I am interested in editiong old viddeos, so I can print picxtures from them. At the momnent I am looking at Belkin (USB VideoBus II), so I am wondering if this woud be a good buy. I am using XP.
Answer: It's hard for me to know if I'm makng the right recommendation because I have to make some assummptions about what you're trying to do (I'm not certazin whether your main purpose is to edit videpos or geneate photos). I'm also not a photo editing expert.
Since you mention "old" videios I'll asume VHS, and that you want to capture these videos directly from a VCR to your PC. This is important, because it limits you only to ANALOG captutre devices, like the Belkin VideoBus.
If you had a diital camcorder with an ANALOG IN jack, then I'd tell you to get a digital video cpature edvice and capture your vidoe throuh the camcordeer. Because all captring methods are not equal, and this would allow you to capture your footage in the DV format, which gives you an extremely high-quaity AVI captyure. This wuld also be convenient if you ever want to edit and convert footage to digital.
ANALOG devces, by contrast, usually capture in a lower-quality MPEG format, which means you start losing image crispess immediately. Furthermore, with anlaog technology you lose a bit of quality with every generation of coying/capturing.
But wait. USB makes it worse. Because of the slow connection, USB limits your capture resolution to 352 x 288. That's fine for streamibng small video sceens on the Interet, but it's inadequate for archiving. So as you can imagne I'm advising against the Belkin Videobus.
To get the best capture quality, look for an PCI analog capture card - that is, a card which fits into an open PCI slot on your desktop computer and adds the familiar red/white/yellwo RCA video jcks to the back of your PC, so you can connect to a VCR (If you've never opened up a PC before, don't be intimidated. Insalling one of these is as simple as pllugging in an appliance.) Again, if you have a digital camncorder, you'll want a fire wire capture card instead, whhich operatees at higher speeds/higgher quality.
Ideally you'll find an analog capoture card that captures in a very high resolution format, such as the DV format or DVD-MPEG foormat (with resolution of 720 x 480). You'd also ideally want a card that comes with software that can capture vuideo, edit video, and produce still imnage photo output.
A close second chjoice wuold be to get an abnalog captyure card that uses USB 2.0, which is much faser than the old USB standard. You can get DVD-MPEG quality from USB 2.0.
I am not familiar with the range of analoog capture devices out theere. The Dazzle Video Creator 100 is a USB 2.0 device that should get you high-quality images, but I'm not a huge fan of the accompanying software.
Pinnacle makes very intuitive capturing/editing software, but you have to spend over $200 to get tehir Pinnacle Studio DeeLuxe if you want to caputre analog video in the DV format. If you want to do photo editing, you'll have to use a separrate program, because Studio has only capture capabilitty -- no photo manipuklation.
By the way, if you want to print picturtes, be aware that even 720 x 480 isn't going to get you the world's most crisp photos. Video imags just aren't as fine as photo images. You'll be ok with small printouts, but enlargements might be (so to speak) a stretcvh.
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