Sorry if this is repeating previous posts (I've had a look but can't see any).

Basically I'm going to be building a PC to replace one too long in the tooth, and am taken by the idea of being able to burn home movies to disc.

As I understand it a big disk and as fast a processor as possible are 'de rigeur' but I need some advice on a video capture device.

Basically I'd be looking to dump S-VHS to DVD (to start with - unlikely to replace current camcorder)...

Do I need a dedicated video capture card or will a high-end graphics card be ok?

Any advice on other requirements (editing/conversion software) also appreciated!

All within budget, of course...

ps: Tempted by Canon Digital Ixus V3 for stills, would it be better to put the money towards a digital camcorder that can take stills (if one exists)?

Many thanks...

[MarkE19]

Why not get a combined Dv/analogue capture card? Pinnacle do one for around £170 including one of the best budget editing programmes, Studio 8.
If you then decide to go DV in the future then this is one less expense at that time and the analogue capture will be better than any graphics card.
Rather than one large disk I would recommend 2. 1 for boot/programmes and the second just for video.
Some of the newer camcorders do give very good results on stills, but a dedicated camera will give better results. Also a camcorder will be bigger/heavier to carry if all you want is stills.

Mark.

pmb - on your post script...
I've had a sony DV with memory stick that takes 1 MegaPixel stills for 3 years now... and I've taken literally thousands - they're fine for 6x4 prints (unless you get up really close) - but 'pixelate' somewhat if you want to print larger......
So I recently bought a 4 Mp dedicated stills camera.....
and should have done so earlier - the quality is in a different league and you can print A4 no problem - I'd think that even A3 would look great - but I don't have the hardware.....
Also as MarkE19 notes - the still camera is very portable "if all you want is stills"

Thanks MarkE19 and shoehorn...

Will certainly get 2 disks then...

I checked out Pinnacle soon after making the original posting.
Has anyone tried their external USB options ? (Moviebox or Linx?)

Still not sure about the stills camera: a friend had the Ixus 330 (which sold us on the strength of its TV interface) but having printed some of the shots they seemed no better than scanned 6X4s.
Could you recommend any rival to the Ixus V3?

[Phatboy]

pmb

take Marks advise, ive just done what you are contemplating. I bought a reasonably fast PC AMD 2400 1GB of Ram and two 80GB drives. I bought the Pinnacle Studio 8 packages which gives DV/AV capture and great software. early results are good, trying to get best coding for DVD burning.

I just bought a DV camcorder with DV in / out and av in. ( my old one only had av out). AS a stop gap you can use a similar camcoder to convert your av into dv and into any firewire port. i don't know how good this is yet as i haven't tried it.