Help with Video/Capture Cards.

[drsimp12]

I currently have an ATI All-In-Wonder 7500 (AGP) and need to replace it. The problem is I have looked and looked and I can't see to find any new versions of the All-In-Wonder card for an AGP slot. The only one I did find was a All-In-Wonder® 2006 Edition, but not only can I not find the card. The reviews on this card are just terrible. Does anyone have a suggestions as to what I could buy to replace this video/capture card with? Would I have to buy a video card and a capture card separately or are there some other options?

[jman98]

I gave up on ATI cards about 5 years ago. I got sick and tired of the whole reliance on software encoding. There are good cards that do hardware encoding with a chip on the card that use PCI slots. If you have a PCI slot free, the Hauppauge PVR-250 and PVR-350 are excellent cards. I have the PVR-350. If you don't need TV out, the PVR-250 is otherwise identical to the PVR-350. As a last resort you could use a USB based card, but I've never been sold on them. PCI based cards work. My suggestion would be to dump ATI and go with some other brand, but many people are head over heels in love with ATI and would rather cut off an arm than do that. Back when I dumped my ATI card, I read about guys who spent $500 or more on memory and hard disc upgrades just to make their freakin' ATI card perform better when they could have just bought another card that did hardware encoding and didn't require any expensive PC upgrades to use for about $200. That's just crazy, but that's how people get when they fall in love with ATI. If you're one of those ATI lovers, you're just going to ignore my advice until someone gives you an answer involving ATI.

[edDV]

If you want to stay with AIW, ebay has AGP 9800's or x800's on the cheap.

[DarrellS]

AMD has screwed everything up. They expect you to buy a new motherboard and operating system to use any of their new cards.

I'm wanting to get an HD card but it looks like the only option that I have for Windows 2000 is an MIT MyHD MDP-130. The ADS Tech PTV-380-EF says it supports Windows 2000 but the system requirements says XP or Media Center.

[Richard_G]

Now I'm confused. I also currently have an AGP AIW 7500 and, despite what the ATI haters will have you believe, it has worked perfectly from day one and never failed (other than the bearings in the fan becoming very noisy so, being unable to find one to replace it with, just took it off). I am looking at an upgrade very shortly (which will involve virtually a new computer, motherboard, CPU, memory and probably hard drives too) and all the new motherboards now require PCI-e instead of AGP. I was looking at the AIW 2006 too but then read that it was AGP and not PCI-e. Maybe they do two versions in the same way as the earlier ones were available as either PCI or AGP. I've also not managed to find anyone in the UK who will sell me one either! Incidentally, where have you seen terrible reviews? I have only managed to find one and it was only criticised for it's poor gaming performance. As I have no interest in gaming, that doesn't bother me.

I would not touch a Hauppauge with the proverbial bargepole, who the hell wants to capture in mpeg? Mpeg is a final product format, not an editable format. Fine if you just want to grab the odd bit of footage off your TV and chop the commercial breaks out, but I want a card that can capture in uncompressed avi, with onboard analogue and DVB-T tuners, video in and out, all of which the AIW 2006 can and has.