Advice on video capture?

[ArtistAlliance]

I just shot a film on mini-DV that I hope to eventually screen at film festivals and so forth.  I plan to edit it myself using Adobe Premiere on a brand new, 2.8 Ghz, 512 MB, 120Gig HD PC.  Now my question is this:  how should I got about capturing my source material?  I know a lot of people use the native firewire/IEEE inputs, but others prefer using actual video capture cards such as Canopus and Pinnacle.  Can anyone give me any guidance on what they use and what they feel would be most effective for a professional project on a budget (i.e. just spent $800 on the PC...would rather not spend $500 on a capture card unless the quality difference is that huge compared to IEEE or prosumer/consumer level capture cards).  Thanks!

[Raikus]

I just got a Pinnacle DV Studio (Card, Firewire cable and software) for $50 at CompUSA. Just a head's up. It's a pretty good card.

[Cecil]

just use firewire. i dont see why not, unless you need to capture analog??

[Ghostboy]

I think the only reason people buy those cards is because their computers DON'T have a native firewire drive. I'm not up to date on PCs (and I'm going to avoid plugging Apples) -- but I'm assuming most have them these days? Anyway, yeah, Firewire is the best way to capture minDV.

[ArtistAlliance]

I'm going to experiment a little with the video the firewire captures first.  If I like it, I'll stick with it.  If I don't, I look around at video capture cards and come up with something better.  Thanks for the advice!  

[ReelHotGames]

The main difference between just a firewire capture and a capture card specifically designed for video capture is that the video capture card has dedicated video ram.

The regular firewire ports built into systems and not specific for video can result in dropped frames and digital artifacts are more common.

Dedicated capture boards also integrate into your editing software for things like real time playback, and real time output. This can be HUGE when you average 6 hours of render time for every 15-20 minutes of footage.