video capture card

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hi. before i start this is my system

dfi lanparty ut nf4 ultra D skt 939
athlon 64 3200
1GB ddr PC3200 kingmax ram (2 x 512 dual channel)
saphire radeon x800 xl 256MB pci express
maxtor diamondmax 10 200GB 8MB cache

what i want to do is connect my vhs player to my pc so i can put my videos on disk ect.

do i need to buy another card to do this like:-

Compro VideoMate DVB-T200 Digital TV Internal PCI - Retail (GX-000-CP) £34.95

or should i be able to do it with my x800. i have tried connecting an s-video cable from my card to my video player but cant get anything to happen. my vhs dosent have s-video so i used a s-video to scart adapter.

i tried it with windows movie maker. is this right?

sorry about the noob questions but ive nerver done this before.
thanks
ashley
 
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After any card purchase you'll need some capture software .I use a cheap Jetway TV card with a composite input. Does the job from a video . I think the s-video dose'nt contain a sound input .I link my TV card to the sound card with the cable included and use IUVCR as capture software , it's very good.You'll need a big hard drive for the captures and a DVD writer of course . Good luck.
 
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thanks rickyt.
im sure my card dosent do video in so could someone reccomend a good card.

do i really need to pay £60-100? i know you get what you pay for but i dont know the differece between a £15 card and a £100 one.

saying that i dont want to get one and find its not much good.

someone told me that to do video capture i relly need a vidoe capture card and not a tv card as these dont do video capture very well.
thanks
 
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Im wary of solutions that involve using a TV card, mostly because Ive had bad results. Do you have a Mini DV camcorder? If you do, a better solution would be to Set the camcorder to a pass thru mode, whereby you connect your video to the camcorder via some cables, and the camcorder connects to your PC via firewire. Then you effectively stream the DV encoded data across. You'll need around 200Mb per min of DV storage too. Software wise, pinnacle or ULead affordable software - you have something already with your DVD burner. A similar solution involves a Canopus box, but were talking a few hundred pounds, but for that you get sync stabilisers and more ports.
 
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thanks for your reply skankmaster.#
unfortunatly i dont have a camcorder (yet).
so im still unsure what to get. i read a lot about problems with tv cards but no good reports.
can anyone recommend a good card that will do video capture without too much problem?
 
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i think im going to buy a Pinnacle PCTV 310i PCI PCTV Card
does anyone have anything good/bad to say about these?
i would appreciate some feedback before i buy.
thanks
ashley
 
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I think like most things , you pays your money and takes your chance.Some things work well on some peoples PC's and dont work well on others.I have no trouble with the Jetway TV cards [I bought 2 , for separate PC's] , they were very cheap @ £29 and work well considering the quality from some of my old video tapes .No ,you will not beat a direct transfer from a camcorder to a PC using a firewire card in terms of quality. But at the moment you dont have a camera ,and at the moment it's for the purpose of transfering video tapes, so worry about when the time comes .For now , buy a cheap TV card , or even a S/H one from e-bay and experiment with capture software till you get it right .Pointless buying a expensive capture card , money will be better spent on a new camcorder.
 
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