please help. please help new to capturing need a little help

[kel]

Hey guys new to capturing need a little help,
i have a aver tv card and i use the aver software which came with the card.
it allows me to record straight onto my hard drive in either mpeg 1 or 2 format.
mpeg 2, 352 x 288
mpeg 1, 352 x 88.
i have tried to capture a video i have with rubbish results,
when i capture it to the hard drive it looks great, but when i tranfer it to
vcd it looks and sounds crap.
i have also tried the same in mpeg 2 with the same kind of results.
i have also rigged the pc upto the digital tv, and again it looks great on the pc but when i copy it to vcd it looks preaty bad.
i have also tried to take the mpeg i have captured and re-encode it
with tmpge it looks alittle better but not much,
i have also tried to use virtualdub, but it does not reconise the capture card.
what im trying to find out is what im doing wrong.
its it a crap capture card, am i using the wrong software, should i stop capturing straight to mpeg format? i need all the advice i can get here,
my pc has a 20 gig harddrive, and is a 500mhz.
i dont know what else i can tell you,

please help

[kel]

come on guys, give me a hand???