CompuServe Messages

David: >so for around $1000 you have all you need (that is if you have a computer already)< Um…maybe for multimedia, but not for DTV, I'd think. Most of the below-$500 capture cards you're discussing only input video to your computer–they don't output it back to tape. For that you also need, at minimum, some sort of encoder/genlock (and a lot of commercially-available DOS or Mac computers don't come standard with video cards that transfer VGA – NTSC). Also, I've found that the under-$500 capture cards only capture, at best, 30 fps in 240 x 180 mode or 15 fps in 320 x 240 mode, which is okay for limited effects sequences (or multimedia presentations) but not for general nonlinear editing that has to go back out to tape. I know that Cardinal has been mentioning a capture/encoder card (the SnapPlus!, I think) for a while now that supposed to be able to do all this for around $1,000, but I haven't seen one yet. (Has anyone used the SnapPlus!, BTW? I'd like to know if it lives up to Cardinal's hype…) OTOH, StudioMagic has designed a pass-through card that *does* give you titling, genlock & simple graphics output to video–but only in A/X editing, not A/B–for around $500. It's used more as a computer version of, say, a Panasonic AVE-3, but it's got a lot of neat things on it and might be worth checking out. Let me know what you think, Tim Liebe