need advice on starting this process

[chiefbagel]

I'm interested in capturing/watching tv on my computer, and I've read a lot of these posts, so I guess my question is how do I go about doing it? I have a Toshiba Satellite 2595CDT Windows 98, Pentium 2 processor. I doubt I have a video card or whatever it is you need to connect the tv to the computer. I know this is kind of a long question, but can anyone give me some starting off tips? I need to know how to connect the tv to the computer (and what I need to buy/download to do it), how to watch & edit & capture it once I'm connected, and then what to do with the images then. Sorry for the uneducated questions, but any help would be great! Thank you

[Shabubu]

First of all you need a capture card or a new graphics card that can do it (like an ATI all-in-wonder), there's suggestions on this site as to which is good and bad, look in the capture section. To watch TV you can either use the apps that come with the card or something like dTV. For capture the sam applies, though you would be better using virtualdub (free) or avi_io (not so free, though the demo is). If you want to capture you'll also need a very large and fast hard disc, with prices the way they are get a 40Gb 7,200 rpm one. You'll also need to get a capture codec like huffyuv (free) or picvideo (very not free). You also need as much ram as you can get and may need a faster processor (though a high-end p2 will probably do).