So!

I got a USB stick to work with the Max Drive finally. How fun that was.

...And so, I thought to myself "Glad the hard part's done!"
Except not.

The iGrabber is a super cheap USB capture device, so I honestly wasn't expecting much. I did a test video with it a long time ago under 5 minutes long. I tried it out yesterday, and on any setting it stops recording by itself at 10 minutes, with no timer set. Tried it with the timer set to 5 hours, same result. Figured Maybe Hypercam was a good solution. Obviously, not good- audio lag and all that.

So, my next line of reasoning is that this cheap thing and cheap software just suck.

As a result of all this crap, I'm looking for recommendations of a device that's external to record footage with(and preferably USB or some other pretty-standard-to-connect format for a laptop). My main goal is just to be able to use standard A/V cables, but if there's HDMI also- that's cool too.

Any ideas?

I use this capture device called Elgato, and it has worked well for me, at least on the Mac side. Before Windows crashed on me the first time, it worked fine. Now it's a bit sketchy. I may have to reinstall. But it's a good device, I think. There are other that I'm sure insult or Dray can tell you about.

I know SK used something called Showbiz. His recordings seem to come out fairly well. I haven't ever used a capture device, so I can't add much more than that. =/

Sounds pretty good too. My current device looks like an Elgato bootleg, right down to promoting the whole "We're Mac!" thing.

And Lantis, I couldn't find Show Biz on Amazon, but thanks anyways.

Right now, I'm checking this out if I have and stuff like that.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018L ... r_asin_lnk

Dunno though. Just kinda meh that by trying to be cheap, I messed myself over originally.

Is the ability to stream a factor? If not, I like both the one you linked and the AVerMedia one in the same class.

http://www.amazon.com/AVERMEDIA-C281-Game-Capture-Record/dp/B005YR0M0W/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1356603187&sr=1-4&keywords=external+capture+card
http://www.avermedia.com/avertv/upload/c281/swf/index.html
http://www.avermedia.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?Id=556


More than the one you linked, I like the HD PVR Gaming Edition model 1445.
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/prods_hd-recorders.html
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr-gaming.html
But they are over priced at the moment.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-hauppauge-hd-pvr-2-gaming-edition-241400.phtml

They just did a review of a capture device. Good read.