Hi there, I am very new at this. I am trying to capture video from my JVC mini dv camera using dvd santa. after a few minutes, my computer shuts down without warning. i have tried using roxio and windows and the same thing is happening. i have tried to capture from the camera directly and I have also tried saving the videos on my computer and burning them from there but the computer keeps shutting down. i am running vista on a new computer.
Although it would seem unlikely on a new PC, it's just as well to check it's temperature during high CPU usage. http://www.majorgeeks.com/Hmonitor_d269.html
I had the same problem capturing MiniDV after about 40-45 minutes the computer would crash in a huge way. Even wrecked one hard drive. Turned out the hard drive I was capturing to was overheating. I added a fan and moved the HDD to another spot inside the case. There are several free HDD temp monitoring utilities that I would recommend.
I'm trying 2 right now, DTemp and HDD Thermometer. Both are free. You will need a HDD that does S.M.A.R.T. monitoring which I think most new ones do. Update. The overheated HDD was not the only problem. It crashed again and I had to restore the system files which is not as much fun as you might think. I started looking at my RAM. I have 1.5 GB of DDR, 2 256 sticks and 1 1GB stick. They are the same brand and same specs, but when I try to use all of it the computer crashes. If I use the 2 256's together or the 1GB by itself it works fine. My guess is the chips are different and the computer doesn't like that. I have captured 2 60 minute clips and no problems.