usb instant dvd hardware encoder

[matt-o]

just FYI anyone interested should also check out the Creative digital vcr..

https://www.videohelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=53943&forum=2

Fallow up..
forget the creative digital VCR if you want to capture for vcd/svcd use!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: matt-o on 2002-01-11 18:16:42 ]</font>

[sush]

I think the USB Instant DVD offers more than other similar devices. You can set the bit rate. You can choose VCD, SVCD, Full DV. It has stereo input (so it doesn't use the PC Sound Card).

[dood]

USB Instant DVD *DOES* use the soundcard to capture.

[sush]

dood,

If you look at the product specs, it says that it has "audio in" jacks on the front of the box. There is a "audio in" at the back too. What's the use of these jacks if it's not used to capture?

[binhquach]

I have been using the ADS USB Instant DVD for about 3 weeks now and I think it great (at least for me).

First of all, some clarification:

You can use it to capture from a DVD player but why would you want to do that. It is a lot better to rip it from a DVD player in your computer and process it to mpeg-2. You get a much higher quality that way.

I THINK WE SHOULD STOP DEBATING ABOUT CAPTURING FROM DVD PLAYER SINCE THIS IS GETTING TOO LONG.

But if you want to capture from VCR, Cable or Camcorder, I think it is the best at the present.

If you could, capture it to SVCD since the quality is alot better and regular VCD. The one I made out-beat any of the VCD that you can buy from some of the asian stores. Don't have a SVCD player? go to Circuit City and get the APEX AD-1500 for about $79 and make all of your movies SVCD. It's worth it. I bought my on the day after thanksgiving for about $69. I bought about 10 of them and sell it back to my friends and relatives for the same price. Now they can all enjoy the movies that I made.

I used to use a video capture card to capture to avi and then process it to VCD but the process is too long and cumbersome. And you already know how much disk space a 2 hours of VHS took (gigabytes and gigabytes). Now I just connect the unit up. Set the capture to SVCD and come back in two hours. I have a good quality mpeg2-svcd file that does not eat up all of my harddrive space. I cut it with tmpgenc and burn it onto a few CD and I am done. The quality come very close to the original VHS version.

AGAIN, DON'T COMPARE THIS WITH DVD. IT'S NOT FARE.

It does use your audio card to capture audio.

It is hardware encode so your computer don't have to do too much work. (hence, no need to have a dual pentium 4, 2 gigahertz pc with 4GB of ram)

It record SVCD 480x480 or DVD 720x480 so it beat any VCD format (352 x 240) out there.

I haven't try any of the advance function since this is so simple to me that I am so busy renting DVD from netflix to rip the dvd's. (Netflix is having a two week free unlimited rental trial by mail that doesn't cost me a penny)

But if you are trying to tweak it. You might get better quality or running into more trouble or bugs. So far I am only using three programs. The capture program that came with it to capture and tmpgenc to split the file and nero to burn to cd's. I haven't use other program that came with it like My DVD or the other one (I think it is ulead or something)

I plan to carry it around and if I drop by one of the relative or friend's house and if they have something good on the playboy channel. I just hook it up to my laptop and record it. The file should be small enought to fit on my laptop harddrive.

So far this is the only unit that's hardware encode, "stand-alone", usb and can encode up to 720x480 format.

This is only the first generation so I am sure there is alot of room to improve and I am sure that there alot of bug and problem with the unit that I haven't encounter. But for $179, so far it is worth it for me and all of my relative and friend really appreciated me. Nobody pay me but the do give me gifts. I hope I will get something good this chrismas from them.

If anyone know of a better unit, please share.

[arp]

binhquach,

Since you have a usb instant dvd, I think you can tell me why Pinnacle PCTV USB (i have one)can only capture at 352x288 (PAL) because usb port don't support more "width band", and usb instant dvd can capture up to 704x480.
I have a laptop Compaq presario Amd 450Mhz, 192MB RAM, Video card 8MB, HD 6GB and i can't capture my vcr/camcorder 8mm tapes with quality (loss many frames and resolution is too very low at pc play with mplayer).
Do you think that with Usb instant dvd would have best AVI's?
This device is seemed to new card Pinnacle Bungee (www.pinnaclesys.de)?
Thanks

[binhquach]

I don't want to say I am an expert of this even thought I do fiddle with these things alot. Most of my opinion is from personal experience.

