Video capture card, does it REALLY matter?

[apollo1980]

Hi all. I am currently using the S-Video IN on my Xtera Geforce 4 Ti4600 128mb video card to capture video. Using Virtual Dub and Huffy codec. I use it to capture for burning DVD's.

Back in the days of my older system, I had an ATI TV Wonder with S-Video in to capture for VCD's, and I also used Virtual Dub.

When the video is captured as an avi, I notice NO difference in the video quality between the cards.

So my question is this...does the video card/capture card you use to capture video REALLY make a difference?

[Thorn]

It depends on what you're using. Some cards can't even capture above 320x240 so obviously they'd be substandard. Professional level cards may be better than the consumer types, but I don't think there is a large difference between the ATI and NVidia right now (and they're pretty good).

When I replaced my AIW 128 with Gainwards GF4 I noticed a slight difference, including a small mask on the left 4 columns of pixels (odd...). The differenced weren't really enough to worry about.