Has anyone an opinion on this piece of hardware

[Zombie6422]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=343783&Sku=...1006&CatId=314

If you could tell me if it does a decent job or not? Thanks.

[Treebeard]

As a general rule USB capture devices are inferior products. but what are your intentions ? to make videos? screenshots? vcd/svcd or dvd's?

[Gazorgan]

Garbage.

It has mono sound.
If it doesn't say it's USB 2.0, then it's not. USB 1.1 just can't capture in any quality.

It would be okay for stills, but then you can use a scanner for that. I suppose you can do screenshots from a VCR with it.

Pass, try something better.

[redwudz]

The strangest thing is it says it doesn't work with WindowsXP. As a USB1 device, it probably doesn't do much more than a screen grab. As much as I hate it, Win Movie Maker would probably work better, and it's free.

[spectroelectro]

I'd have to second the opinions of the other folks. USB 1.X capture devices are unusable, and beware of USB 2.0 -- many mobos *claim* to feature USB 2.0 but actually only use USB 1.1.
All USB capture devices should be avoided in favor of either a PCI video cap card or a firewire device. Also, avoid Dazzle products in general. They have so many issues that they're not worth the hassle.
For the cost of a higher-end firewire or PCI capture device, you can now buy a DVD recorder -- pricegrabber shows that the Pannie 50 has dropped to around $360, which is actually less than you would pay for a higher-end ATI card.