I am hoping someone can tell me what capture card is most reliable, best value, and suits my needs, for under $100.


My system is in the mail:
(ordered today, I can't freakin wait!)

-Core 2 Duo E6550
-Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
-Foxconn 7600GS 256Mb
-Corsair 450W PSU
-OCZ 2Mb DDR2 ram
-500Mb SATA Seagate hard drive
-OS will be XP Pro (avoiding vista for now)
-standard ATX case (NZXT Apollo)


My capturing needs are:

-under/around $100
-Record good quality video from TV/Satellite (mainly basketball)
-Store on hard drive for editing and burning later
-Simple n easy to use/install
-Don't really need TV tuner, just channel 3/4 for Satellite

(currently looking at the Hauppage PCI 150, the ATI all-in-wonder 200, and the Leadtek PCI TV2000 XP expert, but feel free to recommend something else)


Thanks very much folks.

I no longer use a tuner/capture card so I cannot speak of current offerings. I have used ATI All-In-Wonder (AIW) cards with excellent results, although I was unhappy with all the extra bloat ATI attempted to dump on my system. Do note that AIW cards are also graphics cards - I think you meant ATI TV Wonder 200, a separate tuner card. Hauppauge has consistently through the years had good reviews. In my opinion, if you go for the budget Leadtek, I think you will get budget performance - and will probably not be happy. That advice is likely to follow with all the low-end cards, even from the more reputable makers.

Entering tuner card reviews in Google will bring in some interesting results. When you see a card that you are interested in, enter the card make and model, followed by the word review into Google for more information.

Note: It seems most of the reviews are a couple years old so note the date when researching. Also do not take "User Reviews" too seriously. Users do not normally write reviews unless there was a problem, and those that are good reviews are usually by someone with little experience with comparable products. If there are 30 user reviews and all report the same problem, then that's different.

Having said that, professional reviews from sites like CNET, AnandTech, etc., are (hopefully) unbiased and fair, and hopefully compare several products in the same category. But, these reviews are generally performed on virgin PCs - that is, PCs that have a fresh installation of the operating system and few other programs and configuration changes - in otherwords, they are not the typical user's PC which has had all kinds of software installed and various other tweaks and customizations.

Sorry I could not be more specific.

Originally Posted by Digerati

I no longer use a tuner/capture card so I cannot speak of current offerings. I have used ATI All-In-Wonder (AIW) cards with excellent results, although I was unhappy with all the extra bloat ATI attempted to dump on my system. Do note that AIW cards are also graphics cards - I think you meant ATI TV Wonder 200, a separate tuner card. Hauppauge has consistently through the years had good reviews. In my opinion, if you go for the budget Leadtek, I think you will get budget performance - and will probably not be happy. That advice is likely to follow with all the low-end cards, even from the more reputable makers.

Entering tuner card reviews in Google will bring in some interesting results. When you see a card that you are interested in, enter the card make and model, followed by the word review into Google for more information.

Note: It seems most of the reviews are a couple years old so note the date when researching. Also do not take "User Reviews" too seriously. Users do not normally write reviews unless there was a problem, and those that are good reviews are usually by someone with little experience with comparable products. If there are 30 user reviews and all report the same problem, then that's different.

Having said that, professional reviews from sites like CNET, AnandTech, etc., are (hopefully) unbiased and fair, and hopefully compare several products in the same category. But, these reviews are generally performed on virgin PCs - that is, PCs that have a fresh installation of the operating system and few other programs and configuration changes - in otherwords, they are not the typical user's PC which has had all kinds of software installed and various other tweaks and customizations.

Sorry I could not be more specific.

WOW, hey that's pretty specific, thanks very much for the input, CNET actually had the ATI 550 as a better choice than the hauppauge 150, but I went with the 150, as you said, they have a good reputation, especially helping customers with their problems, meanwhile Sapphire apparently won't even respond to emails

thanks again,

You are welcome.