I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good TV/video screen capture device to a beginner like me

I was using WinTV-USB last year on Windows98, but found that the picture quality was pretty bad compared to all the crystal-clear screen caps I always see on websites around the net.

Now I'm using WindowsXP and this device is not compatible.....so I was hoping to get some suggestions from anyone who might point me in the right direction of a good quality capture device. Any recommendations would be much appreciated

Are you sure the usb wintv doesnt work with winxp? I would have thought it would...

If you are getting bad quality captures its probably due to the arial or capturing device, there are better programs out there for capturing but i cant remember what they are called off the top of my head. Mromega (sp?) will know the best program because he recommended it to me last year but ive forgotton what its called

The WinTV USB device does work with WinXP - just download the latest drivers and application from the Hauppage website.

As you say however, it's frankly rubbish I got a Hercules 3D Prophet AIW 7500 based on the ATI Radeon chipset last July, and for video capture it's great - digital resolution (720x576 pixels for PAL) and you can save in a various formats including MPEG2. The great advantage of it over things like the WinTV USB is it has an extension box, which allows you to get a SCART to 3-phono lead and plug the one end in your digital box and run the three plugs to the extension box - and it's stereo sound whilst the WinTV USB was only mono audio. All round, it's a very good step up.

*double post - sorry*

I've found that DScaler can produce some exceptional images from a capture card when it's fed from a decent source.

thats the one! Dscaler, excellent piece of software

Many thanks for your replies.

I have to confess that I downloaded the new driver from Hauppage a few days ago, but when I tried to set up WinTV USB, I started getting error messages. So I panicked and uninstalled everything ..... then told myself that it was time to buy a brand new one.

Thanks again, I'm going to check out all your suggestions