One explaination could be that the Pinnacle PCTV USB capture pure AVI file which is a lot bigger and take up alot more bandwidth. The USB Instant DVD on the other hand has hardware encode the video to mpeg-2/mpeg-1 which is processed compress format so it take up less bandwidth and was able to produce higher resolution. I don't know if the USB Instant DVD would make best AVI but I think it makes very good MPEG-2 files at the present until some other vendor come up with a better unit, of course.

[babyfishlips]

"I plan to carry it around and if I drop by one of the relative or friend's house and if they have something good on the playboy channel. I just hook it up to my laptop and record it. The file should be small enought to fit on my laptop harddrive. "

binhquach,

How are you able to capture decent sound? All Laptops I've tried have no audio line-in on soundcard. The microphone records too loud with distortion.

Being able to move the laptop to the VCR would make life easier.

[statuspending]

ok guys.

tell me what the situation is please.
capturing requires a sound card, but the video is hardware encoded? does the software multiplex these on the fly while capturing? or does it create two files? i don't understand how audio and video both come to the party in synch.

thanks.

[sush]

Statuspending,

I just called ADS Technologies. They confirmed that it uses the sound card for capturing audio and that it synchs the audio & video "automatically". I didn't press for more info.

-Sush

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sush on 2001-12-13 14:40:55 ]</font>

[Tony Yip]

Just curious if I can capture using the VCD option
at a bitrate other than the standard 1.15 Mb/sec?

I'm looking to capture VCD mpeg1 at say 2 mb/sec to
turn it into a XVCD.

[Tony Yip]

As a followup to my last post, I wonder if the SVCD
option for the bitrate is also adjustable? It has
presets for 3,4,5 mb/sec

[RMSloan]

I recently purchased one of these devices just before Christmas. I'm running Windows XP Pro on a Celeron 650mhz machine with 128MB ram. The setup was very straight forward and my first capture took place without a hitch.

The source material was from my Sony Digital camcorder (I also capture via firewire but get fedup with the time it takes to render to VCD mpeg) recorded a few days before purchase. All I can say is WOW, the quality from this device is great, I could spot no difference between a firewire capture and conversion using TMPGenc to a direct capture using the InstatDVD, I have tried the WinTV PVR, the Dazzle video studio, and the Creative Video Blaster and none of them even come close to the InstantDVD. I did use the new drivers from there website before I did the first capture.

I think this device is brilliant and will be buying a second one for my wife's machine.

Regs,

Robert.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-16 00:40:19, pbnyc wrote:
I bought one of the ADS "Instant DVD" gadgets. Though XP recognizes it properly and installs it (albeit after the "non-signed driver scolding," the included software, MyDVD, doesn't even recognize the device as being installed. The ADS tech support Website might as well not even be there. There is NO troubleshooting info. whatsoever.

I'm taking it back. BTW: I haven't heard of anyone yet with a positive experience with this hardware. BUYER BEWARE!

pbnyc
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[alkieman]

Thought I'd throw my 2p worth in here.

I've looked at the specs of the Instant DVD device on ADSs website. The maximum bitrate for MPEG2 DVD compliant encoding is 5MB/s. You may indeed be happy with this, but on my 47 inch TV I would not be. Realtime encoding can be superb quality, the WinTV PVR produces superb quality at higher bitrates and in my opinion with the latest Win98 drivers, outperforms TMPGEnc software encoding at the same bitrates of 8MB/s or 9MB/s. However, at lower bitrates of 6MB/s or less then TMPGEnc beats it hands down. Now that the PVR drivers for XP have been improved hopefully I can finally junk Win98.

If you want InstantDVD for producing primarly VCD and SVCD files then it may fit the bill, but for DVD work the maximum bitrate is too low. Of course, as a USB device it can't really go any higher. The figures quoted of USB being able to handle up to 12mb/s are not correct. That is in short bursts only, USB 1.0 does not have a high enough sustained transfer rate at all for higher quality MPEG2 encoding. You would be better off with a PCI card if you want high quality realtime MPEG2 encoding. Just make sure the drivers for your particular operating system are avalable for whichever card you do get.

