The best tv card?

[adde2]

Planning to buy a tv card. Any good ones out there, for max $200.

thanks

[dumwaldo]

yes i have an idea. hit the search button at the top of the forum and search for capture card then read one of the threads that already discusses this in great detail.

[imaTater]

hey dum,

why dont YOU hit the search button and tell me what happens...

(HINT: it doesnt work right now...)

[dumwaldo]

ok while i try to pry my foot out of my mouth why dont you look over this...

https://www.videohelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=71859&forum=2

sorry

[k4e4n]

By the way, Dumwaldo, Any more info on the Xtasy Everything card? Have you had a chance to use it more? I am considering it to replace my PCTV pro. Does it work with WinXP?

[dumwaldo]

unfortunatley no i have not really had the chance to do anything i could consider practical enough to advise others based on.

what i can say about the card is that it seems completely glitch free on my system. i can capture uncompressed avi's and MPEG-2's that look exactly like what i see from the source. but the source is a dirty signal and even in just plain TV playback mode with no timeshifting on the image is grainy. the scheduled record feature is exactly what i was looking for as well. it works flawlessly and lets you fully customize each program so i can save shows i consider important in higher quality and shows i consider less important in lower quality and make the most efficent use of my disk space. so i can save law and order in good enough quality to make VCD's and i cave the simpsons in low quality to just watch on my PC then discard.

problems i have NOT had any trace of at all are sync issues and droped frames. now granted the recording software i am using does not detail droped frames the way virtualdub does but even in virtualdub i cant get this thing to drop any more than 1 out of 1000 frames when capping at 352x240. the only way i have seen any unacceptable loss of frames is going for larger resolution and i am pretty sure that has more to do with my P3-533 than it has to do with the card.

anyway remember this is all early info and i do need to completely check it out but so far it is looking very good.



my entire home entertainment system/computer is all wired together resulting in quite an impressive spider web of wires. i was hoping to do some reconfiguring this weekend but social obligations sort of prevented that. this week i WILL get out to radio shack and get what i need and i will get everything rewired in a way that i can use my dvd player as a source. once i get that done i am sure i will have a long winded and detailed post to bore the hell out of everybody with.