Help Me decide on a PCI card

[SykoMachine]

ok
im completely new to capturing so...
i need help deciding on a card thats good has good capture quality
ive been lookin at:
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr250_datasheet.htm
everything looks good from the reviews here on this site,
except one person said thatu can only capture with their software
so can anyone make any suggestions?

[SLK001]

Winfast TV2000xp expert

[rcb]

or browse around in the "capture cards" section - l/h side this page

[skateni]

I have the WinTV PVR 350 and it works good. Add BeyondTV and you have glorified $2000 VCR.

[MrMungus]

The 250 is really good but I think I'd go for the 350 since it has s-video out so you can connect that to your TV to see what your clips are going to look like without having to first burn them to DVD. The capture software for the 250/350 models is fine (you won't need anything else).

Since you're asking about PCI cards, you might want to specify what kind of PCI card...I think you're asking about direct-to-MPEG-2 capture cards...

[SykoMachine]

well i was checkin out the reviews on the 350 and it said that u can only capture with their software

ive also been looking at:
http://www.ati.com/products/tvwonderproremote/index.html

but the reviews arent good

[SHS]

SageTV is only that can make use of 350 TVoutput and Ver 2.0 will make use OSD.
The best thing to do stop by forums and ask Q.
I suggestions sit down and figout what you want it to do for you, After all you do have a lot of option here like Capture REALtime Hardware, Soft REALtime or RAW AVI/DV capturing but keep mind SoftCapture take lot more time to do.
If your wanting to build a VCR then SageTV or BeyondTV will do and other 3rdparty tool like JovePlayer (Work Only with REALmagic Xcard), WinTVCAP, GBPVR, CTpvr and ShowShifter (Beta still need lot of work to useful).
I use SageTV, SageRecorder (For VHS Recording) and BeyondTV and have pair of WinTV-PVR 250 got to love that Multi-Tuner stuff.
Ho I also use Womble MPEG2VCR, Ulead DVD MovieFactory and DVD Shrink.

[SykoMachine]

ok
i want videos in XVid or divx, so do i have to have mpeg4 support or can i convert it to XVid or divx from something else?

EDIT
i just found this leadtek on newegg
is this what i want for capturing and watching tv?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=47&manufactory=12...tby=14&order=1

[SykoMachine]

any responses to my last post about the leadtek card?

[SykoMachine]

...

[johns0]

I have a Winfast TV2000xp expert card and it captures with any software in mpg1,mpg2 and avi(mpeg4)

[SatStorm]

You are new in this scene, you don't know plenty things about this hobby.
So, get a cheap bt8xx(x) based card, learn all the basics and the most neccessary advance stuff and then, you know yourself what "good" to buy.
Meanwhile, you only "wasted" about 45 Euros / 50 US Dollars, a small price to learn "safe" this hobby, without issues (like compatibility with the various programs, driver issues, installation problems).