Creative Video Blaster Editor

[cowmix]

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?product=15739

Everything I'm reading about this device is that the software is old, only works with XP, etc. What I'm worried about is capture quality. This thing is supposed to rip right to MPEG2 from analog or DV sources.

Does anyone know if the capture device works well from just a raw capturing standpoint?

[arryn]

Two quick points:
1. Just bought one - can't get it to work on any PC I own.
2. Before you buy (if it's not too late), try contacting Creative's technical support dept. So far I can't even find contact info, let alone had any luck getting a response. The only company I've seen better at avoiding contact with customers is eBay.

PS: they do have Vista drivers on their website (you would have to look under SoundBlaster > Other to get to the support site for the product).

PPS: went and had a look at the link you provided - oddly, mine came with Elements 3.0 but the site still says 2.0.

And apparently they can't get their own product to work either. Go to http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=0&subcategory=&product=15739&nav=2 and look at the screen capture image at the bottom (attached for convenience). Note that in Step 3, the Start button is greyed out.
Step 1 - video signal detected
Step 2 - output selected
Step 3 - nada.

Same problem I'm having. No luck with PE3 or Movie Maker either.

[cowmix]

I just got mine in the mail.. I'm installing XP now so I'll be trying it tomorrow..

I'll update this thread with my results.

Two quick points:
1. Just bought one - can't get it to work on any PC I own.
2. Before you buy (if it's not too late), try contacting Creative's technical support dept. So far I can't even find contact info, let alone had any luck getting a response. The only company I've seen better at avoiding contact with customers is eBay.

PS: they do have Vista drivers on their website (you would have to look under SoundBlaster > Other to get to the support site for the product).

PPS: went and had a look at the link you provided - oddly, mine came with Elements 3.0 but the site still says 2.0.

And apparently they can't get their own product to work either. Go to http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=0&subcategory=&product=15739&nav=2 and look at the screen capture image at the bottom (attached for convenience). Note that in Step 3, the Start button is greyed out.
Step 1 - video signal detected
Step 2 - output selected
Step 3 - nada.

Same problem I'm having. No luck with PE3 or Movie Maker either.

[Richkut]

Sorry to hear your problems getting this to work. I just received mine a few days ago, downloaded and installed the Vista drivers, and it works like charm save for one problem. After a few seconds the audio and video preview on my PC screen get awfully jerky, but capture and playback are NOT affected whatsoever. I even tried a direct video capture to MPEG-2 with the DVD template and it looks great--captured from a Sony mini-DV camcorder and converted to MPEG-2 in real time without so much as a burp, EXCEPT FOR THAT DARN PREVIEW PROBLEM (which again has absolutely NO affect on the capture or playback). Machine control even works with DV input devices, and you have your choice to save as a raw AVI file (Type 1 or 2) or an MPEG-2 (choosable bitrates). Oh, by the way, I did NOT install the Adobe software, either--just the Vidcap program!

[cowmix]

Yup.. same here.. I just installed mine and did a quick test and everything worked fine. Also, I just used Vidcap too.

Sorry to hear your problems getting this to work. I just received mine a few days ago, downloaded and installed the Vista drivers, and it works like charm save for one problem. After a few seconds the audio and video preview on my PC screen get awfully jerky, but capture and playback are NOT affected whatsoever. I even tried a direct video capture to MPEG-2 with the DVD template and it looks great--captured from a Sony mini-DV camcorder and converted to MPEG-2 in real time without so much as a burp, EXCEPT FOR THAT DARN PREVIEW PROBLEM (which again has absolutely NO affect on the capture or playback). Machine control even works with DV input devices, and you have your choice to save as a raw AVI file (Type 1 or 2) or an MPEG-2 (choosable bitrates). Oh, by the way, I did NOT install the Adobe software, either--just the Vidcap program!

[ninjax]

Hey guys, I've searched the creative site high and low for the Vista driver for the Video Blaster, but I cannot find it. Would you mind linking me to it? Thanks a ton.

-Ryan

[ninjax]

ahh, nevermind. It's at: http://support.creative.com/downloads/?h=7

[cowmix]

I still can't find it from that page.

[SHS]

The rigth link sould be
http://support.creative.com/downloads/?h=11
or
http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=207&prodID=1...=Sound+Blaster

[cowmix]

Well... I bought two of the devices and I couldn't be happier. The picture quality is great, the file sizes are manageable and I never thought I would be able to capture video off my DV camera and save it to mpeg2 on my ASUS netbook all in one step.