I've been using a BT848 capture card, an Intel Smart Video Recorder III from a PCI Create & Share PC camera, to capture video 8 and vhs.

I can capture full frame 720x480 in VirtualDub just fine with only a frame drop every 2000.

My question is whether the mid range capture cards from Pinnacle (DV500) or Canopus will produce a "cleaner" capture, e.g. less noise and more sharper than my lowly BT848?

I'm not interested in the editing features of the more expensive cards. I just want the best uncompressed capture to AVI. I then encode with TMPGEnc and then burn to DVD.