Capturing/converting videos

[Lonman]

So how does everyone convert their videos. I have a set of laserdiscs that I want to drop down. Funny thing is I had made some test videos via Roxio DVD creator, using the built in capture card & creating an mpg file. This file at one time played on Hoster, now they do not. I just tried creating a new one today with the same results. The files are good & play on every player I put them on otherwise. The program only extracts to mpg files so I have no other option. I have tried converting those into other formats ie avi, wmv, etc. while these still work in all other players, will not play on Hoster.
So I guess I am looking for recommendations on proven methods (hardware/software) to capture outside video sources, save them to a file that will play properly in Hoster.