Recommendations on capture card

[ingeborgdot]

Is it better to get a seperate vid card and then a capture card so you can capture vhs tapes or do you recommend AIW.

[Darthtanion]

Re: Recommendations on capture card

I prefer two cards since you can get one relatively cheap and still have your normal video card do what it needs to do. There are several good ones out right now, but I have personally tested both Prolink and Compro products and have been happy with their performance. I usually like the internal PCI cards, but you can get an external USB device if you prefer to handle your TV chores in that manner.

[kgburns]

Re: Recommendations on capture card

I go with Darthtanion, two cards work best for me and I'd much rather have a PCI version than a USB input.
It's also better if you have two harddrives, one to capture to and one to render to. May not amount to much, but I like to have them on separate IDEs, to prevent bottlenecking one IDE channel

[ingeborgdot]

Re: Recommendations on capture card

Do you think a person needs MCE or do you think just plain xp home would be fine? I know the oem capture cards require MCE but would it be necessary if I didn't get an oem card? Would I lose out on some of the good things that MCE does? I know that some reviews recommend MCE even if you don't have oem. What are your thoughts? <!--- IF THERE IS A SURVEY FOR THIS CATEGORY GET THE RESPONSES --->

-------------------------

[Darthtanion]

Re: Recommendations on capture card

You will only lose out on things MCE does if you use Microsoft's crappy recording software. Most decent TV tuner cards come with some sort of recording software that is designed to work with their product line. I have always had good luck with these. They aren't always fully featured, but I have been able to get them to do what I want.

As for recording from an external device, there are too many freeware alternatives to Windows to even consider something from Microsoft. I have never used a machine with the MCE version of Windows installed and I have had no problems recording media from external sources and TV.