capture cards

[techtaz2k]

Looking to spend around $40 - $80....

Just bought a stupid i/o magic card from incompetinent (Comp) USA...
tech said it would have both a video output and input...turns out only records from tv (which I wanted to convert vcr tapes) and it doesn't output to a tv and it says it has a avi. to mpg converted...all were wrong

Here's what I'm looking for
1. Card that can output video to a TV.
2. Card that can record sat, dvd, or vcr.
3. Card that has software that can compress avi to mpg

I at least need something that can do 2 and 3

Also I tried that avi to mpg converted (the tp whatever & avivcd) and both take about 2 days to decode stuff then the only thing they encode is audio, I get no video and I've read your how to sections and didn't find anything on them....Help GREATLY appreciated

[Anonymous65]

The card you got is a basic BT8x8 card. If you have a fast PC, you can capture high quality video in AVI and then software compress to mpeg. If you have a slow PC with a small hard drive, forget it!

To jump over getting a fast powerfull PC with a 80 gig hard drive, you can get a hardware based mpeg compressor. The cheapest and best card is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 for $150. It does not have a TV out, only inputs and for capture. It has a TV tuner, composite and S-video inputs. It will record VCD, SVCD and DVD mpeg compressed video in real-time.