Analog to Digital Capture Card & Soundcard Recs. Please

I’m caught between that rock and a hard place. I want to upgrade the 5.1 sound
system on my workstation, but it appears that the best solution, M–Audio, is
available as a PCI card only. I do not have any PCI slots left. One thought
would be to eliminate my Turtle Beach PCI A>D capture card and front-end and
go with a higher-end A>D capture device, preferably IEE1394. I’ve seen a lot
of folk using and enjoying their Canopus capture boxes. However, the Canopus
site now only lists PCI cards in their “products” list. I could find no mention
of any external A>D capture devices. If this means, what I think it means, it
seems they have dropped those from their lineup.

Does anybody have any good experience with A>D external devices and have any
recs? I’d rather buy new from a mfgr./re-seller, than go the eBay route for
something that will be out of warranty and possibly not be in working order.
This will be a device that I will use for doing captures from VHS and similar
sources, just as I have used the Turtle Beach, so I also need software that will
work well with this device.

While I’m at it, does anybody have any advice on a PCI 5.1 soundcard. I want DTS
(as many flavors as I can get) and 5.1 Surround Sound. Spending two days on
Google got me 10k+ hits for Creative’s various products. Even excluding
“Soundblaster,” in a half-dozen different spellings and capitalizations still
yield thousands of links to Creative cards. Guess that their Web designers know
how to beat the boolean search functions. I’d like to go more towards a
pro/prosumer card, as gaming is not something that I do. I am also not that
interested in having any external mixing capabilities, as I do little sound
recording. The Roland boxes, and several others, seem to be geared towards
professional musicians. Currently, I have the Soundblaster Live! 24-bit 5.1
built-in on the MoBo with the 5.1 breakout panel. The new soundcard will be used
99.9% for AV work in Premiere, Audition and Encore.

Thanks for any recs.