What is the best capture card on a small budget?

[707Gaming]

I am trying to find a capture card that can be hooked up to an Xbox 360, has good to decent quality, and isn't extremely expensive. Please help me out if you can.

[aedipuss]

it depends a bit on what you what to capture. composite, s-video, component, or hdmi? anywhere from $20 to $200.

[jagabo]

Ie, high def or standard def?

[707Gaming]

it depends a bit on what you what to capture. composite, s-video, component, or hdmi? anywhere from $20 to $200.

I feel pretty stupid right now because i have no clue what a composite capture card is, an s-video capture card is, or a component capture card is? haha. i know what and hdmi capture card is. it connect to something through the hdmi port, but on my xbox its already in use.

[707Gaming]

Ie, high def or standard def?

hi def for sure.

[jagabo]

Ie, high def or standard def?

hi def for sure.

Then there are really only three choices:

1) AverTV HD PVR (~US$100)
2) Hauppauge HD PVR (~US$180)
3) BlackMagic Intensity Pro or Shuttle (~US$190)

The AverTV HD PVR and BlakMagic Intensity Pro capture raw video and compresses with software. They require a pretty hefty system. The Hauppauge captures with hardware h.264 video compression (AAC or AC3 audio) and doesn't require a lot of CPU power.

The AverTV and BlackMagic devices can capture both HDMI and analog component video (red, green, blue video cable, plus red and white audio). They will not capture HDCP encrypted HDMI (just about every commercial source like cable TV and Blu-ray players) so don't count on using them to capture movies, etc. The Hauppauge HD PVR will capture pretty much any component video source. It ignores Macrovision, the broadcast flag, and CPRM copy protection signals. Editing the h.264 video can be difficult. I don't know if the xbox 360 will output both HDMI and component at the same time.