[alkieman]

Oops, that should of course read that the maximum bitrate the Instant DVD device supports for MPEG2 encoding is 5MB/s.

[dood]

Well, I have this box and I will challenge your comments. Most commercial DVDs are LESS THAN 5mbps. Granted, the source quality is perfect and we're talking professional conversion, but nonetheless a 4-5mbps capture CAN look amazing!

That said, my 5mbps captures using this device have no flaws or artifacts, even on high-speed scenes. It is comparable to the BEST output from TMPGEnc. It DOES produce DVD quality files that are fully compatible with any authoring program (one software tweak required for full compliance). All audio is in synch. The video looks great on my projection TV.

Must be magic in that thar box!

[alkieman]

Actually DOOD most commercial DVDs are NOT less than 5MB/s. Commercial DVDs are variable bitrate with the maximum going as high as 9mb/s. The bitrate drops to around 4 or 5 when there's little or no action on the screen. Watch a good bit of an action film with the bitrate meter showing and you'll see what I mean. Some companies encode at lower bitrates to fit more on a disc but the quality suffers (compare the X-files TV box sets with the movie)

I don't doubt that a 5MB/s bitrate may be fine for what you are using it for, but for me it doesn't produce files of a high enough quality for stuff I really want to get the best out of.

I do encode at lower bitrates for many things that don't have need of higher bitrates (comedy shows and a l,ot of TV material) but for my DV work and transferring my old analogue laserdiscs the higher bitrates DEFINATELY look better.

Incidently it's also down to the individual. I produced a test DVD for one of my friends with a range of clips at various bitrates. I could see a difference in quality between the 5.5MB/s clip and the 6, 8 or 9MB/s clip whereas he could not.

[Valnar]

I found out some more info on this unit. First of all, it doesn't even compete with the Creative Labs offering, its above it. Creative's Video whatever only does 352x480. This can do full D1 (or half-D1 too) resolution at 704x480 at 25 or 29.97fps. Yes, you are limited to CBR at 5mb/sec because of USB, but it looks pretty good! It looks as good as TMPGEnc from what I could tell. I had a user send me a sample 60MB file and I couldn't really see any artifacts worth mentioning.

It also bypasses Macrovision protection, so start converting them VHS tapes! I was saving for a speedy PC, but at $200, I'll get rid of AVI_IO and TMPGEnc and just use this to convert all my tapes.

Here is the hardware basic info from Cirrus Logic, whose chip they use. ADS is the first oEM of the product.

http://www.streammachine.com/reference/refMultPerph.html#

http://www.cirrus.com/design/products/overview/index.cfm?DivisionID=13&SubdivisionID=4...&ProductID=288

I hear there are bugs with the software, and some stability problems, but I've read far more praises than complaints. Once they get those bugs worked out, I'd be happy to get rid of my analog capture board!

If anyone has this product, please post a mini-review. Lets stop the speculation from the people who don't own it (yes, I fall in that category too)

-Robert

[Dano]

Listen guys all this debating is ridiculous. If you can get 5Mb/s out of a $200 box I would consider that an awesome deal. I would like to know how well it actually does on the lower resolutions like VCD and SVCD. Here is a "review"

http://www.guygraphics.com/index.html?reviews/instantdvd.html&1

Excerpt:

"SVCD 2.4mbs - This showed definite blockiness and stair-stepping. Not very usable.

VCD 1.5mbs - Amazingly enough, this looked better than the SVCD. Not as good as most software solutions. About the same as the Terapin encoder."

[Valnar]

I've been posting and asking questions like mad on another forum dedicated to ADS products. We have uncovered some hidden talent in this device. You may want to look at some of the recent threads with my name "Robert" in them. There is another utility besides the Capture Wizard which makes it more flexible.

See here:
http://wwug.com/forums/ads-tech/

Robert

[dood]

Yeah, there is a StreamMachine utility "hidden" on the InstantDVD install disk. I haven't tried it yet, but you can apparently customize all the settings. Someone did a VBR 6mbps and it tested out well. I'm so happy with my 5mbps CBRs, I don't know why I'd change!! I guess VBR would be preferrable, though.

