Mixed reviews for all 360 capture cards - help?

I've been hurt already with trying to use the Roxio HD Pro with both my laptop and my friend's high-spec PC, so now whenever I look at the reviews for a video game capture card, I can't help but think that it's simply going to be a waste of my money, for no results!

Does anyone have any experience with a capture card that has overall had no problems being used in conjunction with a laptop? I can provide specs, but it's powerful enough to run indie games and other software, the problem with the Roxio software, however, was that the program simply crashed whenever I tried to alter any of the settings... I can provide specs if need be.

What capture cards do you use? And have you experienced any problems with them? I was tempted to get a more expensive one, to try and avoid the issues of sloppy customer service, and unhelpful forums (like with the Roxio ones) but looking at the reviews of some of the more expensive pieces of hardware on Amazon, it seems like it's just an unavoidable problem... Can anyone help?

@gunslinger: Little while ago I was looking for new HD capture device, but decided I really did not need new one. However my little research led to conclusion that if I would buy one, it would be Avermedia Gamer HD. It is a stand alone device that requires no PC to record.

@charlie_victor_bravo: This looks great, and it solves the problem that I just encountered of my laptop's built-in graphics card only having 126MB of memory in it, which is too low for most decent capture cards to record with... I'll look more into the AVerMedia capture card, but it seems to suit my needs perfectly...

Anyone out there using one of these?

I just wanted to say that I actually have a Roxio HD Pro and have had no issues with it. Sure, you can probably drop some more money and get something a bit better, but for the rare occasions when I want to stream something, it's fine.

Although it's not a 'card', I'll throw my suggestion into the ring. We've been using the Hauppauge HD PVR since 2008 in this household, it's been used to stream/record video/images from consoles such as the Saturn, Xbox 360, PS1/2/3, Wii and even my PC at times (doing that was super janky and weird, but it worked!). There are newer and sleeker boxes that do this shit better these days, of course.

You'll want to get a product that does all the heavy lifting inside of its own discreet box, without having to touch your PC/laptop's hardware, especially since you are only on a GPU with 126MB of memory! CPU is also a big factor in quality and stability, even more so with streaming live. Unless you're up around the 3.5GHz - 4GHz level on a half decent quad core, you're always going to have issues when simultaneously playing and streaming on the same computer, that is, with most modern 3D games.

Give us specs, sweet sweet specs.

Are you streaming or recording?

@fattony12000: I'm mostly just going to be recording, since my internet situation in my flat isn't the best at the moment, and I'd like to have the option to edit all the boring parts of when I'm recording stuff for better videos!

Having streaming would be a good option, for the times that I'd be able to stream some multiplayer stuff, or some campaigns, but most of the time I wouldn't use it.

Also, is anyone aware of any standalone PC capture hardware that is around so that I would be able to record footage from my laptop, as well? Or would there just be some way to simply use a VGA-component device and use the same capture equipment to record my laptop?

I have a hauppauge PVR hooked up to my 360 that i use to capture game footage, but the new PVR-2 is now out and has full HDMI 1080p support. The also have the Colossus for PC recording but i have never used it. The new PVR-2 has software for full live streaming capabilities.