LaCie Fastcoder MPEG-2 encoder and other similar devices?

[broaddd]

I was reading about this newish Fastcoder gadget. I understand you plug it into your firewire port, and the included software feeds a DV stream into it, and receives an encoded MPEG-2 stream back in real-time: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10498

Can you do a similar thing with capture devices with hardware encoders like the Plextor ConvertX TV402U, or Eyetv 200, or can they only hardware encode video as it's being capture; rather than DV that's already on your hard-drive?

Cheers,
B

edit: oops. meant to put this in the capture forum, but oh well - I will be using it on a Mac!

[Frobozz]

There's a nice review of the FastCoder at www.bobhudson.com. It's purpose is to speed up the process for MPEG encoding from DV video.

The ConvertX and EyeTV will capture and encode analog, not digital, video.

An alternative to the FastCoder is to use a standalone DVD recorder with Firewire input. However, FastCoder comes with CaptyDVD which can make attractive motion menus and submenus, whereas a standalone recorder's menus are very basic.