Which Top Performing Video Capture Card?

[Bmeister]

Hello all. After doing many searches and not finding a reasonable answer, my question is:

What are the top-rated consumer video CAPTURE cards on the market at the present time? I'm looking to xfer DV from my Sony/Canon camcorders and want a capture board that has on-board hardware for compression.

What I want to do is bring the video to my PC (Intel E6400 based PC with 2GB DDR, NVidia 7900GS, and 1.2Tb of storage...4x300Gb SATA2 drives), edit it, and then save to DVD-playable format. The software to use is another question and much easier to find info on (but suggestions there would be a plus) and I'm leaning to Adobe Premiere as I use PhotoShop CS in my still image world.

I do not want to use an "all in one" card. Thanks in advance for any current links or suggestions you cna provide.

[olyteddy]

You don't need a card to tranfer DV from a camcorder. Just a FireWire port. Edit it in DV then author it to DVD.

[anonymez]

You don't need a card to tranfer DV from a camcorder

you do for mobos that don't have firewire

I'm looking to xfer DV from my Sony/Canon camcorders and want a capture board that has on-board hardware for compression.

DV tape to DV avi via firewire is completely lossless, and ideal for editing. you'll want to compress just before authoring.

[olyteddy]

My bad, should have said "Don't need a capture card..."

[Bmeister]

Really??? Very cool...I didn't realize that I could just use a standard firewire card THANKS! However, the conversion to DVD format or MPG requires processing. I thought (I'm thinking a few years back now to the days of using a Pinnacle card and VHS input) that I needed a dedicated card to do the processing/compiling to enable fast previewing of my edited result before a save/burn.

So, I just plug in a firewire 800 or use my onboard 400 firewire and Adobe Premiere will "see" the camera and take its DV feed as it plays? It's really that easy? Yeesh, how I couldn't have gleaned that from all I've read I do not know. Thanks again!

[olyteddy]

Yeah, and actually (unless your cam is next year's model) FireWire 800 isn't necessary.