Thanks for you help. I've done some reasearch on this for a few hours and I know a lot more now.

It takes 8 minutes to convert a 1 minute full capture .av file to an mpg 2 file. This is a big problem for me as I have to convert lots and lots of new video each week.

Real Time conversion is a very attractive soloution. I've done some research and the Matrox RT.X100 card you recommend has excellent reviews and I'm sure this is what I really need to buy. It's quite expensive but it will be worth the investment.

To get the best performance out of the Matrox RT.X100 I would have to get a faster processor and more RAM. Though I'm sure the Matrox RT.X100 would still speed up the conversions even if I didn't change my processor and add more RAM.

I think I will add a faster processor and more RAM first. It will be intersting to see how much this speeds up the conversions. I'll also buy a dedicated hardrive as this will be convenient for editing and may possibly speed things up a little. Then if I'm still not satisfied with the speed of the video conversions I'll invest in the Matrox RT.X100.

Thanks again for your advice.


Marlowe