Need help quick if possible. Just purchased a Dazzle II. W

[web_woman]

I've read the archives here and still can't decide which way to go. Caught between two solutions.

1. Need the convenience of the Dazzle II for straight (no editing) archiving of old VHS tapes to Cd archives. Probably MPEG2.

2. Then again, on other projects need to capture, pull into Premiere or Media Studio Pro, edit, title, transition, etc. In this case, it sounds like the Dazzle is not the way to go. Apparently a straight raw capture to AVI with a simple tuner card is best.

I'm building a system for capture/editing only: 1 gig PIII, 80 gig drive, 512 meg. I also ordered a Dazzle II to go alone with it. Considering the above, was that the wrong decision?

Is there any way I can run two boards (Dazzle and a straight tv tuner) in the same system, choosing which board captures depending upon the need?

Should I cancel the Dazzle and get a simple tv board?

Please note conversion/rendering times of the AVI captures are not as important to me as quality. Because the new system will be only for editing I don't care if it renders for hours.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

WW

[web_woman]

P.S. one important addendum:

I'd really like to go in the right direction this time. I've had my share of disasters. A few years back I bought a Buz. Need I say more? I was recently released from the state mental hospital but continue with daily therapy and mega doses of heavy drugs in trying to get past the mental abuse and chaos caused by that *&%$@%&* piece of Iomega %@#$%@&, if you catch my drift. <g>

Thanks.

[ashtones]

AVI is the way to go for editing. Kepp in mind that AVI files are going to be enormously larger then mpeg files and for editing you almost always are going to want to have a second video only hard drive. I bought a pinnacle card for my editing and I love it. The price was kind of steep because it does real time editing but I would not go back. But to tell you the truth when I end up getting a DVD burner I think I will almost have to get something like the Dazzle II. Like you I am not too concerned with encoding times but if you are going to archive several vhs or dv tapes you will be able to save a very large amount of time as well as have your results a lot quicker. I also would like to know if two capture cards can co-exist on one machine.

[leebo]

Dazzle comes with editing software that lets you cut and add titles and transitions.

It has a few issues (what card dosen't?).

There are solutions though. Check out this site:

http://stop.at/dazzle2

[sracer]

I have both a Dazzle DVC I (USB version) and I/O Magic PC PVR (PCI TV Tuner card) in the same machine and they play nice. They both capture in MPEG, so I'm pretty much focused on that format. (DVC captures MPEG1 via hardware encoding, I/O Magic, captures MPEG2 and 1 via PowerVCR's software capture/encoder).

I'd recommend having both. A hardware MPEG capture device (like the Dazzle II) and a TV Tuner card that can capture AVI or MPEG (just to be flexible). TV Tuner cards are relatively inexpensive these days and they can't be beat for recording TV shows. Of course if you aren't interested in TV shows, then the appeal of that card is less.

[alyooy]

if u're building a new system, suggest amd xp or min 1.4g and a mobo with raid as u will definitely need more than 1 hdd. piii is outof date for dvd edit which u will move onto after vcd svcd.
As for dazzle ii, I have dazzleI then moved to dazzleII and am now selling both to buy dazzle III(also known as snazziIII) DazzleII was an excellent card for newbies quality good but audio sync slightly off. SnazziIII has a new encoder chip and will not have lip sync problems so if u are starting now definitely skip the dazzleII and go for III although III ddoes not have an external av box which I like. I might wait for the III with external box.
I also have a Dvstorm capture card for avi but as this avi uses a lot of hdd I have opted for straight capture to svcd where possible. I am now moving to capturing on dvd (for best qty) and converting to vcd or svcd where required.

As for TV tuner I question the quality of the capture. After all with a good quality capture card why bother to have the tuner when u can just connect your vhs recorder which comes with a tuner anyway. On this point make sure u get a good vhs as I have found the quality of capture is a direct result of the quality of the vhs unit. I have just bought a JVC dual DV/ Svhs/vhs unit which is excellent for transfering from dv camcorder, vhs, capture from TV, tuner etc. U can see the difference between this and other so called 6head vhs units. This has a much higher brighter recorder, capture whatever it is insside. For all the trouble and time it takes to transfer home videos etc I would suggest spend more now for a good quality setup and save upgrading later when u can tell the difference.

