capture card recommendations

I would highly recommend getting a Dazzle capture card. I got mine at Best Buy, and it comes with great software for editing called Pinnicle Studios. It has great quality, and great effects.

One of my videos made with Pinnicle - YouTube- Halo 3 Alpha Site Remake

 

Personally, I'd recommend the Hauppauge HD PVR. Amazing quality, reliable, and really easy to set up. When I first thought of doing a machinima, me and my friends chipped in to get the Dazzle 170 Platinum, having heard good things about it. We unfortunately did not have such luck. It flat out refused to work with my laptop and three other laptops. After well over 3 hours of constant fiddling we finally managed to get it working on one of my friend's laptop. However, it could only record in black and white which frankly isn't too great. Eventually we did find something on the internet which allowed us to record in colour if we ran it alongside the capture program. By this time it was nearing midnight and we had pretty much wasted an entire day trying to get the blasted thing to work. I'm not sure how many other people have had this problem, as quite a few people recommend Dazzle due to its affordability, but my personal experience with it was an absolute nightmare. A few weeks later I found the Hauppauge on Youtube and pretty much drooled when I saw its quality (bear in mind that Dazzle can also record in quite good quality). Arrived at my house within the week and I got it set up and recording within 30 minutes of taking it out of its box. The software which comes with it is also very reliable, however the Recording software sometimes freezes if you are running other programs in the background (but this is a rare occurance). Have been using it for months now, and haven't come across any problems. Although it is more expensive than Dazzle, I'd recommend buying it if price isn't an issue as its quality is amazing and I've found it to be far more reliable than Dazzle. By the way, the Dazzle didn't work on 2 Toshiba models, or 2 Dell models that we had.

 

Hauppage and Hava make great HD capture cards. I'm saving up for a Hava Platinum right now.

 

Here are a few questions that will help to narrow down exactly what you're looking for, since there are a variety of options open to you depending on various factors:

-What kind of price range are you looking at?
-Are you a Mac or a PC user?
-If you're a PC user, is it a laptop or standalone tower (basically, are internal PCI capture cards)?
-Ultimately, what kind of quality are you looking for, Standard Definition or High Definition?

Your best option will depend on your answers to these questions, you have a lot of options right now and it'd help to narrow down what you're really after so the best advice and recommendations can be given.

I personally use a Hauppauge HD-PVR. It's full HD which is sweet, compatible with both PC and Mac which was a big deal for me since I'm a Mac user, and is USB meaning you can get HD recordings even if internal PCI cards aren't an option for you (which they aren't for me since I use a Mac Mini with no internal expansion options). If you want HD but you can't get a PCI card (ie. you use a laptop or most Macs) then this is your best bet imo, I'm very happy with it and I know others who are too. If, however, you're using a desktop PC and therefore have the option of internal PCI cards then you should really be looking at the Blackmagic Intensity Pro for a great HD card.

If HD isn't a must then the Dazzle is indeed worth a look, it's an incredibly popular option in the SD (therefore lower cost) department and is apparently very useable, though I haven't had any personal experience with it, but ultimately you are going to be left with noticeably worse quality results than anything toward the higher end of the market.

 

The dazzle's a great card for beginners, it has decent quality, but the software is total ****.... It crashes quite a bit.

 

You only want to capture the video in Pinnacle Studio. Nothing more, unless you save often.

 

My point exactly. I have lost a total of 6+ complete BEAUTIFUL pieces of machinima, In fact my best work ever, to the crashing of that program. I love the way it works, the simplicity and the layout and that kind of stuff though. I can't stand it because it's slow and glitchy.