My mother's husband (Victor) has an HP Pavilion notebook to which he has attached a Grandtec USB 2.0 TV Tuner and video capture device. It works fine and can record the television signal and that can then be played back. The trouble is that Victor doesn't know where the recording is being saved with the result that only the last thing recorded can be played back. There are no clues on the interface for the device (it isn't a standard window), the only instructions are for installation and I have looked as far into the internet for an answer as my search skills allow. I've looked in Documents and in the Program Files for Grandtec - I've also used the search facility to try and find obvious file extensions for video like .avi or .mpeg but am not particularly savvy with this area.

There is probably something blindingly simple that we are missing. Could anybody point at it for us?

it should be recording as .mpg and the files will be quite large - around 1.5Gb per hour. So you can search for .mpg, by filesize and by 'files created since'. Also make sure that you're searching for hidden files in case they're being weird.

Thanks John.

Well, it's definitely not recording as .mpg or .mpeg and no video file shows as being created or modified in the last two days. The television that I recorded yesterday has survived a power cycle so it's definitely somewhere in the system. I have changed the OS settings to display hidden files and file extensions.

what about if you just search for any file over 1Gb?

Found it. It appears to record to one file with an .avi extension that I had overlooked and must overwrite that file each time one records unless the file is renamed.

if the software you're using is like mine then there should be an option to append the date/time to the recorded file name.

It doesn't seem to have such an option. The interface looks like the front of a video recorder with buttons for play, record etc. It's just a cheap and nasty thing that has been rebadged for a local budget electronics chain called Dick Smith Electronics (DSE). I would never have bought such a thing but Victor had dreams of recording television programs and then writing them to DVD. He is 78 years old and has spent his life using Apple computers so I'm not surprised his first experience with PCs and the multitude of inexpensive devices available for them have created some confusion.