Video Card

[freak2001]

AMD-1.4/40GB/512MB/16x Plextor/Firewire..
I am using my machine for the past 6 months with some old video card installed. I made couple of home movie vcd's from my sony trv-120, digital video camera using firewire. I capture to high quality AVI and then use Tmgenc to convert it to vcd format and burn it using Nero. So far I am happy with my progress.
I am planning to buy my new video card. I need some good suggestions for the videocard. I am not much into gaming but I do lot of these capturing from my camcorder and also watch lot of movies on my pc.(With my new video card, I prefer to watch it on my TV with tv-out option) and also want to capture from my VHS in to my pc.I also like to watch tv on my pc

Please pass ur advice with regard to videocard and highlight If I need to buy any capture card from getting my VHS on my pc. Also Please advice on tv-tuner card.

Thanks in advance

[incognito]

The all-in-wonder series seem to be popular around here,
and asus makes a simmilar card based on nvidia chips
that's said to be good as well.

However, my personal preference is against highly integrated
graphics cards. Computer components in general, and video
cards in particular simply become obsolete too
quickly. If you have seperate components, you can upgrade one
without throwing the rest away.

The ATI Radeon cards consistently get very high marks for
2d and video playing performance, however ATI drivers are
notoriously bad, making their cards less reliable.

I like Nvidia-based cards, mostly because their drivers
are very good. I have a powercolor geforce 2 mx card,
which displays nice, crisp text at 1024x768.

For capturing, I use a happauge wintv pci, and I have no
complaints about either it's capturing or it's tv tuner.
Love my wintv! There's even linux support. Yum.
For capturing, I use virtualdub (see the tools section)
since it suports prety much any resolution.

http://www.inpax.com has a dirt-cheap tv tuner. Don't know
how it performs.

Creative labs has just come out with a tv card that supports
hardware mpeg 1/2 compression for around $100. There's a
user report in the capture card section.

Do you use a digital camera or are you considering one?
I think pinnacle makes a card with a firewire input that's
supposed to be good.

For playing and TV out, you may wish to consider the
hollywood II plus card.

Again, by buying seperate components, you can upgrade one
at a time when they become outdated.