I am new to capturing so here goes. I have a USB Dazzle DVC 80 which I understand to be an entry level capture card. My source input is a Sony Hi-8 camcorder with SVHS/Composite Video out. My destination is SVCD 480x480 with the best possible results. I have burned several cds and while their quality is ok, I want to do better.

One of my biggest problems is frame dropping. I understand that to be normal for the USB capture cards. I have tested this theory between two pcs. One laptop with a 32 gb drive, 384mb memory, and a PIII-850. I drop on average 5-10 frames for every 30, totally unacceptable. I tried the same on a PIII-800 with 512mb memory, a 60gb UDMA drive, with a PCI Ultra-100 controller card. While the specs aren't all that different, the performance is vastly superior on the desktop. I get the same number of dropped frames, so I'm beginning to think my hardware is ok, the Dazzle DVC 80 is not.

I am looking for suggestions on the best video capture card in a $200 range or an alternative to the dropped frames. I also need to find the best software for capturing in 480x480. I have Premiere (somewhat complicated), Cinematic and Videowave 4. For the previous SVCDs that I made, it seems that I was forced by the software to capture at a smaller resolution than the intended 480x480, a limitation, I think, of the Dazzle. I then used Tmpgenc to upsize it to SVCD resolution, finally burning as SVCD in Nero. I have tried Nero's converter and it is no where near as good as Tmpgenc.

Obviously, I want the best results with the least amount of effort. I'm not crazy about capturing audio and video into separate streams and then combining them, but if that method provides the best results, I'm willing to try it.

I have read through this forum and there are many questions very similar to mine, although hardware and capture configurations vary wildly. Anyone who feels they have found the best method with similar hardware, please reply.