Just a quick note on why I recommended routing all the video through the VCR and not really needing the tuner part of that. I just find it simpler for recording things if I only have one source to mess with. No matter if I’m recording from live tv, or a tape, I always use the composite input on my card. So while I have to set the VCR (actually in my case the satelite reciever) to the channel that I want, the computer is set up to always record off the same input. Just one less thing for me to screw up when recording.
x-ray - Unless you’re looking at some high quality video, I can probably assure you that you won’t notice a degradation of the signal due to the devices you’re routing through. You’ll have more degradation based on how you encode it. Personally, I find that VCD quality is very very poor for a lot of what I recorde. SVCD is about on par with VHS in my opinion. So don’t worry too much about sending the signal through a vcr to the computer, worry more about how you’re going to capture and store the file. A breakdown just from my own personal expirience:
MPEG 1 (VCD standard) - Almost unwatchable. Sure I can tell what is being shown, but mostly only because I knew what it was in the first place, ok for quick and dirty files you want to send over the net, as they are the smallest file sizes, but for archiving home movies that havea high personal value, I’d aviod it.
MPEG 2 (SVCD/DVD standard) - Much better. Files that I record in this format look just about as good when played in my DVD player, as the originals on VHS do. Larger file size, and you can run into stand alone DVD players that do not support this file type.
**AVI (lowest compression) **- About the best quality recording that you can get. But the file sizes are huge. An hour of program will be about 4 Gig in size. Which makes it problamatical for storage, unless you have a DVD burner.
As you get more and more involved with this, you’ll find that there are more options that you can imagine, and it does take a while to get used to them. For example, the resolution and frame rate that you capture at makes a big difference in both the size and quality of the file. A higher resolution will look better on a big screen, but create a bigger file. Smaller resolutions may look great in a window on your computer, but when played through a stand alone DVD player on a TV set, will have noticable artifacts, and look crappy. As I recommended before, whatever you decide to go with, spend some time playing around, burning small snippets, to find what works best/easiest for you. Also, consider that capturing a file, and creating a CD or DVD that you’ll give to someone are two different things. I might capture my home movies in a very high resolution and huge file size for my own records, and watching on the computer, then re-sample at a lower size for distribution to friends and family. But since that digital copy in some cases may be the only thing I keep, I want at least one copy in the best quality I can manage.
Sailor - Sorry to hear about the vcr dying on you. And if you’re looking to trade film online, Divx is the way to go. It’s widespread enough that just about anyone that does seriouse video capture and sharing will be familiar with it, you can encode at very high resolution with very small file sizes (small for video files), and they are starting to make some set top DVD players that can actually play Divx files. See here for more info on the set top players, and go to www.divx.com for more info on divx.
I can’t give any info on the USB 1 or 2 for the dazzle connection, except to say that I’d check and see if your system has a USB 2.0 connection, and get that if you can. Although if you’re computer is more than a year or so old, you probably don’t have that.
Oh and sailor, I expect distribution of aformentioned films later 
