wang8

the best one is ati all in wonder 8500-DV. with this card, you can 1) user your computer as a personal video recorder to record tv programs 2) input video through a)av cable b)firewire cable c)svideo cable (but no componet cable yet, that's the one i really want to usr) 3) 3-d video capacity at 128mb for gamers. 4) its media video quality is good (i tried geforce 4 card, and i shall say i can't see any difference)
now, this card is kinda expensive, over $500, but if you can wait, in a year it should drop to 300 level.
to matrix, forget it, laptop can not do serious video editing. i can find you a brandnew multimode vcr for less than 300 dollar, but i still think its too expensive for you. a multimode tv is not cheap.

wang8

to do video editing, you need a av-card. with a desktop, you can adapt the av-card with the pci slot which allows fast datatransfer speed. despite the expensive price for an mobile av card, for any external device connecting to laptop, you only have four choices: parallel port, serial port, usb port or firewire port, all of them have very slow data transfer speed. theoretically, you can do it with your laptop, but you will spend a whole day to transfer an hour tape to your harddrive. its effective but not efficient. get it?
3 `) I$ @+ {6 l$ X8 uthat sony vcr sounds good, but do you really need a vcr?

Office

Even for a PCI card, data is transfered by firewire port, which is quite fast.

wang8

pay someone to do it for you. it might cost you over $50 per vhs tape convertion.
or, you go future shop buy a usb av card, convert and return it in a month.
pci slot using firewire? give me a break, you don't know anything about video editing and computer hardware.

BLC

To Wang8:
Don't be so sure of yourselfe. Have your got really a video editing card? What is it?Between your PCI video edting card and your camcorder, the data is not transfered by a firewire cable?Anyway, my pinnacle card is like this.

wang8

what i am talking about is what links your pci slot and your cpu. north bridge or south bridge, this is the system bus on your mainboard. i am not talking about what's between your av souce and your av card. today, its linked by firewire. tomorrow, maybe firewire, maybe usb 2.0
" h8 v6 k  e) ~+ b+ [if you can't read english, read it twice before reaching your verdit, ok??

wang8

you want to compare your pinnacle card with me, ok. lets bring it on. i used that card for a year, now i am using ati all-in-wonder 8500-dv. check it out, and you will know funcionally speaking, it rocks pinnacle card upside down and inside out!

BLC

Don't speak to me with this tone, ok!Your ati card is an all-in-on card(TV, video capture,...etc). But I really think the pinnacle card is the best in the market for video editing. Sure, pinnacle also has cards for professionals, which cost obviously more and give you better quality.
: V9 c& V5 p$ G7 C% vWith my pinnacle card, the video capture is very fast(with a desktop). I don't know what is the video capture speed under your ati card.