Could someone please help someone new to capture cards.

[Eddie-D]

I'm interested in purchasing a capture card for the sole purpose of creating DVD backups of my entire VHS library. I'm not interested in cards that come bundled with special effects software or software primarily used in presentations, be it in business or on the net. All I want to know is what are the best cards out there that will allow me to create videos I can then burn onto CD's that will be as close if not identical to my VCR tapes. About $500 is my absolute limit, preferably $300, but would like any opinions any of you might have. Thanks in advance for those who take time to help out.

[spiderman2k1]

Use the dazzle 2 capture card the best editting software for MPEf2 is MPEG2VCR 3.11 use Unlead DVD nero is good to for SVCD. Also for cheeper money ALL IN WONDER is oh ok with 7.5 but 7.5 has bug's in it the next version should be better. IF I was you only Use Windows 2000

http://stop.at/dazzle2

Has some problem with some AMD mother board its the chip set on the mother boars to look in to it more


http://www.digitallyactive.com/dazzle/

[Nexzus]

I agree, the Dazzle DVCII is tops. Don't use on AMD though.

[Eddie-D]

Dazzle seems to be the consensus pick, but what's the difference between the Dazzle DVC II, and the Dazzle Hollywood Bridge DV. They're the same price, but the Hollywood Bridge card, according to the Dazzle website seems to be specifically for VHS backup. What's the difference between the 2? Anyone know?

[Nexzus]

The bridge, is just that, a bridge between various video connections (composite video, s-video) to firewire. You then capture via firewire to (1) Adobe Premier (full AVI - HUGE files) or (2) a capture program which will use your CPU/memory for converting to MPG on the fly.

The DVCII has an MPG2 PCI hardware card. Meaning it does hardware based MPG encoding on the fly, which is always better then letting your system's CPU handle all the processing.

I originally was going to get the Bridge, but decided that I wanted a hardware MPG2 encoder.