seeking best current analog vid & audio capture... and potential w/ tun

[Brad Bailey]

I would like to get analog video and audio into one of my computers so that I can capture from cameras, VCRs, etc.... and get to most easliy editable AVI (or MPEG2 which I can use VideoReoPlus to edit). I have wanted to get capture card that won't include having to add new potentially conflictinf video editing siftware to. (I have a Pinnacle device that only works with Pinnacle Studio installed....but as I use WMM or Premiere Elements to edit... adding such programs can be a road to conflicts such as codecs.)

Any advice or suggestions really appreciated.

Appears ATI Wonder may offer this with it’s TV tuner card. Are there TV tuner cards that wil also have RCA video - audio composite analog capture?

Thanks,

Brad

[ozymango]

I think pretty much any of the ATI All-In-Wonder cards will accept composite video; you may have to get an S-Video to RCA adaptor for somewhere in your stream if the connectors don't match, but that's it.

Along those lines, if you plan on editing your video at any advanced level (besides cutting out bad footage and/or moving scenes around without funky cool transitions), you'll most likely want to capture as AVI (DV or other compression) as that'll get you the cleanest quality for advanced editing. And I'm not aware of any hardware MPG2 device that also captures as AVI, though the ATI's use a combined hardware/software approach that gives you sorta the best of both worlds, plain AVI capture plus "on the fly" MPG2 recording (with software assist) for when you just want to do simple cuts.

Hope that helps more than it confuses! :P

EDIT: If you go the ATI route for AVI, or Hauppage for MPEG2, I can guarantee you'll find, in these forums, enormously helpful responses for pretty much any question you have regarding their use!