What kind of video capture? If it's just DV firewire 400 is fast enough, speed has nothing to do with quality really.
Where you would use a PCI based capture card is for uncompressed video and some HD work, where you need the higher data throughput so frames won't be dropped.
The quality of the capture will depend on the source material and the codec used.
What are you planning to capture and what is your budget?
It was for converting my VHS tapes to DVD and in the future something recorded from television.
The Miglia DVR PCI card provides a much better picture quality than the USB version, according to reviews, but perhaps the firewire version will be better.
But this Miglia Card is really cheap, less than 150 bucks, while the fiirewire version costs more than twice as much.
If this firewire version is better, I'll take this one.
I can import in IMovie and then convert tthe DV files to a DVD using Toast.
Look for difference in what the file format or codec is when you import. You won't be able to boil it down to a FW versus PCI issue but FW is capable of wonderful things (www.aja.com and the I/O FW box) and PCI is capable as well (Blackmagic Pro cards). What you may want to do is focus on the quality of the capture. You should find a difference there amongst the specs given.
Comments
Where you would use a PCI based capture card is for uncompressed video and some HD work, where you need the higher data throughput so frames won't be dropped.
The quality of the capture will depend on the source material and the codec used.
What are you planning to capture and what is your budget?
The Miglia DVR PCI card provides a much better picture quality than the USB version, according to reviews, but perhaps the firewire version will be better.
But this Miglia Card is really cheap, less than 150 bucks, while the fiirewire version costs more than twice as much.
If this firewire version is better, I'll take this one.
I can import in IMovie and then convert tthe DV files to a DVD using Toast.