Dazzle DVC 150 & Ulead7

[remital]

Hi all, I have very little knowledge regarding computers and I am trying to convert old VHS tapes into DVD’s. I have read as much as possible regarding the dazzle 150 in these forums but I still need help!! I have recently obtained a second-hand Dazzle 150, I already have dazzle 80 which works great in Ulead7, but I run out of hard drive space as 1 hour of capture is using too much space, so I thought I could get greater capture quality with the 150 using USB 2 and save space on the hard drive. I’m sure I could if it would work with the Ulead 7. The 150 is in the selection list but when I try to capture I get the following error message (failed to initialize the capture plug-in. Another program may be using it or the file has been moved). It will capture in moviestar but this software is rubbish (dropped frames, sound out of sync etc). I also have tried pinnacle studio V8 (installed the USB patch from pinnacle) which has the 150 in the hardware list but when I try to capture I just get another error message, capture failed!! I have uninstalled each software application so as to only have one type of software at a time on the PC. I’m totally lost and don’t know how to get Ulead 7 to work with the 150. Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated. As I’m a complete novice, does all software render the mpeg file before burning to DVD???
Many thanks………….

[tomk]

Hi,

As far as I know, you cannot use Ulead VS7 directly for capturing.
With the drivers (and ms5) comes a tool called dvxcel.exe (search your harddisk, should be i c:\dvc150 or so),
Use this to capture to hd in dvd resolution (720x576), you may adjust color, ... with it. Pls. capture with NO preview.

The resulting MPEG2 File could be used by most programs like TMPEG DVDAUTHOR (TDA), Studio, Ulead, Magix , ...

I suggest you first try the TDA-trial for fast results.
The captured sound is LPCM-format which is very good but consumes much space on disk. With TDA its just a click to convert it to MPEG audio (25% off). TDA has NO mpeg encoder, so your video will be untouched (no rendering of video). Cut it (commercials) and burn it.I converted >50 old vhs tapes.

Filesize
I STRONGLY recommend win2000 or winxp because files can be bigger the 4GB (limit of win9x). dvexcel cuts at 2/4 GB so keep your video smaller or contact me for a dvxcel-patch to kill the 4GB limit if you like (xp only)


If this fails you may have to uninstall Studio, I heard that dvcdrivers (MS5) and studio do not work together.

If anything fails :
Uninstall your dvc80 soft/drivers, uninstall MS5, uninstall Studio.
Install ONLY the dazzle driver package, I think dvc341.exe is the latest. dvxcel is included.
Sounds like much work, but I am sure you will like the results of the dvc150.

[remital]

Hi Tom

Many thanks for your reply; Firstly, I am still trying to find the best results for the DVD’s from my poor quality VHS home movies. So far I have got the 150 to capture with Studio 9 with USB patch (though it has been a little hit and miss, program does not respond on certain attempts). My first test, I captured 40 minutes, which was about 2 Gig which I tried to output from studio 9 onto DVD, this failed, program froze. (so I used Ulead to produce the disc) One other tiny problem though is the sound. When the volume is turned up there is a loud humming tone but at worst I could live with this, (no humming on the VCD I did with dazzle 80, so it must be down to the capture). So now I captured all of one tape (after 3 attempts, studio froze) 7.45 Gb, no dropped frames etc.

I would be very grateful if you could send me the link to download the dvxcel-patch to kill the 4GB limit as this could be helpful as I am using XP Home. Have you had any frames dropped using this method??? I have downloaded the trial version of TMPEG DVDAUTHOR in readiness of more trails before I convert all my tapes!
I would be interested in any views you have on the above.

Once again thank you for taking the time to reply and offer assistance with the dvxcel-patch………….

Martin