I will be building a new PC, consisting of a
Win2K pro or WinXp pro
AMD Athlon XP 1900+
SOLTEK SL-75DRV5 ATX KT333 Motherboard
512mb Micron DDR (or Samsung, which is better?)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Platinum 5.1
Maxtor 80.0GB HD 7200rpm
etc...
and I can't decide whether to get the
ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV 64MB DDR AGP4X w/S-Video & DVI-I Box
or the
MSI (MS-8871) G4Ti4400-VTD 128MB DDR AGP w/TV & DVI

I was thinking of getting the AIW 8500DV because it was the best Video capture solution, well until I found out about the Geforce4 4400. The 8500DV has better video capture features, but some I don't need at all. One of these features is the TV tuner, I WILL NOT WATCH TV ON MY PC. I have Sattelite TV, so a TV tuner for my PC is pointless. The 4400 has TV in and out via S-Video and that's all I need for video capturing. The DV feature of the 8500 is appealing though, because I have and will be using my DV camcorder with my PC. Not initially though, but someday for sure . I can always get an ATI DV wonder card later. Hmm, actually I think the Creative Audigy Platinum comes with a firewire port, if I'm not mistaken that can be used to hook my PC up to my DV camcorder. The GF4 4400 also is a little cheaper, $475 CDN while the AIW 8500DV is $510 CDN. I have never used a Nvidia card before but I have used 3 ATI Cards, Ati Xpert & @Play, and the Radeon 32mb DDR. One thing I have learned abotu ATI is that they have horrible drivers, and practicly non-existance technical support. I'm not sure how it is with Nvidia cards but I heard it's a lot better. The GF4 will obviously kill the 8500DV in performance (the AIW is crippled), but the main reason why I havn't decided to get it instead of the AIW is that I'm not sure of it's Capturning capabilities. The 8500DV is considered more of a capture card rather than a gaming card, the GF4 4400 is considered more of a gaming card. Because of this I fear the capture capabilities of the GF4 are lacking, but reviews for this card testing the capture capabilites are hard to find. Of course I will be playing some games on my PC, aslo I may use some professional 3D animation software later on too.

If you are wondering, I will be capturning video preferably in SVCD Mpeg2 format at 480x480 resolution. I may be playing around with higher resolutions but SVCD's is what I will be focussing on the most. If the software that comes with the card won't be capable of capturing this type of resoltution, I'll definitely use 3rd party software. There is loads of info on this at vcdhelp.com so I'm sure to find something.

So what do you guys think? Will the MSI GF4 Ti4400 be capable of doing what I need it to do or should I go with my origonal plan and get the ATI AIW 8500DV? Thanks for all the help, it's very much appreciated.