I used to use a capture card and pinnacle studio software for my desktop PC about 4 years ago. It didnt work so well and was prone to crashes. I used to capture and burn documentaries from satellite tv to cd for teaching in the classroom. Now I no longer have ubc available. However it is available at my workplace. Since it is impractical for me to carry my desktop to work, I thought it might be more practical to use my laptop.

Are capture cards available for laptops? If so how reliable are they?

I am using compaq laptop AMD turion x2, 1GB RAM, 1.8ghz processor. 160GB hard drive with XP installed.

Thanks

You can see USB versions of capture devices including Pinnacle here > http://www.shop4thai.com/en/category/?cat=29

Yep, they're available. Normally USB capture cards. I don't have any experience with them, so I can't really say how well they work.

There even PCMCIA Cards for Laptops available and you may get better result with it because of the speed!