In addition to the links above, read this article:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/editorials...g-workflow.htm. Everything except the cameras applies to get the best quality at home.
PM lordsmurf as he can sell you a guaranteed good quality TBC and capture device (both of which can do PAL) and help you find a PAL VCR seller in Europe. It will probably cost ~$1000 U.S., most of which you can recoup by selling off the equipment after you're done with the project.
BTW, your video card has nothing to do with the quality of your captures. The only time it comes into play is if it supports CUDA encoding and that is only to speed up reencoding of your videos, which you shouldn't do if you want the best quality which will be the lossless video you capture.