Suggestions on which capture card to buy please

[ladygrey]

Hello Everyone,
I badly need suggestions on what capture card to get. I am just lost as to what I need to have. I am not rich and I don't need professional quality, just being able to view what I capture and burn in a normal way is all I need. I will be burning to CD in SVCD or VCD format and if it's actually possible to record to VHS tapes too. I need to be able to get video and audio from my HI8 camcorder and my VHS. My camcorder has an S-Video and a I guess you would call it a minijack that plugs into the camera and ends in two RCA jacks(yellow and white). I don't need or really want a TV tuner thing but I'll take it if I have too. My system specs are in my profile I think but just in case they aren't they are as follows:
Built system
AMD Athlon Barton XP 2500+
MSI K7N2 Delta-L
512 MB DDR PC 2700 RAM
PNY Nvidia Gforce 5200 AGP
OnBoard Nvidia audio
2-30Gig Maxtor HDDs
Running W2K SP4 and all updates
All drivers are updated for all components
Liteon CD/DVD ROM
Unknown CD burner, I inherited it
I'm pretty sure I'll need to have a PCI card which ever one I get.
As you can tell I'm really a confused person here I just want to be able to plug in my camcorder, or VHS player and burn family stuff to share, without a lot of hassles or expense and to have it at least viewable on a normal DVD player or VHS machine. I would really appreciate any help, suggestions, links, anything! Thanks very much!
LG

[snafu099]

I highly recommend the ADS usb InstantDvd-2
http://www.adstech.com

basic review: usb cap device using hardware encode of both vid and audio to mpg. cap from any analog source to mpg and also output mpg to analog output.

excellent quality and No sync problems

[ladygrey]

snafu thank you so much for the recommendation. I'll go check it out!
LG

[rhegedus]

Your graphics card should already have TV-out capability, so no need to worry about that.

If you can connect your camcorder to your VCR then you can probably 'pass-through' the video to your PC via the VCR. If that is the case then you just need a capture card that can capture from VCR.

I started out using Hauppauge cards and with some tweaking can be made to work really well with VirtualDub - should be able to get a PCI card quite cheap ( <$70? ).

I only gave mine up once I got into DV captures.

[sacajaweeda]

This is how I got mine

[ladygrey]

Wow! So much info. Thank you all very much I at least have a starting point now!
LG

[andkiich]

Don't forget to check out the ATI All-in-wonder cards. Decent prices and excellent quality in my opinion.

A good place for info on capturing and ATI cards: www.lordsmurf.com

[Coopervid]

I have a Hauppauge PVR-250 and I'm very satisfied with it on my Intel system but I have to warn you not to go for a Hauppauge on an AMD. Not recommended.

[rhegedus]

Don't forget to check out the ATI All-in-wonder cards. Decent prices and excellent quality in my opinion.

Would mean throwing away the perfectly good graphics card he already has.

[Kolosus]

A little off topic, but I have to ask.
Twice lately I have read on this forum that a product does not do well with AMD processors. Namely, ATIAIW and Hauppauge. I have set both of these up on AMD based systems with no problems. Where is this info coming from? Personal experience? A link? Not being teste, just curious.

Regards.

[WuphonsReach]

I have a Hauppauge PVR-250 and I'm very satisfied with it on my Intel system but I have to warn you not to go for a Hauppauge on an AMD. Not recommended.

Care to back that up with some links? (I'm using a Hauppauge on an AMD nForce2 system with zero issues.)