whats a good cheap meathed for capturing video/sound from old PC's?

[Jorpho]

Then you could use a cheap vga to svideo adapter with it, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/S-video-Conver...rds=vga+svideo

Nononono. No. As per the reviews, that is a cable designed specifically for video cards capable of outputting TV-out signals via the VGA port. This is such a highly specific application I do not even know of any video cards that are capable of such functionality.

A real VGA-to-S-Video/Composite looks like http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2 .

I hear something like http://www.datapath.co.uk/products/video-capture-cards can capture VGA signals directly, but I also hear it's hella expensive.

[Soviet Conscript]

I do have a desktop I could use I just figured a laptop would be more manageable and mobile. All I really want are mid grade quality 1 minute or so video captures though honestly I'm more interested in recording sound at the moment.

so i'm to understand the following setup won't work?

pentium DOS PC > PCI video card with VGA/composite/s-video out > one of those cheap $10 usb capture cards on ebay > laptop with windows xp?

[Edmond Dantes]

For the OP's benefit, I asked a similar question when I first started coming here, and got some good answers.

Here's the topic for that.

Hope it helps.

[Jorpho]

so i'm to understand the following setup won't work?

pentium DOS PC > PCI video card with VGA/composite/s-video out > one of those cheap $10 usb capture cards on ebay > laptop with windows xp?

Oh, sure, that should work. You just have to make sure you get the right PCI (or AGP) video card. As per the other thread, there are numerous old ATI cards that could produce TV-output at boot without any need for mucking with drivers or whatnot.