Good capturing software?
 

My specs:

Pentium 4 1,8 GHz
256 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 3 Ti 200 (integrated capture device)

Formerly used software + reasons for abandoning them:

- InterVideo WinDVR ~ worked like a charm but after formatting my PC and reinstalling everything it doesn't recognise my capture device anymore

- Windows Movie Maker ~ ok, but video is stuttering and the lack of editing software for WMV format files (thus the need to convert them to AVI first)

- VirtualDub ~ capturing with DivX compression is not fluid enough, no compression takes away too much space and the movie still stutters sometimes


So, any suggestion is very welcome! :)

Try CyberLink PowerVCR II v3.00,is very cool

Installed the trial version.
An error message pops up every three or so seconds.

"S0023: Unable to run preview graph."

Of course a solution is not given in the help file (why should it? the whole purpose of the help file is to tell people where to buy the software, after all -_-") and I couldn't find anything on the net either. Anyone able to help me? Or other suggestions?

I used SnagIt once to record a short clip (some 50 seconds long) to explain how to use a program and show it during a presentation. I don't know if this is what you need, but I found it good enough for my needs :).

Uhh... try Adobe Premiere? It's always worked when I've had to do capture. (That is, when other utilities have failed.)

Tried Adobe Premiere before the request and it didn't work either - the device isn't recognised. I'll just remove all the capture hardware and try to get rid of all registry instances followed by a reinstallation. Thanks for your help! :)

http://www.geovid.com/Screen_VidShot
but i've never tried it myself!

Honestly, any attempts at real-time compression done in software are a crapshoot. If you're not trying to get tuning ability, I'd suggest just buying a little $50 composite/s-video -> DV converter box and run that in via Firewire. You'll get DV files captured, which will be big, but you can always compress them down later... which is, considering your specs, probably the best way to go. As long as you have a 7200RPM hard drive, you'd be good to go.

You could use Windows Media 9 Encoder (with the new Windows Media 9 Advanced Profile). Available here, it does live video capturing, and I've heard of many guys who use it to encode TV on the fly, you might give it a try. Also, be sure to grab the advanced profile for even better encoding.

You can visit here to get any further help with using it.