Newbie feedback...which card should I upgrade to?

[123fish123]

I have an original ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon (no numbers after it....it's on a 2 year old Pentium 4 1.6 running XP with 1024 megs of RAM). I like it because it does what I need....I can watch TV and capture analog (although it does not capture great quality wise). I DO NOT play game.

I want a card that can:
First and foremost receive TV input (not HDTV but prefer channels > 99)
Second, capture analog and convert to VCD or DVD via MPG (but I don't want to lose quality like I do with my current card).


That's it! No bells and whistles needed. Any thoughts on a great card for this. I was going to upgrade to a new ATI-9600/9700/9800 but have read horror stories on the software and I don't need the remote and etc. Any guidance would be appreciated. THANKS!

[hudsonf]

I like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR cards.

[lordsmurf]

ATI AIW cards are one of the highest qualtiy capture cards around. If you're having capture trouble, read one of these guides:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/capture/atimpeg/atimpeg.htm

http://www.digitalfaq.com/capture/atiavi/atiavi.htm

The capturing aspect of an ATI card has not change much at all since 2001. All the RADEON AIW cards pretty much act the same. Use a good ATI MMC too, v8.7 is most stable, v9.0 is fine too.

[Bodyslide]

I upgraded my original ATI AIW to a AIW 9200. So far it works great. Got mine for 89.00 at Walmart on clearance....

[steveryan]

I've got an ATI All In Wonder VE PCI card that I payed £26 for, it pisses all over my previous Pinnacle and Hauppage dedicated TV cards. I'd stick with ATI if I were you, they are worth it for the MPEG captures alone.

This message is sponsored by Lordsmurf

[funkguy4]

the reason for loss in quality when compressing to some MPEG derivative may well not be your card....maybe check the video for static and such....