Video Card & DVD recomendations

[stevedownunder]

Hi All

I want a video capture card to record from VCR to VCD/DVD. The quality doesn’t have to be fantastic as I’m only copying video tape anyway.

Also a DVD burner that does the various formats +/- etc.
The speed is unimportant, (I can wait) I would rather reliability.

If you have any good experiences with products suggestions are welcome.

TA

[rsfnatik]

As for the capture card, anything will work... just depends on the quality/features you're looking for. Take a look at the Hauppauge (http://www.hauppauge.com/) products - you can get anything from a simple tv tuner/capture card to something that does hardware MPEG encoding with PVR capabilities. If you're looking for a video card upgrade as well look at the ATI All-In-Wonder series. You will get decent 3D performance plus a ton of VIVO features.

As the for DVD±RW drive... you should be fine with something from Pioneer or LiteOn. They're cheap, stable and reasonably quick. LG makes a decent drive too but they tend to fall behind a bit in performance, especially if you will be working with a variety of media. If you feel like spending a lot of money Plextor drives are great... but who wants to pay the price. You can find in-depth reviews at CDRLabs (http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/).

[navyseal]

For the DVD drive, I would consider a Pioneer DVR-107. You can get this excellent drive "OEM" for less than a buck with Nero 6. If you want a lot of software included, you can get the "retail" for about $150.00. Nero is enough though to get started.