Hey all...
This might be opening a can o' worms, but what options are available out there for capturing -above- 720x480 (or 520 or what have you) from an analog (component) input. Here's the deal - I'm constructing a box for someone who gets all hot and bothered over specs. He's got HDTV via cable (motorola 5100 (?) box I think) and wants the ability to cap these HD programs at the highest possible res (and, yes I realize that dumping say the DVI out from the cable box into a computer is pretty pointless (if not impossible)).

So, is he locked at 720xwhatever, or are there any cards out there that will capture at a higher res? Pros/cons of doing it are over his head (and hey, for that matter, we should be able to PVR hdtv stuff at similar resolutions, right? I know that they cable companies are starting to offer such a service (and its an option I suppose) but why get locked into their paradigm?). Same idea with hd satellite... god knows I've seen VERY nice sat rips (which I'm fairly positive weren't OTA) - are they just capping at 720xXXX or are there better cards out there???

Feel free to discuss other hardware that would be needed if you like (cpu, HDs, etc etc) but I'm fine on that front (well, file sizes are a concern... not sure exactly what they'd be at higher res (raw/mjpeg/etc/etc).

Thanks for the help (I'm being optimistic!)... I'm getting extremely PO'd at finding capture resolutions (in fact, all of the info is anecdotal, either from here, the usenet or places like divx-digest... I've yet to see a manufacturer (maybe ATI did?) actually tell you any resolution other than 320x240 on their cheap models...

Yah, I know that the max res of 720xwhatever is tied to the DVD standard... but that paradigm seems to be a bit dated what with HDTVs (arguable, I know... how would one archive a higher res? W/o involving a PC for playback...)

Note: do ANY of these HD cards have analog tuners that can handle higher resolutions? I know I'm refrasing the question... I realize that the HDTV "tuner" would be a very seperate component (from the analog one)...

At worst, does anyone have any rumors about cards coming out with the higher resoltions?

Thanks again!