capture cards?

[gabdolcader]

hi - i just bought a dell system with a geforce 2 mmx video card installed in it. since i do not really know anything about capture cards, can somebody tell me if the geforce 2 mmx video card will allow me to capture video or is it just for games? i have a bunch of old vhs tapes i would like to convert to vcd eventually. also, what's a good capture card to buy? i have a 1.7 Ghz cpu, 40 GB hard drive, and 256 MB of memory. thanks.

[dezine]

If you have a firewire port onboard then I would recommend the Canopus ADVC Converter box. My system came with OHCI Firewire ports already in my system so instead of getting a capture card I purchased the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge but was unhappy with it so I purchased the ADVC100 to replace it and it has worked flawlessly.
By using the ADVC I already now have a breakout box that enables me to capture/export via firewire AV or SVideo.
If you don't have Firewire already I might suggest the ATI Wonder card as I have heard very good things about that.
The Pinnacle cards are a good investment.
I have read great reviews on the Canopus cards but they are pricey. Look on their site and you will see choices. I have been very happy with my Canopus purchase.

P.S.: If you plan to capture VHS video to your computer, then make sure that you have a good VHS player. I had tried to hookup an inexpensive New Toshiba VHS player to capture video. That was a mistake, Bad quality capture as video was fuzzy and had motion tracking.
I decided to drop the bucks for a profesional SVHS JVC unit that had a built in TBC (Time Base Corector, corrects audio/video sync isues as well as balances out color) and images equalization as well as a built in Mini DV player as well.
My captures were perfect, 4 hours of video with 0 frame drops and perfect crisp video.
The unit was $1,200 but worth it as an investment for me because I do alot of VHS conversion fo burning to DVD.
A good SVHS player might work well in your case.

Best of luck,
Dezine (Michael)