Pinnacle pctv

I assume it relies on the soundcard to render the audio stream. Get a card from Dazzle which handles the video AND the audio using a hardware codec and you won't have this problem. The best solution is an external DCV-150 capture device using USB2.0. The FAST AVMaster2000 is by far the best internal solution, but at ?550 (US$800) it is really only for high-end users like me and does need a full length (13") PCI slot.

Assuming you don't have the resources for such a good quality card, make sure you have 'interleave audio and video' option selected when recording, and that you have DMA enabled for the hard disk. Defrag the hard disk before recording and before playback, and make sure you have a minimum of 128Mb ram and an 800MHz cpu. Capture at a maximum resolution of 384x288 in PAL or 320x240 in NTSC and set your hard disk transfer rate no higher than 1200k/sec. Disable EVERY background process, and if you have a PCI internal modem, disable it during recording and playback.