Digital capture cards?

[Gameshow Host]

When I bought my capture card, I didn't realise there were two types of capture card, digital and analogue. My ATI card is analogue, so when I capture from a digital signal, I lose quality. I don't want to lose any quality, I want my captured files to be identical to what is broadcast, so the next capture card I get will have to be a digital one. How much are digital capture cards? Do they capture both digital and analogue signals? (I'll still need to be able to capture analogue, because I have tapes that I want to capture from).

Thanks.

[Vidbox]

Alast there are too many hardware variables on today's PC's. Codec's and how a program handled them on your hardware will be the major factors in video reproduction. Most attack this task using a Premo Quality Codec like "Huffy", "VirtualDub" for software, and a Mocho Grande Hardware to handle to 100 megabytes or more per-minute encoding.
I myself don't bother. If I record from my TV-tuner, Mpeg1 at 352x240 1.15 bps is vcr quality and that's all I'm expecting. If I'm ripping then Smartripper and FlaskMpeg gives superior quality.
On the issue of recording from my Video camera, motion compensation is always the problem reguardless the card analog/digital so codecs play the largest part on getting what I'm after. Capturing to Mpeg just products to many Water marks around anything thats not standing still, so the long conversion process has to be undertooken.
This still doesn't factor in your motherboard, cpu, operating system, or up to date drivers.

I know this doesn't help your situation any, but these are factors that need to be considered carefully.