If your end product will be a videotape, use the “Best” settings for "Video Capture: Quality." If you intend to save your video as a small-screen computer file, you can reduce the quality to “Good,” and save file size and processing time—but you can’t undo that decision later, so when in doubt, use “Best!”

Make sure the Video Standard is NTSC, and that the audio source is set to "line." "Video compression: Date rate . . . " should be as high as possible (push the slider to the right). If you installed Studio on an old machine, you can test your drive speed here ("Test max rate") to be sure it’ll support the highest quality.

The initial screen shows available disk space. If it’s below 20% or so, think about cleaning things out. The less the space, the slower things run! Also, defrag regularly!

Run the video tape you intend to capture. It should show in the screen in the upper right hand corner. If your speakers are hooked up to the “Line out” on your sound card, you should also hear sound. If either of these things is not happening, they won’t be happening in your capture file either! Fix it now!   

Capture scene by scene, creating new files for each.  You can capture all the videotape you intend to use at once, but Studio will have to work harder to assemble your project, and the scenes will be harder to edit. Capture about 5 seconds of "pad" before and after each scene - this isn't the time to be exact, and you'll need the extra seconds later. It’s also a good idea to set a file location (using "Select folder...." - see above) for all of the captures which is unique to the project - on your first capture, click on the little folder icon and create a folder. Enter a filename. If you call your first scene “Scene 1” (with a space between “Scene” and “1”), it’ll automatically call your second capture “Scene 2”. Remember that the Studio default file location is whatever was used last for that username login, so if someone else uses the machine in between capture sessions, you'll need to reset the file location.

• On your VCR or camcorder, locate a spot well before the scene you intend to capture, and pause.
• In Studio, click the “Start Capture” button.
• Choose your file location and name (see above).
• Un-pause your videotape. Wait for the auto-tracking and other VCR on-screen messages to disappear.
• Click “Start Capture”
• Allow capture well past the scene's end, and click “Stop capture” (that button will be where “Start Capture” was to start with). 
• Studio will automatically detect scenes within each capture, and show each as separate parts of a captured file. If you don’t want it to do that (you want your capture to stay together as a single video clip), click “Cancel” when the “Detect Scenes” bar comes up.
• Repeat for each scene. If you see any dropped frames in the view window after a capture, give it another try for that scene.