Help with capture card options

[Numbat]

G'Day,
I was after some info on what would be a good capture card here in the land of kangaroos and crocodiles and PAL tv (Oz-tralia). I already have a DAC-100 and TBC-1000 but I am thinking of upgrading video card / TV tuner card so I thought about getting something that allows me to capture old vhs as raw avi.

I will be encoding using TMPGEncPlus to dvd. I have 120GB HDD so large file sizes are not a big worry.

Choice is a limited over here in Perth I basically can choose from the following:

TV cards
Leadtek , Hauppage, Lifeview, Video mate

Video cards
there a no AIW cards at all, but can get ati9600pro with ViVo for a reasonable price, or nVideo GF4 or FX5700/5600 ViVo

I was after best possible caps. Is there any difference in quality between the ati AIW or ViVo only cards for capture from vcr?
Cheers for your help
Numbat

[redwudz]

I gave up on capture cards after I got a ADVC-100. I thought you could feed a VCR signal to a DAC-100, but you probably want an alternative. I would go to Lord Smurf's site: http://www.lordsmurf.com.
He seems to prefer the ATI cards and they seem to work well for him.

[Numbat]

Thanks redwuz, Lord Smurf does appear to be the ati guru.

Does anyone know what the differences (quality, software compatability etc) are between an ATI all in wonder and the plain old ati ViVo cards when capturing pal vhs?

The computer shops over here only stock the 9800pro AIW cards (outta my price range), when I asked they said the market is too small for these "specility cards". I am considering a 9600pro ViVo

[Sulik]

I didn't know ATI still made the VIVO versions. I used to have the original Radeon VIVO, and it was identical to the AIW except for the missing TV-Tuner.

However, you might want to make sure that it's a Built-by-ATI, or that it comes with the ATI MMC software for recording video.

[SatStorm]

Better go and buy a Hauppauge PCI card.

Any capture program, use this card as a refference.
It is cheap also.
Just keep in mind to get a model with s-video!

[fingernailX]

Good relatively unbiased info may be found here:
http://www.tv-cards.com

[lordsmurf]

ATI VIVO is more predominant in PAL-land.

The Theatre Rage chipsets (as opposed to BT-based chips) are the same as the ATI AIW Radeon chipsets, at least on all the ones I've seen.

So, yes, the VIVO and AIW would be the same capture chips.

[Numbat]

Thanks everyone for all your help, it is appreciated!

The ati 9600pro ViVo could be the one. It will probably help my gaming performance when half-life 2 comes out! Can't wait.

Cheers all.