*Capture* or *Record* streaming video??

[lbeck]

So what's the difference between video capturing and recording streaming video? The two functions seem to be treated separately on this site.

I'm getting confused regarding all of the software available for youtube capture. I almost bought the Aiseesoft product since it is cheap, but did a Google search and found much discontentment with it. But my Google search also found this site, so I decided to review what's here. I did a search for aiseesoft and Streaming Video Recorder and didn't get any returns, so I'm now wondering if I'm using the right terminology.

The top choices at this site appear to be the more costly ones. No surprise. But I'm looking for something for free or very cheap. All that I really want to do is to capture e.g. youtube video and save it to a file that I can work with, like MP4, AVI, or most of the going video formats. I am interested in the quality of the downloaded video and would like to capture HD video where it's available. And I have found some files that I thought were youtube but aren't. So I guess that I really want something that will capture what I see on the screen at the highest quality.

I have software to convert video files but not FLV files, and I also can edit most popular formats like MP4 and AVI, so I'm not interested in paying more for software that will edit or convert. I only want a way to capture and save to a common format.

Is there a place at this site that ranks bare bones video capture software by quality and price?