Differences among capture cards with the same chip

[il Canoista]

I'm going to buy a card to capture from VHS tapes and I would like to spend less than 70-80 Euros. I read many posts in this forum and I discovered that the main difference between the capture cards is the chip (bt87x and cx2388x from conexant, saa713x from Philips) and so the discussion is more or less always centred on this component.
But I have a doubt because I found a LIFEVIEW FLYTV PLATINUM (chip saa7135) for 38 euro and a Cinergy 400 TV (chip saa7134) for 68 euro.
Considering that:
1)the chips are very similar (and the cheaper card has the slightly better chip...),
2)I don't care for the tuner and for everything not strictly connected to video capture, since I already have a DVB-S card,

is the Cinergy _*appreciably*_ better than the Lifeview, since the cost is almost double? Is the chip the only thing that makes the difference?

I think so, since that chip is the only active component (except the tuner) and the other components are passive (resistor, capacitor and so on: it can't be that they make difference! or not?..).

I have other two secondary questions:
1)I have to capture even from very old VHS tapes recorded with a camera (15-20 years). Is there a chip that works appreciably better with such a poor quality signal?
2)What about the Macrovision protection?

[trevlac]

You should also look into the drivers that are available. I don't recall if you can swap drivers for the cards with the philips chips. Even if the cards have the same chips ... the drivers may not use all the options on the card or may not use them well. For example, with the BT there are the generic wincap drivers that are considered to be quite good. The main problem with using drivers not supplied with your card is in the area of the tuner. You don't care about this so it might not be a problem to find the best driver.

Another thing to think about is the quality of the construction. If both cards provide the same connectors, one might have better connectors and all the components that feed the signal on up to the chip. I've had some experience and heard some people complain that the composite jack was better than the svideo jack on the same card. Svideo is technically much better. But this shows that it really depends on how the thing is put together.

Unfortunately, price is not that great of an indicator. You have to more or less read about what others have experienced.

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My personal opinion is that almost any hardware can do VHS. The differences come from how stable the signal going into the card is (how good the vcr is), how well you know and can use the capture software, how well you can post process.

Oh ... I forgot ... ease of use too. :)