I folks...I"ve Been saveing up for a Good Quality Capture/Graphics Card with capture Quality being the Main concern,I have seen Lots of Graphics Cards Card with Video Capture Features from a Lot of Companys(ATI,GForce,VooDoo,Radeon)But I"m trying to get the best Capture Quality I can for a Card under say $200..I seem to be leaning to the "ATI All in Wonder Raedeon 7500 or 8500 64mb", Does anyone know anything about these cards or another better ones in the same price range that can capture Full Resolution 30fps with Good Quality and run with third party Apps..ThanX for any Advice you can Give......

Avoid NVidia (G-force) for capture.
I don't think they still sell Voodoo boards anymore - if they do avoid them as this is a dead product (3dfx doesn't exist anymore)

If you want to play 3D games as well as video capture, the AIW 8500 is probably your best bet (you can probably save 50 bucks with the AIW 7500 if you don't care for 3D performance).

I've had the All-In-Wonder 7500 for a couple years now, and I would say the do-it-all cards (graphics, tuner, and capture) don't have the best capturing quality. For the money I think they're okay, but you can't use the out-of-the-box default settings for compliant VCD/SVCD captures.

I've heard pretty good things about Pinnacle for a reasonable price if you want to check that out.

Tim

I use ASUS 8420 Deluxe based on Nvidia GF4 and I've never had any problem

Hi Luisifer,
I have ATI AIW Radeon 8500DV, 64MB. I have never used any other manufacturer on Video cards besides ATI. I believe it is the best card I ever had. I have progressivley used ATI AIW cards..first I had ATI AIW pro (8MB), then I baught AIW7500 (32MB) and Now...I have 8500DV..If you are looking for good quality mpeg (DVD Compliant) from analog source, This is the best card. It does support 3rd party Apps (like VirtualDUB)..Only headache is to install the driver properly..and make MMC 7.XX work properly. I have followed the Rich's or Nap Casdy's (either one them, I don't remember) guideline to install the driver. It just works great...In my mind, ATI Rocks in Video cards...My two cents..
Thanks..
Geek

Hi, ThanX for your Replies, Is the Capture Feature Pretty Much the same with all ATI AIW Cards?? Meaning is there any Differance in capture Quality between say the AIW 7500 and the AIW 8500??? Cuz I"m basicly getting the card for the Capture as Opposed to Graphics performance...ThanX for any Insight you can give....ThanX

I have the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon and a Dazzle DVC II. I wasn't real keen on the ATI quality, which is why I bought the Dazzle. Rich and I did a video capture comparison with my DVC II and his ATI card. I think his web site (http://www.pcphotovideo.com) may still have the details. Anyway, Rich had an ATI AIW card, but it was a step down from the Radeon I had. Rich was getting unbelievable quality from his card. I could not touch what he did with my AIW Radeon. Rich did tell me that he optimized his PC for video capture by using a RAID drive among other things. I think the cards are pretty much the same in terms of video capturing, but the final results you get depend a lot on your setup. I would recommend 7200 RPM disk drives and Rich always recommended capturing to a different drive than the ATI software was on. I only have one drive on my PC so I didn't have the luxury, but I can tell you that if I could have gotten the quality out my AIW Radeon that Rich got out of his ATI card, I wouldn't have bought the Dazzle DVC II. I kind of doubt that the 8500 is really better for video capturing than the 7500, but I'd be interested in reading if someone has tested both and thinks there is a difference.

I have used 3 ATI cards to capture and have not noticed any difference in the quality of capture.:
- AIW 128 16MB AGP (BT Chip)
- AIW 128 32MB PCI (Theater Chip)
- AIW Radeon 32MB DDR AGP (Currently using this one)

Like I said, all the cards have done the same quality of capture. The things that have changed the capture are CPU speed and using newer versions of MMC (currently using 7.7.0.1).

Oh, when I used the 16MB card, it would always capture a "noise" line at the top of the screen and I would have use TMPGEnc to trim it if I wasn't going to use the capture for tv viewing.

Just my experience....
-gammer

I used to get a noise line at upper & lower edges with my 8MB AIW pro card...But with 7500 & 8500, I never had this problem. Well, initially I had lots of frame drops with 7500 (on mpeg2 capture (720x480)problem and later I tuned up my PC as per Rich's guideline and eversince It just works great. As far as quality goes, I do not have any complaint..It is perfact...I use this card to capture from Analog source using VDub for AVI capturing..and using MMC 7.7 for mpeg2 capturing (the best quality). (7500 & 8500 radeon both give you almost the same quality for the same source, Ihaven't noticed any quality difference). As you know, I like to have best possible video quality ragardless how long does it take to get the final product..8500 serves the purpose..This is perfact for me to capture from VHS or any analog source...Now, Anything external capture device (usb or fire wire device) is always better than internal capture cards. You can get those devices for <$160. I have optimised my PC for the best performance (See below for my PC spec).

Hdwr:
-AMD Athlon XP 2200+
-512MB DDR PC2100 RAM
-ATI AIW Radeon 8500DV
-One storage 120GB, 7200rpm, 2MB cache drive and 2nd 40GB, 7200rpm Boot drive.
-(4) IDE channels on Mobo I have used each channel for each device.
- CD-R/RW Drive
- DVD-RAM/R Drive

Runs on Windows XP-Sp1 platform

This is the best working PC I have ever built...I love it...... I hope this helps a bit.
Thanks,
Geek!!

I have an AIW 128 16MB AGP128 (BT Chip)
I also get a green line at upper or lower edges.

(7500 or 8500DV) I need to make the same choice.
How much better is 8500DV if i don't need the DV.

Also should I use interlaced or deinterlaced for capturing from VHS-C to make a MiniDVD? That will be playing on a TV.

THX

ThanX for the Tips guys, so I think I leaning to the AIW 7500 or 8500, since they have the same Capture chip I"ll probably get the 7500 cuz it is cheaper, I have an ATI TV Wonder BT878a chip and the Quality is OK, But not nearly good enough to Make good Quality SVCD"s..My system is set up for Video capture Pretty Much I have a Intel 1.7ghz with 256-DDR Ram and a 120gb 7200rpm Ultra ata/133(Really Fast) drive Just for video capture and a 40gb Main Drive and a Hurcules Prophet 4500-3D 64MB Video Card which I will have to sell once I get the AIW 7500/8500 Capture card..I"m looking on EBay to try to find the cheapest one I can Cuz I would like to spend Less than $150 if I can.....Anyways ThanX for you Insight.....Luisifer

I have a radeon 8500 aiw 128meg. Its great. You can sent the level of quality capture to the power of your machine. Mine only cost 149$ after rebates from CompUSA. Look around for deals. Radeon 9000 AIW should be in stores soon I think.

Well It just came in the Mail My New "ATI AIW Raedeon 8500DV" I haven"t had a Chance to Play with it yet But I"ll do some tests with it tonight and see how it goes.....