Best way to interface pinhole camera to computer for streaming, USB or a PCI capture card?

[Bearcat]

I have a little pinhole camera I'd like to stream video from, it's
output is 1 volt p-p NTSC analog video. I've seen some USB devices
(X10 has one) that digitize an analog signal, I'm guessing that's
pretty processor intensive. I know there's also PCI video capture
cards out there that I'm guessing you could use to stream a webcam
off, and I'm betting it wouldn't be as hard on the cpu and could also
be better quality than USB. Anyone out here have experience with
setting up something like this? Any card recommendations? What
determines the specifics ofthe captured video as far as frame rate and
resolution - I assume it's the card, since there wouldn't be any
bandwidth issues like with USB (at least 1.0). I'm also leaning
towards a capture card because I have some 8mm video tape I'd like to
capture and turn into DVDs since the camera I used to record had
partly died - it'll play back, but not record and the internal display
is messed up (basically all it's good for is playing back the tapes
onto something else).

Thanks for your suggestions!

Bearcat

[Jim Earl]

I've got both on my system.

I run an ATI All-In-Wonder AGP card, and run my composite video camera(s)
into it. I also have one USB camera that I run into a USB hub on my
computer. My 800MHZ Celeron has no problem running both simulaneously,
but if I try to run more than one USB camera, it lugs down.

I also use my video capture card for making videos like you suggest. Good
idea.

--Jim

On 2 Oct 2003, Bearcat wrote:

> I have a little pinhole camera I'd like to stream video from, it's
> output is 1 volt p-p NTSC analog video. I've seen some USB devices
> (X10 has one) that digitize an analog signal, I'm guessing that's
> pretty processor intensive. I know there's also PCI video capture
> cards out there that I'm guessing you could use to stream a webcam
> off, and I'm betting it wouldn't be as hard on the cpu and could also
> be better quality than USB. Anyone out here have experience with
> setting up something like this? Any card recommendations? What
> determines the specifics ofthe captured video as far as frame rate and
> resolution - I assume it's the card, since there wouldn't be any
> bandwidth issues like with USB (at least 1.0). I'm also leaning
> towards a capture card because I have some 8mm video tape I'd like to
> capture and turn into DVDs since the camera I used to record had
> partly died - it'll play back, but not record and the internal display
> is messed up (basically all it's good for is playing back the tapes
> onto something else).
>
> Thanks for your suggestions!
>
> Bearcat
>