Capture card recommendations equipment, starting, friends, devices, several

andy

I've been using various consumer-grade capture devices for the last several years, starting out with a Hauppauge WinTV, then an ATI All-In-Wonder, and now an Asus NVidia-based card.  I'm unhappy with the picture quality on all of these devices, particularly in highlight areas where the picture looks overexposed or washed out.  

I'm thinking about moving up into some semi-pro grade equipment, maybe in the $200-500 range.  I do VHS-gt; DVD conversions for friends for a little change on the side, so this is more than a hobby but less than a business.  I've Googled it, and I've searched the forums, but comparisons of analog capture quality are surprisingly hard to come by.  So I'm hoping somebody can recommend something that might meet my needs.  

Here's what I'm looking for:

- Don't need MPEG2 or other compression.  I prefer to capture directly to HuffyUV.
- Don't need DV inputs or a tuner, as I already have a firewire input I use for my DVCam.  This is strictly for analog capturing from a VCR using RCA or S-Video inputs.  
- Prefer a built-in TBC because my VCR doesn't have one.
- No Macrovision, because I do make backup viewing copies of my old commercial videos that are now OOP.  I have a Sima CopyMaster I can use if I have to, but it's just something else to plug in and trip over.
- Internal PCI is fine, and it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest as long as the picture quality is there.  Something I can pick up used on eBay is great.  

I've looked at the Canopus ADVC100/300 products, but they really have a lot of stuff I don't need and they use a DV codec.  I guess that's not really a deal breaker, but I'd rather not deal with color interpolation if I don't have to.  

Suggestions?

I recently asked a similar question, sadly no pointers

showthread.php?t=107853

I've had my eye on Blackmagic Decklink cards, seems like the SP and Extreme models can accept YUV component which can work well if you have a playback source with YUV output.

I've also been looking at Aja cards () for example the Xena LS, but I haven't seen these showing up much on ebay, etc. at prices in your price range.

The Theater 550 has great quality, but it has a hardware encoder, though using GraphEdit I think this is bypassable. Hardly a nice solution though.

EDIT: video/showdoc.aspx?i=2393amp;p=9

I cannot recommend the Theater 550 cards.  They *do* capture huffyuv 720x480 and the comb filter really is fantastic so composite sources are going to look great.  However, the software support is terrible and most of the advertised features (AGC, NR, etc.) are non-functional or very difficult to configure.  A year after release, I think the 550 proved to be something of a beta card.

I'd recommend either the Compro VideoMate Ultra (great quality, quite tested) or the Compro VideoMate X800 (new, not as tested).