The Canopus may be the one not respecting the AR.
ATI native hardware resolution is 704x480.

I'm sorry if I'm asking incredibly dumb questions here, but I really need to get this straight now before capturing all my tapes so I don't have to do it all over again ;)

I've now burned these 3 files onto a DVD Video disc with "TMPGEnc Authoring Works" and watched them on my old CRT TV from a standalone DVD player. When switching between the ATI AIW 704x576 and Canopus 720x576 files, the TV logo stays perfectly still in the same position on the TV screen (except that it jumps up those 3 pixels on the ATI file). But when playing the ATI 720x576 file, the TV logo jumps to the right and the image gets stretched. I guess that means that the file captured with my ATI AIW7500 card at 720x576 resolution is WRONG??? ...or am I missing something very important here?

I guess I should capture using 704x576 resolution with my AIW card then?

Excellent question I am curious about as well.

I noticed this difference as well between my cheap USB grabber and a AIW 8500. I am capturing PAL though so I use 576 in stead of 480 but I notice the same difference in picture size (black borders)

-P