by Carl Farley for Murray McAndrew . . .
At the last Video SIG meeting, there was some discussion about video capture using a simple device – Video Xpress by ADS Tech – which cost $40 at Amazon.com. I found this device at Fry’s for the same price. I also saw a similar device, the “Dazzle”, marketed by Pinnacle, for about $50.
Do you know if one is better than the other? I imagine it depends on the software that comes with each device. Since I already have Studio 10.7 on my computers, do you happen to know if it would be necessary to install the software that comes with the capture device (beyond the driver) or can I just use Studio? Maybe there is some additional functionality that comes with the capture device’s software that would
be useful.
March 17, 2008 at 4:28 pm |
As I mentioned at the meeting, my wife has used the ADS Tech product to convert a LOT of instructional videotapes to DVD, for a club she’s in. She does use the Ulead product that is bundled with it for the capture only. Then she edits the captured clips with Magix “Movie Edit Pro”, a video editing program I’ve used for years. Other than the capture feature, the Ulead video editing product only works for a short time as a demo, but the capture feature has no limit.
The only problem she’s had is sync between audio and video, which gets progressively worse for longer clips. So she captures short clips with the Ulead bundled product, then edits them and adjusts the video in the Magix editor, which also allows burning the DVD’s with chapters, etc. It comes out fine.
I have no experience with Dazzle.
March 18, 2008 at 3:00 pm |
Thanks for your additonal comments, Steve. I went on the Pinnacle Support site and had a “Live Chat” session. The tech support person said that my Studio (Standard, v. 10.7) software which is already installed on my computer, should work just fine with the Dazzle capture device. That may mean that I won’t have to install the software that comes with the Dazzle (except, probably for a driver) so that will save some space on the computer. I’ll still probably check the software to see if there are features in it that Studio 10.7 doesn’t have.
March 21, 2008 at 6:44 pm |
I used the Dazzle product to import two DVD’s that could not be read by my software.
It worked well. No software problems. No dropped inputs. I have Pinnacle 10 light installed on my computer and did not have to install additional software.
I don’t know about the audio video sync issues with this product. The two videos were about one hour long each. One was a silent 8 mm movie with a few comments. The other was a slide show with music. So sync problems would not show up on these two conversions.
January 11, 2009 at 4:29 pm |
please would someone tell were too buy a cheap capture card so i can make videos on my xbox 360 . i dont even know where to go to buy one i only want the cheapest one so any help would be useful ?/?/?