What capture card should I get?

[Rubberman44]

I am looking to get a capture card so I can capture things from VHS to burn to VCD or DVD.
What I want is a card that can capture straight to DVD or VCD ready MPEG from VHS. I see a lot of cards that say they have realtime MPEG encoders that can do this. Does this also mean that if I have some AVI files it would be able to encode them to MPEG faster?

So what capture card should I get?

[lordsmurf]

I've tried to help friends and family with their cheap-o cards, and all I've got to say is that I'm glad I have my ATI. I'd never want to deal with their problems on a daily basis. Outside of an ATI card, I've never seen another card do good on MPEG capture. It's top quality, it's compliant DVD quality, and it works. A bit of tweaking in the software, but I wrote a guide (and will be expanding it soon) to help out with that.

[housepig]

Does this also mean that if I have some AVI files it would be able to encode them to MPEG faster?

nope - the two are not related - one is capturing from an external source, the other is an internal conversion.

as for which card - figure out what you are willing to spend. check the Capture Cards section at left and look for cards in your price range, and see what other users had to say about them.

for me, I didn't want to spend more than $50 when I got my card, so I looked around and found the Aver EZDVDmaker - decent reviews, inexpensive, not hard to set up, and it was in my price range. And I've been happy with it - it's given me a good bang for the buck.

[SLICK RICK]

LORDSMURF,

Will any ATI AIW do or should he look at a specific one?

Which one do you have?

SLICK RICK

[lordsmurf]

LORDSMURF,

Will any ATI AIW do or should he look at a specific one?

Which one do you have?

SLICK RICK

I have an AGP ATI All In Wonder Radeon DDR32 (which is the 7200 chipset), and the PCI ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7200. I tried the TV Wonder and the VE-something, and I took those back to the store. If I had it to do all over again, I'd have gotten the AGP instead of the PCI for my second card, but I've got it working (see past posts for my problem, which ended up being RAM, onboard soundcard, and PCI speeds).

I'd say shoot for either the ATI AIW 7500, 9700, or 9800, depending on what you can afford.

I've seen the VIVO and the older 128 PRO in action (friends that have them), and it wasn't impressive. It appears that only the AIW RADEON cards are the good ones. They've since added 9000 cards to replace theirs.

[SLICK RICK]

housepig,

Is this the one you have?

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?DEPA=1&submit=manufactory&catalog=47&manufac...n=&Order=price

SLICK RICK

EDIT. I am referring to the first one on the page.

[housepig]

Slick Rick -

yep, that's the one.

[SLICK RICK]

housepig,

Does it give good quality captures from vhs?

How do you capture the sound?

SLICK RICK

[housepig]

Does it give good quality captures from vhs?

How do you capture the sound?

I think so

I get better quality if I capture to avi and convert, rather than capturing direct to mpeg.

I run the sound into the onboard soundcard.