That is the preview, but does it allow you to capture anything, and if so, what does the captured video look like?
Can you tell us whether you are using Vista on your computer or not; and how much RAM your computer has, please? I ask because I have had trouble capturing DV on a new Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz computer, running Vista Home Premium, but having only 1 GB of RAM. I have found that Vista/VS11+ are very resource intensive, and that 1 GB of RAM is simply not enough. As a temporary measure, I turned off all unnecessary background programs, services and processes, and the capture was perfect. But as a long term measure, I intend to add another 1 GB of RAM.
Otherwise, the only thing I can think of is to check that your Firewire card is firmly embedded into the motherboard. And if possible, try another firewire cable. I have also found that putting the firewire card in the highest slot (i.e. closest to the processor) improves the performance.
Have you updated your graphics card driver?
In this regard, I should also mention that others here have had some problems using Radeon cards with the latest drivers when they are using VS11+. However, I have never had a Radeon, so will leave it to others to answer on this point.
I think you might find that VS11+ is just so much more resource-hungry than VS8... Just to run it requires more system resources. And to both capture AND show a preview of the capture correctly might just be too much for your computer, especially if your graphics card does not come with much RAM of its own and therefore takes of the system RAM to run it. Some editing programs allow you to disable the preview screen for this reason -- to free up just a little more RAM.
This is happening on my Vista machine, as I described above. At least I got it down to just a slightly jerky preview, though the actual capture itself was smooth and fine. But to do that, I had to switch off the internet, anti-virus and every other background process and service that I knew was not necessary...
The other alternative is to set up a special editing profile on your computer to minimise these background processes while you are editing. You can find details on how to do so here: http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0
