ADS Instant DVD MPG2 Quality

[jfebus]

Hi All,

Any user of the ADS Instant DVD around? what about the mpg quality? dodoes the product performs as expected?

Regards,

Jose

[dood]

Amazing quality. I love this product.

The *only* issue is that, since it uses your soundcard line-in to capture the audio, most people can only capture the audio at 44.1khz. DVD spec requires 48khz. So in order to have a fully "legal" DVD MPEG2 file, you must use TMPGEnc to save the audio file at 48khz then remux (takes about 10 minutes for a 1 hour file). Then it is the cleanest, most in-synch file I've ever seen from a hardware MPEG2 capture device. It has imported into any authoring program I've tried.

ADS says they'll have a patch out in a few weeks to convert the audio to 48khz on-the-fly so this extra step won't be required.

And the audio fix step is NOT required for the bundled MyDVD3 or Ulead VS5. It is only required for Movie Maker, Spruce Up, etc which require LEGAL mpeg2 files.

[ejai]

I LOVE THIS PRODUCT, I've been using it for about a month now and the quality is outstanding. I couldn't believe how easy and powerful this video capture device is.

Also I have been able to capture video at 48 using the Sound blaster live card. I am very pleased with this device, even the VCD quality is very good. I use it for creating SVCDs, and it does so with incredible quality.

If I have one gripe it would be the Ulead software Video Studio, when editing the video the audio goes out of sync. This is a known problem with this software, thats why I stopped using it. I spoke to ADS about the problem and they are trying to get Ulead to come up with a patch to solve this minor glitch. But if you capture without editing with Ulead the audio syncs up perfectly.

It's worth the money.
Ernest

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ejai on 2001-12-18 15:07:52 ]</font>

[owix]

I got the box just last week and I have both good and bad things to say about it.

First of all I think that the video quality in all resulutions are very good if you take into account what the box got to do! I guess that Streammachine SM2210 chip has lot of mileage still to go, so the quality can be improved with updates, but this is purely my guess, my feeling of the chip.

Audio quality should be improved a little bit. For example in VCD (pal) captures you can here very little digital noise kind of static sound. It is not disturbing but I think it can be improved.

Other issue is compatability and usb performance. My primary computer and heart of my audio studio setup is Abit BP6 based dual celeron 466 computer and while this is more than enough by the specs, I didn´t get solid video stream or no audio noise out of it. I did all the tweaks I know and I was able to reduce the problems, but basicly there is not enough power in this box.

Luckily I have two computers at home and I installed the into second one: Duron 800 based box. Now videostream was solid in all resulutions and quality, especially in MPEG2 5mbit/s was something i would like to see in those VHS vcrs. And VCD captures are good enough, certainly better then PowerVCR II VCD captures.

But there was a problem: Soundblaster Live! Value which was installed in the Duron box didn´t like where it is and it was creating digital noise in both UID (=Usb Instant Dvd) and PowerVCR... so I took it out and took Epox 8kta3s audio chip into use, and it worked!!! Only the problem with mpg audio compression quality was left and problem with audio sync... but that one should be corrected quite easily because I was using highly fracmented hard drive for capturing 45 minute capture...

BTW: If you own the UID box and you havn´t "explored" the cd you can find in the "backup" folder (somewhere in the disc, I dont remember exactly) software for testing the Streammachine chip. You can infact capture with it also and create yuor own par files!!! Run installer and select the first one of the similar product codes (if you chose wrong and software dont find UID uninstall and install again for another product code). This software is made by Streammachine manufacturer and I think it is updated by them. Software can be found atleast 1.1 version of install cd.

Owix