I have an amd 1.4 on asus mobo with via133a chipset and onboard Promise Raid. 2 ibm 60gb 60gxp 7200 and will add another 2 more to my raid. The 1st hdd for all apps and development, the sec just to store the captured av not to forget u need space also for the edited/ produced projects from dazzle. Ulead DVD Factory is good better than Nero5.5 as u easily setup menus, submenus etc. SonicDvD or MyDvD is also good although I have yet to use it other than a quick test. Came with my DvStorm.
cheers hope this helps... alyooy :&gt

[themamboman]

I have a Dazzle DVCII and I love it. Yes, it does have built in editing, which is losely based on the womble editor, but I also use the full version of Womble MPG2VCR, which make editing mpeg2 on a frame accurate basis very easy.

I could never capture an avi at large resolutions without frame drop and audio sync problems. With the DVC2 I don't have that problem.

I don't use the built-in software, I use TWNH (http://stop.at/twnh), as it has an easier-to-use interface and can schedule recordings.

Capping from my new dss/tivo box is a breeze and has super-high quality. Capping from video tape gives good results too.

It can cap directly to vcd and svcd specs. However, I prefer capping using the dvd profile (720x480, 8Mbs vbr) and then transcoding down using either cinemacraft or tmpgenc. Fantastic results.

I found it online for around $249 earlier this year. I've definitely gotten my money's worth.

TheMamboMan

[dood]

I had a Dazzle2 about a year ago. I sold it after a few months of trying to get it to work right. When it works, it works very good in that the quality is amazing. But...

Many people (over 50%?) have problems with audio synch. It does not seem to make a "clean" capture, so if you do any editing, the resulting file is often out of synch. My initial captures were usually in synch for about 30 minutes, then started to drift out of synch. After any editing with the MovieStar or Womble software, it was always out of synch.

Another problem is that this device sometimes is not recognized by your system. I ended up having to reformat and reinstall Windows to get it to recognize the device. This is a less common problem, but many people have encountered it.

The last warning I would offer is that the MPG2 captures are NOT compatible with many DVD authoring programs (SpruceUP, Ulead MovieMaker, maybe others). If the MPG2 video and audio specs are not 100% DVD-compliant, they cannot be imported into authoring software. Dazzle2 caps are not very good in this area.

I've been using the ADS USB Instant DVD and it is a much better device.

[species8472]

I bought my DVCII 3 months ago and am very happy with it. I have not had any of the audio sync problems some have had with the provided software. I can capture and then edit with this software and the resulting file's sync is fine. Some do have issues with this.

The only time I did have an audio sync problem was sending my DVCII mpeg into TMPGenc because I wanted to do some heavy filtering due to a poor VCR tape copy. The TMPGen'd result had audio that was behind the video. I used Goldwave to remove 180 ms of sound. I then used that wav file and the TMPGenc'd video file into DVDit and the resulting DVD plays with very good sync using my DXR3 card output to my TV surround system. Many audio sync problems can be fixed.

Right now, if I hadn't purchased the DVCII, I would check out the SnazziIII though.

I use a Wintv card in my system for watching through the tuner with no problems.

I have never had any hardware problems with the Dazzle in my system which is an Asus mb with a P3 running at 923 Mhz and a Sound Blaster Live audio card.

I did a test with a heavily Dazzle (Moviestar) edited clip about 15 minutes long. I imported it into Ulead DVD MovieFactory and produced a miniDVD which played beautifully with my DXR3 (Hollywood Plus card using Sigma Design's drivers and station program).

Since some people do have issues with Dazzle, there is no guarantee that you will be happy with it. I know I love mine and look forward to buying a next generation DVD+RW writer with DVD+R capability so I can start archiving my favorite TV eps and movies to DVD.

Good Luck!

[leebo]

As you can see by now, every card out there has issues with SOME people.

I don't have sound sync problems with the Dazzle II. Some people do, but the guy who claimed 50% was stating his opinion - not fact. I'd like to see the scentific study proving 50% have sound sync problems.
Of course, people who have problems are going to post a lot more than those who are happy.

In the end, no one can guarantee that you will or will not have problems with any card.

You takes your chances.

Kind of like when you cross the street.