Video Capture system needed. NOT FIREWIRE!

[WACOMalt]

Hey, I'm a new poster here, but I figured you guys would be able to give the best input on this.

I need a video capture system that doesn't use firewire to hook to the PC.
It needs to be able to accept the following inputs:

• Composite video (or whatever the typical yellow plug is called. the one that comes out of a DVD player...)
• RCA Audio and / or Stereo 1/4" jack audio (one or the other, or both)

any other inputs would be cool too, like DV and coaxial, but composite and some sort of stereo audio is needed for sure.

and it needs to hook to a PC via USB 2.0.

I would use a video capture PCI card, but I need to be able to hook this to 2 different computers, one a desktop, and one a notebook.

I need lossless (or as close as possible) capture, and I do NOT need HD support of any kind.

The reason I can't do firewire is the laptop doesn't have a firewire port (HP tx2500z) and the desktop's firewire card is broken it seems... so if I got something that used firewire I'd have to buy a new firewire card for the desktop, and a firewire expresscard (which I haven't seen good reviews on) for the laptop.

the operating systems on the two computers are:
Desktop: Windows XP x64 Edition (w/ SP3)
Laptop: Windows Vista Ultimate x64 (w/ SP1)

Anything that would work for this? I know it's asking a lot for this exact hardware to exist... I have seen some pinnacle boxes that do this stuff, but they have had horrible reviews on newegg as far as video quality and software.

if not, I can live with a PCIe Capture card that supports those inputs, though I'd prefer to also be able to use my laptop for video capture.

 

[Aroon_Narayanan]

You can easily find external TV tuners (which seems to be what you're looking for) at many sites, such as Newegg. Obviously, because you're converting from analog to digital, the quality won't be as good as going directly from a digital source (unless, of course, you're capturing from an analog source, in which case this won't make a difference). However, with the right software, you can capture uncompressed at whatever quality the tuner will let you. I wouldn't recommend using the included software--either use your NLE for capturing or use dedicated capture software, i.e., HDVsplit or Cineform (those are for HD capture, however). Also, don't forget that oftentimes cheaper tuners can mean less powerful internal hardware--an unecessary tax on video quality.

Hope this helps!