Device like Dazzle?

[lifeisgood03]

Is there any video capturing device that is external and uses USB? I have a dazzle video creator 100 and I am thinking about returning it. What should I replace it with?

The quality is great. It's just you have to render the file for the sound to work and it takes forever and everytime I record, the white and black tracking line is always showing at the top of the movie.

Any suggestions?

[Jester700]

If you HAVE to use USB (think long & hard n this; PCI is much better for many reasons)...

...and you have USB 2.0, try Dazzle's Snazzi 3. The only USB 2.0 device I know of, and it allows a wide range of bit rates. I never used one, so I can't vouch for it.

If you only have USB 1.1, the best OVERALL bet is probably the Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB. Better VCD & SVCD than any other USB device, integrated audio encoding for god audio/video sync. Oe problem: it only captures audio at 44.1k, so if your main thing is making DVDs from the unit, it's not so hot - all audio must be sample rate converted.

That was my problem, so I stuck with the ADS Instant DVD. It has problems - the audio is encoded by your soundcard at not-great quality (the software cuts off the highs), which also causes sync issues if you ever edit the files. VCD & SVCDs suck on this unit. But it's still the best bet for USB 1.1 capture of video for DVD. Note that even though I own this, I'm getting a PCI card (Hauuppauge PVR-250). As I said, there are problems.

[gcutler]

The Dazzle 150 is USB 2.0 compatible. IF you want to go firewire (only $20-$30 to get a firewire card) there is the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge.

[lifeisgood03]

It seems like I have no choice and have to use USB since I'm capturing from my laptop and my laptop.

Instead of the Dazzle, do you think I should get the Pinnacle PVR?

[gcutler]

You can get Firewire cards for your notebook for under $50, don't know how well it works or if it is realisitic

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10254791&loc=101

[lifeisgood03]

Is using FireWire better than USB?

[gcutler]

Firewire and USB 2.0 offer up to 400MBPs while USB 1.x was up to 11MBPs. So Firewire is definately better than USB 1.x, if it is better than USB 2.0 I'm not sure. If you have a USB 1.x device or only USB 1.x port on your PC (if more than a year old almost guaranteed to be USB 1.x) then your device is not as fast at the others out there.

[Jester700]

Firewire & USB 2.0 are equivalent. If you get FW for your laptop (and yeah, a pcmcia card is only about $30), then the question becomes, can you capture AVI's with the other hardware? Remember, it's 3.6MB/s, so the following strikes are against you:

1) Most laptops have 4200RPM drives. Very slow. And only one of them. And usually not very big.

2) Are you running WinME or earlier? Then you have FAT32 on your drive, and will be limited to 4GB captures (about 18 minutes). Many progs can get around this by automatically starting another capture file.

3) There are a ton of power saving, IR sensing, and other apps & services running on most laptops that will give you frame drops. You need to disable these.

You will want to run at LEAST win98SE if 18 minutes per file is OK, or upgrade to Win2k or WinXP (ugh) if you need more. You should get a dedicated 5400RPM capture drive - 40GB runs about $150.

Or, live with the problems inherent in the Dazzle, Hauppauge, or ADS products. There aren't any easy answers with laptops, only choices to be made & lived with.

[The village idiot]

RUN, don't walk to return your Razzle thingy!

If you can find one, the Pinnacle Bungee seems to work. It isn't great, but it does work. CompUSA has been closing them out for $50 USD. For $50 it isn't bad. Other than that, can't help much. If you are considering the Razzle bridge, I strongly suggest you get a Datavideo DAC-100 or Canopus ADVC-100 instead. The Snazzi stuff worries me, they used to use Razzle hardware and software. Now maybe they are different, maybe not. Too much risk for me!

[lifeisgood03]

RUN, don't walk to return your Razzle thingy!

If you can find one, the Pinnacle Bungee seems to work. It isn't great, but it does work. CompUSA has been closing them out for $50 USD. For $50 it isn't bad. Other than that, can't help much. If you are considering the Razzle bridge, I strongly suggest you get a Datavideo DAC-100 or Canopus ADVC-100 instead. The Snazzi stuff worries me, they used to use Razzle hardware and software. Now maybe they are different, maybe not. Too much risk for me!

After lots of thinking and reading great reviews, I finally bought the Canopus ADVC-100 on eBay. Can't wait until it arrives To those who have the Canpus ADVC100, can you capture from DirecTV or TV shows on TV?

[The village idiot]

The ADVC only has audio and video inputs/outputs, so anything off of cable will require something to be the tuner. From DTV/Dish you will want to use the S-video connection and right/left audio inputs. Also you will want great huge hard drives! You can however use a very slow cpu to do the actual capture work, you'll want something fairly fast for conversion to mpeg.

Try DVio for the software, no preview but it's free and it works. Also ScenalyzerLive also works and a seem to recall that there might be a timer for it.