Should I Even Bother trying?

[CauCauCau]

I've been reading through the forum for quite a while and I figured I've noticed that people really stress the importance of having good hardware for capturing video. I have the following:

Athlon 700
128 PC133 RAM
17GB 5400rpm harddrive
Windows XP

I'm thinking of getting a cheapish TV tuner card ($100 range) and I was wondering if I'm even going to be able to do any capturing at all.

Quality isn't extremely important to me. I'd be perfectly happy with VCD quality. All I really want to do is record the occasional hour long show and get it onto a CD (VCD, SVCD, DivX, whatever). I've examined the size of Huffy and uncompressed video and figured that I probably can fit an hour or two of lower resolution video on my harddrive (352x240).

I'm also worried about dropping frames. Will I be okay if I stick to low resolutions? I was thinking 352x240. Has anyone else captured decent video (VCD quality or higher) with a computer close to mine? Has anyone with a computer close to mine captured directly to divx or mpeg1 without massive frame dropping?

While it would be logical to upgrade my computer, that's not really an option for me right now. Within the next year I should be able to get a new box. The question is, should I bother picking up a tv tuner card and try to record at those low resolutions or do I have no hope of recording without massive frame dropping?

Nathan

[invisibler]

No....
I'm just kidding...Is it worth trying?

Do you want to try? The answer is up to you...
Even people with computers nearly 3 times faster with you often have to experiment to get results they like...there is no reason that you can't make a decent VCD on a 700mhz computer...

My first capture/editing computer was 400mhz and it worked fine...get a card for which your system meets the minimum requirements...of course, the slower the CPU, the longer the conversion time and its up to you if you want to take the effort...