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I looking for a video capture device and I wanted to ask for any input on which decvice is the easiest to use and the best. I'm looking at Pinnacle's USB Movie Box, Plextor has one similar, and/or the AIW ATI 9600 Pro. I use an ASUS P4G8X Deluxe motherboard and I heard that it does not work well with the 9600 Pro. Any input or other recommendations would be great. TIA

I have a Pinnacle PCI video capture card (with RCA, S-Video, and Fireware ports) that I bought bundled with Pinnacle Studio 8, and it seems to work well. The computer in which it's installed has an Abit KT7A motherboard with 1024MB of RAM and an AthlonXP 2000+ Thoroughbred CPU.

Don't use USB because of poor quality,use a firewire or PCI card.AverMedia makes several products that capture up to 720x480(576 PAL) and start at $45 USD.

burningfool,
Does this also apply to external DVD burners? I bought the Litey LDW-851SX (external) USB to use for this purpose, so should I return it and get one thats firewire? Or does it apply only for when you're transfering video from analog to digital? TIA

burninfool
Sorry for misspelling your name.

I have a Hauppauge PCI card (WinTV-PVR-250) that I have been very happy with. It has S-Video, Composite, and Coax Cable inputs.

The best thing about it is that it has a hardware MPEG encoder. So, when you're recording video you're not using up all of you CPU power. (This may not mean as much if you have a fast computer. But, on my P3-933MHz machine, it matters.)

With this card, my DVD recorder has basically replaced my VCR. I often record a TV show and then write it to DVD. (I usually store about 2 hrs on a DVD.)

Good luck.

ruderacer wrote:burningfool,
Does this also apply to external DVD burners? I bought the Litey LDW-851SX (external) USB to use for this purpose, so should I return it and get one thats firewire? Or does it apply only for when you're transfering video from analog to digital? TIA

Only video,USB 2.0 is fine for data.The problem with USB 1.0 videocards is they are limited to 1.5Mbps,DVD is up to 9Mbps.

Thank You all for your inputs.

treemana wrote:I have a Hauppauge PCI card (WinTV-PVR-250) that I have been very happy with. It has S-Video, Composite, and Coax Cable inputs.

I have this card as well and have been impressed with it. I originally had it installed in a computer running Win2k, 1.33ghz Thunderbird and 384mb of RAM. It had some problems with the display stuttering and all (the computer wasn't fast enough or something). I've recently purchased a computer with 512mb of DDR RAM, XP3000 and a dedicated 32mb video card and now the pup runs very well. I use WinTVCap and WinTVCapStart to record shows (not the bundled software).

dbeko wrote: I use WinTVCap and WinTVCapStart to record shows (not the bundled software).

What is it that you like better in this program vs. the bundled software. I've been pretty happy with the bundled software. My only complaint it that the "One Touch" record only lets you record in increments of 15/30 min. So, if you wanted to record a movie that was 2:10 long, you'd have to record for 2:30 and then trim the video later.

My previous capture card software let you set a "Maximum Recording Time." The recording would automatically stop when the max time was reached. So, to record the the same movie, I'd just set the max recording time to 2:10, press "record" and it would stop recording at the end of the movie automatically. No trimming/editing required.

I realize this is a trivial complaint. But, I'd switch to other software that didn't have this limitation.