Hi Ed....
I will try and answer as best I can here your suggestions

I always install read all the info re updating drivers/software, and have
been frequenting the Forum on there for support, one Pinnacle guy has asked
me was it an upgrade or a new install, to which I have replied "new install"
and am currently waiting his reply back.
> You didnt say what video card your system uses, many video cards feature
> video In/Out these days. If you installed the drivers that activate the
> video In/Out features on your primary video card you will have a conflict
> occuring.
My video card is a Hercules Prophet 9200 128mb AGP card, to which I have got
all the latest drivers and patches etc, its always installed top of my
install list (but below bios updates/driver updates for the motherboard (as
soon as XP has installed) to make sure this is up to date.
I will check the graphic card settings for video in/out, but I am sure its
not enabled/set up/in use.
> Another possability is your motherboard chipset drivers. If you
reinstalled
> WindowsXP did you follow the correct steps for the boards chipset drivers
?
> nVidia, VIA and Intel all require that chipset drivers be installed at a
> certain time during new system set up. If you do it at the wrong time your
> IDE bus may not be able to feed the data at the full speed the harddrive
> needs to write without dropping frames.
I have a disk which came with the motherboard, and install this as soon as
possible once the main operating system has installed (i.e. as soon as XP
has finished installing. I also have patches for the bios/motherboard and
they are also installed before any other main hardware drivers.
> What speed is your processor ? You may be losing frames and audio sync due
> to a processor that can not handle WinXP and your video processing at the
> same time. How much ram do you have ? Same issue. To little ram and WinXP
> will have to write to the harddrive using virtual memory....I can
guarentee
> that will cause dropped frames and loss of sync because even a powerfull
> system will fail under those conditions.
Processor speed is 2.4ghz, and ram is 512mb, the thing is I am not dropping
frames, this is where its odd, as what happens is the capture is started,
the pic and audio are capturing fine, then after 2-3 mins, the audio stops
capturing, as does the video, but no frames are dropped and no errors, and
the main capture software is still incrementing/increasing the
min/sec/millisecond counter below the preview (which you can not turn off).
So in effect, the PC has acted as if you have hit the Stop button on the
capture, but the software counter has not registered this.
i.e. pic / audio stop capturing (no more written to disk), but software
capture window etc, carries on, if you do hit the capture stop and then
restart, it starts again normally, capturing audio/video with no errors, so
the capture card is fine, it seems to be a software issue on the capture
side. Its not audio sync either, as thats fine for what it has captured,
drive space is not an issue as the drive it has for capture is 30gb, and the
image I am capturing does not exceed 2gb), I have tried another tape but the
same thing happens, and there are no errors on the tape that cause the
capture to go out sync, as they are brand new tapes never used.
Cheers for the link
Chris