Alternative Capture Card

[CrispuloV]

Hello, I am currently using an RRS with a Mystique 4mb PCI combo as my display and capture card. I dual boot Win98 and Win2K as the RRS doesn't work with Win2K and my other software make Win98 flaky. It was a workable solution but now it seems the Mystique's display has degraded to a point that has started to be unacceptable.
I have wanted to acquire a Canopus DAC but it is too expensive.
I have tried a Winfast 2000 TV tuner as a capture solution but the results are too grainy, not even up to the quality of the RRS old though it may be.
May I ask for suggestions which do not exceed USD100 with acceptable capture quality.
I only use it to transfer VHS video to VCD.
thank you.

[mits]

Hi,
a cheap and good solution for capturing analog only is the Terratec Cinergy 400 TV (in my country costs around 70Euro) which gives very good results (similar or better to RRS). It supports any video codec for capturing even divx. However if you intend to change your vga card, then consider an ATI AllInWonder 9200 which apart from being a vga card it also offers good capture capabilities.

[CrispuloV]

I will browse for this Cinergy 400. But if the capture quality of the AIW 9200 is good, then that is probably the way I will go.

[Sciascia]

The ATI cards are great IMHO, but just remember that all the compression is done at the CPU level, there is no HW compression at all, it is all SW.

[CrispuloV]

Thank you sciascia, I have the same thing as well. Now maybe it is a question of saving up enough to buy one. The AIW 9200 costs more than USD100, and the cynergy is unknown to the market here.

[Frank Marshall]

If you don't need the TV features of the AIW, you could get by with a 9200 ViVo for about half the price...