Input wanted on my next purchase

[deleeuw]

I am looking to buy a AV capture device for use with my laptop. (3 GHz P4 HT, 1 GB RAM, 128 MB Radeon 9600 Pro) Ones I have tried in the past have been pretty crappy. I basically want something that will allow me to capture video at the best possible quality and also be something I can use to hook up video games systems and play them on my laptop's LCD. I have 3 USB 2.0 ports in case that is a factor.

Looking forward to some input. Thanks.

[deleeuw]

Would buying this:
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/techspecs.jsp?prodkey=AFW-1430&cat=%2fProduct...&fromarea=prod
and then getting a firewire-based capture device be a good idea?

[nelson133]

First of all, any AV capture should not be usb, lots of trouble in most cases there. If you don't have a firewire port, it may be possible to get one on a card, I don't do much with laptops so I don't know. With a firewire port you can use some video cameras to directly capture video. I suggest windv as a transfer program, it's good and free. The other best solution, with no video camera is the Canopus ADVC 100 box, which takes input video and converts it to DV, which is then fed to the firewire port in your computer. Search in capture card section for reviews, all I will say about it is that it simply works and does just what it is advertised to do, every time. You will seldom find anything negative said about it by people who actually own and use one, the negative comments usually come from people pushing another product. One drawback to any video work on a laptop is that the files tend to be very large. DV video is about 13gig per hour, with additional room needed for the DV to mpgII conversion, to make compatable dvd files. You might need an external hard drive.
I don't do the games thing, can't help you there. Nyah Levi

[deleeuw]

thanks