The right VHS capture card? Fairly specific requirements.

[PlayingKarrde]

Hi all,

I've been racking my brains on this dilemma I have for a few days now and it's getting to frustration point and I require your knowledge and experience in helping me make my decision.

Basically, here is what I want to do.

I live in the UK, but I have NTSC videos that I want to capture to VCD and then later if I ever get a DVD burner, to DVD-R/RW. I need the card that I get to be able to capture decent quality video that I can edit in third party programs (After-Effects, Premiere etc).

The card that I get needs to be relatively cheap (no more than £130 - $200) and as I said, needs to do both MPEG1 and MPEG2 encoding as I want the option to do DVDs later on.

I originally considered the WinTV PVR 250 but it is getting very mixed reviews. I could really do without a weeks setting up and headaches, and I hear that it won't intertwine between NTSC captures on a PAL card. This is imperative as the tapes I want to capture will be NTSC only 95% of the time.

I also don't want a video card as I want to keep my Geforce 3 in there. The ATI Radeon 8500 may have been a good choice if it weren't for that fact.

Is this the best:easiest way of going about capturing video to VCD/DVD or should I be looking for a different method? If all goes well I envisage doing a lot of capturing so I'd preferably like to get it as pain free as possible.

Oh, the ADS USB DVD whatsit was also another option and I hear that the A/V sync is a lot better with the latest drivers and software updates. I don't really want to be constrained to the programs that come with the Hardware in order to capture and edit though if possible (I realise the PVR 250 does make you use it's software to capture). This isn't easily available in the UK as far as I can find though, so isn't on the top of my list.

In a nutshell it would appear the PVR 250 is the best for me, but what do I know? I appreciate all help given to me on this as it's quite important that I get it right.

Thanks a lot.

[Bondiablo]

unless you're dead set on capturing direct to mpeg the canopus advc-50 would be the best option for the money you're willing to spend. you just end up having to convert avi files to mpeg with something like tmpgenc.

http://www.canopus.com/US/Products/index/products_advc.asp

[paulgab]

I use a Pinnacle PCTV-PCI gen5. Cost around $60 in my place. Can capture high res MPEG2 and AVI format. Dont use the Pinnacle software that comes with it, It's a trash! I use PowerDirector 2.1 for capturing and editing. Can do caps at 720x480 CBR7000~8000kbps MPEG2. You can create customs settings for capturing purposes. Has de-interlace function and noise filtering.
You can also use Ulead Video Studio 6 but personally I prefer PowerDirector.

Use TMPG to encode AVI/MPEG2 into CVD/SVCD or VCD.

Very good quality output and affordable solution!