Recommended OS for ATI x1800?
 

I picked up an ATI x1800 (bare PCIe card w/CD) off eBay. I'm trying to see if svideo.com can provide the cable I need to input video to it. It's plugged in to an AMD-based Linux (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS) PC with fairly modern specs (8 GB RAM) and it's putting out a great picture on DVI.

If I do succeed in obtaining the proper input cable, is this a suitable card for capturing? And which OS is recommended for it? Right now it's a Linux machine, but it would be no trouble at all to install a second HDD and dual-boot Windows 7 or XP to get the best use out of it. Worthwhile, or waste of money?

Use qv4l2 to preview the capture. Just make sure you "open" the correct video device (probably /dev/video0 or 1). It will give you control over brightness and contrast that you can adjust for capture.

You can use ffmpeg's histograms and other video analyzers to adjust levels properly. Info on how to configure them is available in the fancy filtering section of the documentation.

Once you do the above (or fail on some step), you will know if you can capture OS-wise.

I can't comment the quality of the video card itself, though.