I currently own a zoran philips based tv card purchased in November of 1995 from a German manufacturer now defunct. I've tried to replace it three times, first with a Pinnacle Studio PCTV Pro, then a Hauppauge WinTV PVR and most recently with a PixelView Video Maker. Each time the quality of just the basic video let alone the mpeg encoding of the last two has been so ridiculously inferior to my now seven-year-old tv card I've had to send the new one back.

I noticed that the PixelView Video Maker currently has 3 comments 2 of which are positive! Obviously there are varying standards of quality but mine is simple it must equal or exceed the quality of a seven year old, wasnt that good to begin with, didn't cost anymore then than tv cards do today card. Things are supposed to get better over time.

So the question I pose is this: What is the best hardware MPEG1/MPEG2 capturing tv tuning 'PVR' card out there? Because I dont want to buy another inferior piece of crap.

In the next week I'm going to put up a page at http://www.purelithium.net/capturesamples/index.html with capture samples from my zoran, and if will you send me your samples I'll put those up too. mpegs are welcome try and keep em below a hundred megs please. You can find me to chat on dalnet in #artcadia quite often in the evening (GMT-8). And of course post your comments opinions here, ill be checking back often!

Seriously I want you're help!