Looking at TV / Capture cards, have a few questions...

[DVantrease]

I am looking at getting a capture card, and have some questions. My primary desire is to capture home movies off VHS, but adding TV would be a nice bonus. Looking to go cheap, I'll probably capture raw and then convert (I've heard this makes better quality anyhow). I assume devices like Dazzle or Pinnacle don't have TV tuners, so I'm leaning toward a tv card which is cheaper anyhow.

Someone told me tv/capture cards only capture at 352x240, is that right? Can someone tell me what the resolution of VHS is, and also regular NTSC tv shows? If these are my source, I don't see a need to spend more money on higher resolution that will be wasted.

I'd also like to know if there are any tv/capture cards that handle their own audio, not thru the soundcard. The reason is, I borrowed a friends WinTV PCI card and captured with it once, but the audio was out of sync. Someone told me it's because my AWE64 soundcard is ISA, and when you capture with ISA and PCI together, things get out of sync. I don't want to replace my soundcard unless I have to. By the way, I have WindowsXP.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[D_Knife]

Try this on for size - a MPEG 2 encoder with a TV tuner!
http://www.provideo.com.tw/PV256.htm

[Trik]

Where would you find that card?
Provideo isn't listed at pricewatch at all...

[D_Knife]

In Australia - there are a couple of retailers that stock them - but I have not checked online prices yet

[Barnabas]

Take a look at the ProVideo PV-233 card. It can only do mpeg-1, but it's mpeg-1 captures look about as good as my ATI's SVCD captures. The PV-233 DOES capture audio right on the card, so you will not have sync problems. It uses the Winbond chipset.

You can find these on eBay at times by searching pv-233.

I would stay away from the PV-256 if you want to edit the files, as the stream machine chip used in the PV-256 (the same chip as the ADS Instant DVD) makes cutting nearly impossible with out losing sync. It also makes very poor looking VCD's. I own a PV-233, ADS Instant DVD and an ATI All In Wonder, but use the PV-233 most of the time now.