Anyway, last night I captured Top Gun (yeah, I know...just testing) at 5mbps CBR. The action scenes and explosions are perfect...no artifacts. The detail is great (you can see the hairs on Tom's arms). The audio is perfect. I capped a 2 hour movie, converted the audio to 48khz, and authored a vob in MovieMaker in less than 3 hours. Perfect output...

[Kusie]

@dood

R U the one that put up some USB Instant DVD svcd test clips of Topgun on Yahoo briefcase?

Just wondering because i downloaded them two days ago and could not find the message the link was in...

Kusie

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kusie on 2002-01-04 10:17:17 ]</font>

[asprinwizard]

I hope I'm going too much off the topic here, but I am considering changing my PV-256 for the USB version PV-356. I use it primarily for VCD captures, and don't really care about DVD captures yet. As long as they are better than VHS I'm happy. In any case every DVD capture with the PV-256 has given jerky playback. I suspect that there is some incompatibility problem and that going the DVD route may solve the problem.

I assume the ADS and the PV-356 are pretty similar as they use the same chip. My question is simply this: Given the low bitrate and the fact that they have the same chip as the PV-256, would a USB encoder offer the same quality VCD captures as a PCI one?

I am impressed with the VCD captures from my PV-256 (much better than my AIW 12 but the card is prone to make the computer crash and do weird things. I want the sort of quality offered by the PV-256, but without the reliability problems.

Any info appreciated.

[asprinwizard]

Sorry the end of the first paragraph should read 'going the USB route'

[dood]

Kusie, no that was not me.

[TimHusker]

I just had an opportunity to review the ADS USB Instant DVD capture device. A few friends thought it would be worth exploring in an attempt to capture and edit home vacation movies from several sources.

While video editing leaves something to be desired with the packaged ULEAD Video Studio 5.0, the Capture Wizard that can be used is very quick (captures in the time it takes to stream the video through it's RCA inputs or S-video inputs provided on the device) and does a remarkable job with both VCR Tapes, 8-MM, and DV. We were able to capture video seamlessly in mpeg1 format in which we quickly created a VCD disk using Nero Burning Rom.

Also, the MyDVD package that came with the packages was able to create VCD's as well, but NOT in the required format for viewing in stand alone DVD players found in your home theater setup at home. (They will play well with CyberLink PowerDVD Software player that also comes included with the package however.)

Setup was simple and straight forward. The line-input on your full duplex sound card is used to capture audio and mixed with the video during the capture process. Take special note on adjusting your audio input settings. Doing so as per the instructions is important.

The final VCD product was well worth the anticipation of the setup. If you're desire is to transfer your current video sources to be used in conjuction with your DVD player in your home theater system, you'll want to double check your CDRW burning software for those capabilities in creating VCD's. Nero, Roxio's Easy CD Creator and some Creative Labs Burning software will be neccessary to accomplish this task.

Good luck with this product. For me, it does the job I require of it. I haven't had an opportunity, or the desire, to create a SVCD or DVD as of yet, but...given the disk space I'm sure it will do an adequate job at this as well.

[asprinwizard]

When you say VCD captures were not compatible with Standalone DVD players, is this a problem of the device. Only this is exactly the problem I have with my Provideo PV-256. As the ADS uses the same chip, this sounds like it's a feature of devices that use the Streamachine chipset. Does anyone know if it is possible to create 100% compliant VCD captures using either ADS or Provideo cards and USB devices?

[ksandbergfl]

I just had an opportunity to review the ADS USB Instant DVD capture device. A few friends thought it would be worth exploring in an attempt to capture and edit home vacation movies from several sources.

You didn't say if you tried the real-time MPEG2 capture.... does it work OK? Have you made any SVCD's yet?

[midnightio]

Related question - Capturing perfect Firewire DV .Avi consumes 12-13 gigs/hour. Using this device to capture at a high level (5-6mbit), roughly how much disk space does 1 hour of video require?

[jeff303]

Just did some quick calculations - 5 Mbit/second video would take 2.25 Gigs/hour and 6Mbit/second video would consume 2.7 Gigs/hour of video. HTH