12. Conclusion

The DVStorm SE costs $1088 (MSRP) with Canopus' proprietary editing software Stormedit and some $1299 with the user-friendly program Adobe Premiere 6.0 . The card has digital and analog AV ports. In comparison, the DVRaptor-RT (only digital input) is available for $599.

The DVStorm SE was pleasantly stable during our test. However, Canopus did need a good while until its drivers and plug-ins ran stably. The competition - Matrox, Dazzle and Pinnacle - don't exactly have clean records in terms of reliability either, though. It appears that video-editing solutions require more time to mature than classical PC components.

The bundled editing software Stormedit is sufficient to handle most day-to-day tasks. If you're more detail-oriented, though, you would do well to invest in the Adobe Premiere Upgrade.