Help Choosing Card/Hardware

[ginakra]

Hello all, I hope this is the right place for this question. Since you all are doing what I *want* to do, I hope some of you will help me on what graphics card to buy and if a solution is right for me.

I'm having a computer custom built for me, and I've been eyeballing the All-in-Wonder 8500DV. I'm most interested in capturing video from my analog camcorder (a digital is possible later on), and burning it to CD or DVD, or posting it on the web. My main use of the computer however, is web design--I do alot of work in Photoshop and I use color calibrations for my monitor and printer. I'm not a big gamer, and I *might* use the TV thing that the 8500DV allows, but I don't think I would die without that. My computer has to be *really* stable, as I will be using it for work purposes.

My question is--is the All-In-Wonder 8500DV the best thing for me, or do you guys have other suggestions? I read reviews on the AIW boards ranging from 'nothing works' to 'awesome beyond belief', and I'm confused. Should I get a regular graphics card and a seperate video capture card? I'm a complete newbie, and I've done research for about a month off and on--all the different ways you can do this is really overwhelming--and I'm still lost on what I should get.

Any guidance at all would be outstanding. I'll be getting a pentium 4 2.4Ghz, 120GB harddrive, 512MB ram, and Windows XP pro for this comp. Thanks!

[ginakra]

Okay, let me rephrase <grin>, at 32 views and no replies I must not have been too clear with the help I need

Um, Okay I'm a little afraid of the 8500DV simply because it seems a bit unstable--those of you who have it, could you please let me know how it's working for you--and if you have any video on the web that you've done with the 8500DV I'd love to see it--or even if you could email it to me, I have a cable connection and don't mind the bandwidth/time.

Did anyone have trouble hooking up their cable connection? I have Time Warner Cable, and most of it is digital--will I have trouble with that? Also, the cable connection for the internet, I assume I would need a splitter from the wall, and will that degrade performance of either/boht the internet connection and TV part?

Are there any other combinations of cards that I should look at? Is there something else better than the 8500DV that shares sort of the same features?

Thanks,
Gina

[crahak]

There are many cards that do capture. Lots of people find the ATI cards are fuzzy (capture wise, but again, that's not everyone)... Some people don't like the ATI drivers. Personally, I like having a separate video, and capture cards. You can always try a generic bt8x8 chipset tv tuner (and use soundcard for sound) and that way, you can get great quality (very most likely, your limitation will be your actual source, and what you're encoding to more than your capture itself...) for dirt cheap... Lots of happy people using them anyways. I'd rather take a slight chance be deceived with a about 50$ card, than a medium chance to be deceived of a card worth several times that... Anyways. Lots of dfferent opinions, thoughts and experiences about every card, situation, and it even depends on what format you're encoding to.... Try a search, you might find the information you're looking for. Good luck