If anything, for general computing, I'm far more fond of Linux desktops these days (Mint, Xubuntu).

I'm pretty pissed at Windows 10 right now because the last update broke the news center, and I have to update to get it working again. I used it in bed to check news, finances, weather, either at night, when unwell, or before getting up for the day.

Mac was really stable on 10.6.8, and I hate that I'm being force to upgrade to 10.10 or so. And that's not going well at all.

The Konig devices being discussed in this thread is just a rebadged something, as a company like that makes nothing. It's just a low-/medium-end consumer brand that rebadges whatever they feel is profitable. It's not about quality. Quite a few companies exist like this these days. More often than not, what they sell is cheap Chinese and Taiwanese products. Funny enough, Konig is just as much a no-name as Ching Wing Ding or whatever weird Asian name the manufacturer has.

From windows95 to recent, windows was never stable with me... security updates never seem to keep up with it, as i allways installed them.
I'm happy now, it's getting used to it, and i don't regret it, you just can't compair it with Microsoft.
I see lots of videographers using Mac OS or even Linux OS so these systems have left the geek status behind them.
and it looks like certain hardware is optimized for each kind of OS, being Windows or Mac, making it harder for the novice, to pick the right combination, also with USB 2, 3.0 3.1 USB-C Thunderbold 2, 3, Firewire, or PCI with the correct amount of lanes.
I think my brother was quiet lucky, with the hardware he bought, the only tedious thing was the many restarts that where needed for the installation, but it works.... only other bottleneck is to understand the use of aspect ratios, because he's new to this.

True - but what USB video grabber would then be recommended for PAL?

I am considering
Terratec Grabster AV 350 MX (similar to Grass Valley ADVC mini) Empia em2860 and Texas Instruments TI5150AM1
The original Ezcap.tv ( Empia EM2860 USB chip and Philips SAA7113 ADC )
Canopus ADVC-55

Some mentions a "proc amp" what is that, and do I need it?

The Mint version is an multimedia distro of Linux and looks very tempting to use, but i'm afraid it is a OS where more maintanance is needed, a lot of news info or social media can be done with a good Android smartphone, or a tablet i guess, that's what i do, about Mac .. i'm using 10.12.6 works fine, does not show any disadvantages for me, i only do not plan to upgrade to High Sierra, about the Konig device you're correct, it's a brandname from Nedis, at Nedis you also see a lot of other "known" brand names that are very familiar,
but that's not unusual, Volkswagen > Porsche, Philips > Erres > Aristona > Magnavox.
In the pc hardware world it's even worse, because all electronic components are from different manufactors, only the firmware is making the difference,(or component selection) most video camera's camcorders have image sensors from Sony :)

Of those, the terratec probably. The chips you mention are the same as what is used in the well-regarded ATI TV Wonder 600. That said I know terratec have changed hardware in the Grabby USB dongles, so the same could be the case for the grabster.

Konig seems to be a common low-cost brand for these sorts of electronics here (Norway), which typically means some rebadged chinese stuff yea. Seems like a pretty standard Conexant CX2310x based capture dongle.

I have found no proof of anything that remotely points to a particulair chip set that could be valid for this Konig device, (my original #1 post) only wild speculation, which doesn't mean a thing !

You might take a look at the Matrox O2 mini or O2 LE for raw SD capture.

They make a generic PCIe host connector on the box and various PCIe host adapters, Thunderbolt2 adapters and PC Expresscards for old laptops. I think the sweet spot was Windows 7 and OSX 10.8 perhaps? (But!!) they did work on XP and 10.6.8

I know nothing about these except Matrox is a Canadian company and the hardware looks pretty solid. In fact I'm curious to see what kind of support they have under Windows and OSX. It could be my bias is colored by the fact ATI was a Canadian company.. but an external PCIe should have better bandwidth than USB 2.0 .. I'll have to wait and see.

There is no arguing however, its an older custom interface and no where nearly as easy to use as USB.

Matrox was a really high-end quality card maker in the late 90s and into the 2000s, and then really sort of faded some out of the conversion world. I really liked the RT.2500 and RT.X100 cards.

The MX02 has a lot of valid mixed reviews.

A pity.. there had to be a reason two turned up on my doorstep. I'll file them away to look at much later.