warning: long post, just describing my results, may be I can help someone.

hi, after about 1 year of various tries (with some relaxing stops, it's really boring when things don't work ...) I decided to stop trying and be satisfied with the results achieved, even if it's quite far from what other people can do, at least reading the post in this forum.
first I have to thank everybody who, in the past, tried to help me, and vcdhelp site, a must for me.

my configuration:
- ati aiw 128 agp 32mb ram
- athlon 900 on a via 133 based mb
- sb 128 pci
- 30gb quantum 7200rpm + 40gb ibm 7200 rpm
- cdrom, cd-writer
- w98se, wme and w2k (I miss just xp, but I don't think it could be the soultion ...)

the problem: I want to capture from vhs to vcd/svcd in the best way possible, but I lose frames if I try to capture above 288 v/res.

as I wrote, I made tries in 3 different os, using at least 3 different versions of ati drivers, making all kind of fresh install, defragmenting and benchmarking the hdds, installed 4in1 drivers, and whatever you can think of.
the drivers that came with the card (ver 4something) give me both vfw/wdm capturing, the latest in ati site only wdm, I wrote ati, they sent me a cd (I couldn't believe it!) with drivers they told would solve my problems, they were 6292 ver an gave me only wdm, grain ...
I made most of my tries using virtualdub, playing with the settings (overlay/non overlay, chunk size, things I will never understand even what they sound like...) but the best I can get is 352*576, using vertical reduction, so 352*288 huffy compressed avi, to convert into vcd using tmpgenc.
if I try more vertical res, it begins to lose frames in a tremendous way (I forgot, I even tried to capture without audio ...).
this is better than the file I get with a 480*576 mpeg2 capturing with mmc (and I don't have to hack the registry and demux/mux the file).
so no svcd, only xvcd.
yesterday was holyday so I sat down, wife shouting at me I should clean up the house, and did some more tries, installed/deleted a couple of times w98se with drivers of some kind.
I stopped with this configuration, which seems the best I can get:

- wme fresh install
- latest ati drivers
- mmc 7.6
- codecs
- latest via 4in1 drivers
installed in this order.

I use mmc for capturing, picvideo mjpeg compressor set to 18/19, 704x576 res !!!! and lose no frames !!!!
audio and video seem to be in sync.
I just use virtualdub in my w98se system, where I have first ver of ati drivers installed, only for small divx direct acquiring, for svcd's I go with my last config that seems ok and forget virtualdub.
hope I could help at least one person.
I have one little question, but I'll write another post just for it, cheers to everybody.