Hello, I'm new to this forum, just found out about this software a few hours ago and I must say I find it incredible.

I'm going to work on an event with kids where we will simulate a local news channel, two cameras, and a couple prefab videos. I was originally thinking of hooking the cameras up through PCI-E firewire cards but since I don't have the cables and fear they might pull out and damage the camera ports on accident, I'm thinking about looking at perhaps a double RCA input. I know my technical terms may be way off here, but I hope you can understand my question, which basically is, what hardware in the 200 dollar range would work well for capturing input from two cameras? Preferably a USB or PCI-E piece of hardware.

Your help is much appreciated.

I would check ebay for some older Osprey capture cards (analog Osprey 440).
I'm not sure how well they are supported in "today's" computing world, but it sounds like it might be the ticket you are looking for.
There are other options from Blackmagic and Magewell, but they might run you a little more in terms of cost.

Ice