Linux Media Labs: LML33
Pros:
Linux support + hardware compression = can put in my Mini-ITX system.
Bt chipset = good quality.
Cons:
$410.
Linux Media Labs: LML33R10
Pros:
Linux support + hardware compression = can put in my Mini-ITX system.
$200 = more affordable.
Cons:
Phillips chipset = worse quality.
Lower MJPEG compression rate = too much bandwidth for network? Probably not.
Hauppauge: WinTV-PCI
Pros:
Linux drivers
$100-$120 = really cheap
Cons:
No hardware compression = Would require massive CPU to compress... if I put it in my Mini-ITX system I'm not sure I'd have enough bandwidth to send the uncompressed video to another machine (or rather, 4 machines) to compress and save.
Hauppauge: WinTV-PVR-250
Pros:
Hardware MPEG-2 compression! (not just MJPEG)
Reasonable price. ($150-ish)
Cons:
Windows only.
So I guess maybe the smart thing to do would be buy the cheapest thing available locally, make sure there's a good return policy, then work on it really hard right after I buy it, setting up the cluster compression. If I can't get it working well enough, return it, telling the salespeople it crashed Windows randomly every so often while I was using it.
Props to
kvance for putting up with my stupid video capture questions. 