Back to see my Dad next week.   Will try that.

The sound bar to the right of the central capture window leaps into action whenever I press play on the VCR, but as soon as I 'Start Capture' it crashes, followed by the usual Windows messages about 'program not responding' and 'Windows  searching for solutions'.  My Dad's PC is on Vista.   I will borrow his USB-510 and bring it home and try on my own PC (see spec) to see if it works here.   The VCR is a joint VHS / Hi-8 device which he uses because he has loads of old stuff to transfer from various media.   Come to think of it he has a HDD camcorder and I need to check again if that works in S14 though it did capture OK in S12.   I seem to recall that the camcorder capture froze up too on my last visit.

It's been a bit difficult to convey to him any advantages in using S14 over S12.    What I consider a workaround,(capturing in S12 and editing / burning with S14) he sees as 'go with what works' , i.e. S12 for everything.