soundcard or onboard sound for video capture?

[david151]

I am just in the process of putting a system together for uncompressed video capture from VCR (using all in wonder 9800). In terms of capturing the sound with the video I wondered what the best option would be?

1)My motherboard is the Asrock ALiveDual-eSATA2 which uses the C-Media CM6501 Audio Codec with UAA architecture. The motherboard has a CD header directly on it so I could connect the All in wonder card with a CD cable directly to the board and use onboard sound for capture.

2)Use a sound blaster audigy 2 zs which I currently already have, however this card is much older than the motherboard so would it really be much better than using onboard sound in option 1?

3)Use a sound blaster x-fi fatal1ty which seems to be a step up from the audigy 2 zs, however how beneficial would it be compared to onboard sound in option 1?

4)Use an M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496. From forum reviews it seems this is a highly rated card and provides a great balance between cost and performance. While the SoundBlaster cards are often referred to as gaming cards the M audio seems to have the edge in terms of professional sound recording. The problem is the card does not have any headers on it to accept a CD cable from the All in wonder card. I know I could just bypass the All in wonder card and go from the VCR for audio directly into the soundcard, however I have read a few posts saying it is better to pass audio through the All in Wonder card to help reduce sync problems.


I would be really interested to see what people recommend. Not really worried about expense (within reason) as I just want to get the best results I can.

Thanks Dave

[sanlyn]

I don't know where you found all those great reviews for M-Audio. I've seen up to 50% user complaints about defects, install issues, and capture problems. Plain vanilla SoundBlaster Audigy has served me OK for a number of years, and a mid-priced newer ASUS card also worked well. Many capture cards prefer that you use the extra audio connection from audio card to capture card to avoid sync problems.

Onboard audio cards are noisy and inferior to even many budget PCI cards.