capturing tv with the best quality and smallest file

[rosswolf78]

I'm really new to this, and I'm wondering if there is a good program for capturing tv using a tv tuner card. I have a ati tv wonder card, and I'm using their program to capture and save the file. The problem I'm having is either the file has to be really big or the quality is poor. If this has been discussed before (i'm sure it has), could someone point me in the right direction or give me some tips.

Thanks in advance,

rosswolf78

[webberm73]

I have the same card. I downloaded the Soundforge drivers for the TV card and use VirtualDub to capture. It works great. I can capture at 480x480 @ 30 FPS with only a PIII-500. I've done a lot of conversion from VHS to SVCD this way. I use Adobe Premiere to do all my editing and frameserve it to TMPGEnc with the Premiere Video Server. The ATI TV Wonder card is very good for the paltry amount of money I spent for it.

[vcdfreak]

If your card support MPEG-4, that will be a nice alternative.