Well, this is just a fairly important question to all the hubbers out there with a capture card experience. I have 60-100ish dollars I really want to put down on a capture card, and I am running a Windows Vista Ultimate laptop.(The laptop is pretty much a desktop, with 2 hours of battery and lots of amazing features) So, what is a good one to pick? What one do you have? Does it come with video editing software? Is it a hardware installation or a software installation? Please help!!!
Uuuummm... If anything I recommend that you do not by any means get a Pennacle digital video creator platinum or version below that. They will not run on vista, I know from experience. Best Buy carries Pennacle studio Movie Box Ultimate which will run on vista, but will cost you around $100.00 to $150.00. They have one that was a step below that which was cheaper, but I didn't really look to see wether it would run on vista or not. The thing I can really say is go to your nearest Best Buy and check it out for yourself. If I'm right then they have other types of capture cards too. I just went with pennacle after all the stuff I've heard about them and it's all true so far, Great quality, High def, and easy to use. Well, good luck trying to find your capture card. Oh, and it comes with video editing software, I think you can get one of hardware installation or software.
I purchased a Diamond "one-touch video capture", which uses a USB 2.0 interface, at newegg.com for 40 bucks. It doesn't come with editing software, sadly, but the quality (when set up to its max resolution) is very good for the price. Sorry to plug my own stuff, but the video below was made using only this capture device and Sony Vegas software. There was no enhancement done to the image itself. Hope you find this info useful, and good luck! http://youtube.com/watch?v=e6vWCqTQj5s