My first thought are that you have a slower computer, or are you capturing to an external USB drive?

If you could post your computer specs, processor speed, memory size, etc. that would be helpful to know where to look next. Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

Hi, The info I could find is:
Dell 1525 Inspiron Laptop
Processor
Intel® Pentium® processor T4200
Operating system
Pre-loaded Genuine Windows Vista ® Home Basic*
Memory
1GB DDR2 SDRAM Memory
Harddrive
180GB* Hard Drive
Graphic Card
Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 Graphics Card
Optical Device
8X DVD Burner*
Wireless Network Card
Dell™ Wireless 1395 802.11g 54Mbps Wireless Mini Card
Is this enough info?
You are a saviour!

Is the capture process showing that you are dropping frames during capture, or are you saying the playback of a captured video is choppy?

Your laptop is on the slow side of technology and 1GB of RAM is not ideal for running Windows Vista with a video editing program that uses a lot of computing resource such as PowerDirector and others.

I know some people here use laptops with PowerDirector and its been reportedly slow, but did work. Not sure if they were using the capture, though. Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

The playback capture is choppy, but all frames are there. As I mentioned the capture is fine (no "choppyness/jerkyness) until I press record.
I tried the "magician" button and then it was fine , but cut back the capture from 19 minutes to just 6. Can I change the time with the magician so it equals the captured clip?
I have spoken to a guy that runs the same program on his laptop (with a bit more memory) and his works fine.
Thank you

Would it help if I used an external hard drive and saved the capture there?

Quote: Would it help if I used an external hard drive and saved the capture there?

Possibly, If the external drive is connected by eSATA or Firewire. Otherwise, standard USB external drives write very slowly and you would be better off just letting it go to your C: drive, like normal. Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

sorry, you are my only hope!
Does anything else come to mind why it would choppy only when it records?

Quote: sorry, you are my only hope!
Does anything else come to mind why it would choppy only when it records?

Several things could contribute:

Hard disk is very fragmented. (Defragment your drive)

Hard disk is very full. (Get rid of some stuff)

Virus scanner is interferring. (Configure your virus scanner to ignore folders you use for video stuff. Usually you tell it to "exclude" certain folders.)

Other programs running at the same time (Shut down any that aren't critical) Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

Do you have the latest PD6?
Try playing the captured video in another program.
Does it play properly?
What is your capture format? AVI or Mpeg.
Your computer needs more horsies. AVI will give you problems, everything you do should be reduced to Mpeg2.
Up the ram.


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Thanks guys, I will give that a go. as I said it is all fine until i start to record and then it goes haywire. From the sounds of ity I will have to "up the RAM"...I will give that a go and get back to you.

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Diane,

What type of profile are you using for your capture? What is your procedure, are you sending your VHS signal through a video camera with A/D converter or are you using one of many other A/D converters?

Jeff

I am using DVD maker 2 bundle, that includes the cabel and all the other bits and pieces needed. I go to PowerDirector, go to capture, pretty much leave everything at default and go.... I forgot to say it is plugged into my panasonic vcr. I cant understand why the picture is fine until I hit record?

I will try some of the suggestions offered, although my brother who knows a tiny bit more about computers than me assures me that my laptop meets the specifications required to run the program.
You guys are great taking the time to help! I really appreciate it.
:
ps I live in australia, could that have something to do with the settings?

Dianne,

I may not understand what you are trying to do. On what piece of equipment are you engaging a "record" switch or function after "capture"?

Are you attempting to somehow "pass through" your captured signal to a DVD recorder? If so, you might be better off connecting your VHS source directly to the DVD recorder and hitting play on the VHS and record on the DVD recorder.

Does PD6 burn to DVD? And does your laptop have a DVD burner?

If it does, once you have your VHS material captured you should simply be able to edit and then go to Create Disk and burn your DVD. That should then play on any set top DVD player.

I've been told by several techs that 1GB of RAM is just enough to run Windows Vista on and leaves not hardly anything left over to properly run applications. Some editing packages state 2GB RAM is minimum to run both Vista and their application.