7s5a main
WD 80GB 8mb cache 7200 HD
AMD 1800 thoroughbred
512 mb pc100 ram

I'd suggest upgrading to DDR memory, but in your case,at the very least, PC133.
You're not running your processor at it's full speed by running PC100 and remember, if you do install PC133 you need to alter the BIOS so the K7S5A alters the processor clock speed.
Will

[Will Hay]

I really should edit rather than re-post but I can't be bothered
If you do buy an ATI AIW I'd suggest checking this site out if I were you
lordsmurf's guide to capture with the ATI AIW
Will