| Video Capture Cards & Devices |
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|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review: ( 6 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Good hardware, bad software Feb 25, 2010
By Steven Ebstein
I bought this device to transfer all my 8 mm analog home video to electronic form. I had no trouble getting the device up and running. However, when I tried to capture a 2 hr tape, the capture would abort with some error message relating to trying to capture copyrighted material. Since I had taken those videos with my Sony camcorder, the error was bogus. I could restart the recording from around where it stopped. Sometimes it would go for a decent period of time, other times/tapes were very frustrating.
The fault lies with the bundled software. I found a great free utility online, Debut Video Recording Software, which gives you control over the bit rate, encoding, etc. and accurately reports dropped frames. It *NEVER* crashed, just gracefully dropped frames if the video signal on the tape had a glitch or there was no recorded signal on a portion of the tape. The file sizes were significantly smaller for comparable quality, though I did not know the parameters for the native software.
One problem I have not addressed, yet (I still have to edit/merge tens of hours of video) is poor synchronization of the audio and video. Some of that comes from the playback of my camcorder and some may be due to the capture device. I found much information on the web on splitting the audio and video, then merging them with the time shift removed, but haven't tried it, yet. I did not try the bundled video editing software, but based on the poor quality of the capture software, I wouldn't expect much.
Bottom line is this device is inexpensive and capable of doing what is advertised. Unfortunately, you have to find your own software to make it usable.
 Frustrated Aug 02, 2011
By B. Schneider
I'm frustrated right now as finding a decent VHS converter has always been challenging. I'm now giving up on this device due to driver installation issues on Windows 7 - I had it working at one point, but now get a failed installation when trying to install the driver. The support website is no help - I'm just going to assume e-mailing will be no help. I'm also giving up due to the copyright issue - I'm trying to copy home videos and it will just stop capturing in the middle of the recording saying there's a copyright issue - be very aware of this issue as it does exist. If your videos have quality issues...and what VHS tape doesn't, you will have problems with the capture. Just ordered the VC500 - probably just so I can get frustrated again. All I want is to capture a video to a standard format so I can use editing software to do everything else - it doesn't seem too much to ask! I give it 2 stars because it works sometimes - probably still a bit generous.
good hardware poor software Aug 14, 2010
By Paul Z
"Paul Z"
Hardware captures video and audio, converts to digital stream and sends to PC. This works fine. But the software is far inferior to even free offerings on the web.
First: It refuses to copy old purchased VCR tapes(stops on detect macrovision signal) which you may wish to legally copy for personal use since VCR is essentially an obsolete format.
Secondly: The incoming Video stream is a collection of frames that need to be encoded. Decent video software stores frames as they come in from the capture device to a temp file and encodes in the background. The collection process has first priority to avoid lost frames. The included software tries to process on the fly. Frames are dropped whenever the process fails to keep up, either due to a background task on the PC running or someone checking the PC. Worse, when frames are dropped and sometimes, even without recording a drop, the video and audio get out of sync. The longer the recorded video, the worse the video vs. audio out of sync becomes. This software is only useful for recording very short segments of video (which can later be combined).
The main reason I do not give this a failing rating is that far better software is available from other sources including freeware. It is annoying that included software is not at least as food as that which can be obtained for free!
Run-of-the-mill capture device Dec 25, 2009
By Serge Kavetsky
"Mr. Fix-it"
This is also sold as the Roxio video converter. If you just want to transfer some run-of-the-mill tapes to digital format, then this is a convenient method. Granted you will have to load drivers onto your computer and some knowledge of DVD authoring would help. The video quality is the same as if you copied from tape to tape, i.e. there is some video depredation. As for the sound being out of sync with the video, this is still a problem although a minor one (some reviewers did not even notice it). If you need to make archival copies of VHS tapes you will need to step up to an ADVC-55 or even ADVC-300 ($150 & $400 respectively).
 Great Capturing Ability for a Little Thing Nov 10, 2009
By A. Skinner
I bought this as a replacement of this, Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Plus, that I bought from Newegg. I RMA'd that due to it stopped working after a less than a minute test capture. I suspect it had to do with USB hubs or however laptop USB function, but, whatever. I receive the Kworld device in about 1 business day. FYI, don't use the driver disc that came with the item if you have Windows 7, instead go to the Kworld site and download the Windows 7 certified drivers. I learned the hard way, I used the disc and the driver installation hung and ended up not responding and I had to end it. But after I installed the drivers, I proceeded to install the Cyberlink PowerDirector and PowerProducer. I'd recommend capturing with PowerDirecter, I tried Sony Vegas (it wouldnt detect the device) and I also tried VDub aka Virtual Dub (that completely crashed my laptop and made it reboot, my assumption is its not compatible with it). I use other software to do the final editing, mastering and burning to DVD. Also, capture to an external hdd or a separate internal one than the OS drive.
I would've given it a 5 star rating but I couldn't get it to capture audio when capturing to an MPEG-4 (Xvid) file even though it shows its capturing the audio. I probably just have to tinker with it a bit more to figure it out.
All in all it's a pretty good device and a good buy at about $45. I'd highly recommend it.
See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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