Video-Capture Reviews

OK, Blame this card on my OLD computer??? What kind of moron are you? I have an AMD xp2200 with 512mb Corsair PC4000 ram!

John, you truly are a moron as well to say it's the drivers, have you read my review??? Reread again!!! it boots up blocks, do you understand "boot up"?

It's funny how many morons are on amazon!

If you buy PNY, YOU ARE A MORON!

I purchased this card last week and have yet to get it to work. My PC meets all the required specs, but XP will not recognize the card. Installing the drivers that come with the card, or downloading the latest drivers from nvidia, only make things worse, locking up XP on the splash screen. It would be nice if PNY tech support could help me out, but you can not get in touch with them, or should I say, "him". If you do make it through to their tech support voice mail, and there is actually room for you to leave a message, the tech support states that you have "reached pny tech support, but I'm not here right now". After speaking to everyone else, (microsoft, ASUS, etc), everyone was of the opinion that the card was faulty. I returned it for a new one, but found that one to have the same problems. After speaking with a professional tech from another non pny source, he believes that the installed memory on the card is bad..I think he is right. Do I try a third card, or give up while I still have some hair left? Oh, also, emailing pny tech support also went nowhere. After writing a similar message as the one I'm leaving here, I was unable to send the email without a proper serial number. I entered every number I could find on the card, or in the installation guide, and notta. They tell you where to find the number, but nothing I entered would register, and I was unable to send an email. I'm not saying that this card might not scream once you get it up and running, but expect problems, and expect no help from PNY.

I love how people blame a card instead of their old outdated computers. I have XP, the card installed perfectly, on a clean install and on a upgrade install. There were no problems. If you install in non certified drivers, of course here are going to be poblems. I can play Unreal 2 with this card at 1600X1200 with 4X FSAA with norton system work running in the background. It is a grat card if you are a power user, and it isn't too loud. The only card that I think is better is the ATI RADEON 9700 PRO.
If you want a good card but are not willing to pay the near [money] for a GeForce FX get this one and you will be set for some time

This device works with Windows 98 (Windows ME with a download from the manufacturer's web site). Macintosh is also supported. It can only capture 160x120 mpeg video on Windows. Not what you want to digitize your video collection. Still, works well enough for the occasional video email. I found the software rather inflexible, and I wonder why they support a higher capture rate on Mac than on Windows.

While I encountered a couple problems when trying to install and use this product, many of the problem were a result of outside factors.

I happened to get a poorly pressed installation CD, which I had to return to the store to exchange.

I found that the capture software was crashing on me every now and again, but discovered that my motherboard was sharing the USB IRQ with another device. (Unfortunately, the design of my motherboard does not allow me to assign a unique IRQ to my USB interface, so I had to return this product.)

However, I was able to perform several hundred still captures at the maximum resolution of 1600 by 1200 pixels and save them to Photoshop 3.0 files--a nice feature, but would be nice if you could save in Photoshop 5.5 format.

In my opinion, this product was meant for still captures. The stills look good for a product under $100. If you wish to capture low-res video, you can do that as well. But if high-quality motion video capture is the primary function you're looking for, I would go for a different product.

Another nice feature of this product is that it draws its power from the USB controller. No external wall-wart power supply required. Just the USB cable.

My digital photo needs are limited. I want to send snapshots to grandparents and take pictures for eBay. I've tried a couple near $100 digital cameras and they were close to worthless, especially for closeups of products, and both were returned. Recently we bought a Sharp ViewCam and so I thought I'd try a Video Capture product. Dazzle advertised just what I wanted -- and, a surprise in today's market, it actually did what its makers advertised it would do! I was surprised at how clear my stills were -- more than adequate for my purposes. Actually, the quality is not that bad -- no one will mistake me for Ansel Adams, but considering I'm using a video tape to digital translation I'm very happy with the close-up detail. I've got some pretty pictures of my kids on the computer now. I have tried a couple short videos and wouldn't suggest this product if that is your main object. I was looking for a digital still camera substitute and I'm very happy with my choice.

The reason I am writing a review on the printer is that due to problems with the driver the printer was honestly tossed on the sidewalk with box and all since it couldnt be returned after 30 days and after not being able to configure the multi non functional anything machine printer driver.
The printer was picked up and disappeared to some poor devil on the street thinking he got a freebee.My honest opinion to brother is it needs a friendlier printer driver or at least one that works.
I also own a mfc brother 4600 and currently not getting anything printed out but works in windows unlike the 7150c encountering driver problems with Linux nothing prints not even in the hp2 mode.Check to make sure your driver works with the printer or OS wherever the problem is.

This all-in-one printer/scan/fax etc.. was great in the beginning. However, just after the 90 day warranty expired, the print quality began to fall, especially with the black ink. The customer service people only tell you what you can read in the manual and their service center for D/FW is over 20 miles away. The print head has failed, costing 150.00 plus labor. So...here I am searching for a new machine. Buyer Beware!

If you are short on computer desk space, but need a printer, copier, etc. this is a great alternative rather than buying
separate components.
The printer works pretty decent in black/white and the color isn't picture perfect, but it gets the job done. The copier
works good and the scanner... I have never used it. The fax
works good, too, however, it seems to only work when the sender
presses the start button on their fax machine. It may be just an
adjustment on the Brother that can easily be made.
This system also has video capture input for a dig camera,
camcorder, and VCR. It also comes with a product manuel
with lots of easily understood instructions.
The most important feature which sold me was the price of ink
cartridges...And very
easy to install.
Bottom line...good starter machine, low price, cheaper ink and
a space saver!

I own an HP Desktop Pavilion that I bought a year ago. I installed this product with no problems by opening up my PC, inserting the PCI card, connecting the power to the PCI card, booting up my PC, and then installing the appropriate driver. I have the Windows 98 Second Edition operating system on my PC.

Then I hooked up my Sony DCR TRV 33 mini DV camcorder, of course using the firewire interface. The ActionTec PCI card failed to recognize the camera. ... the cable provided with the product was bad. ... I will never purchase another product from ActionTec again.

I bought this product and tried it in a number of different machines--all Win 98 or Win2k. Windows recognized it after some coaxing. But the performance was dreadful in each case--I either got a choppy data stream or none at all. I checked out their website... all in all pretty useless. So I wrote to Actiontec customer service about it and never got a reply. Avoid this company and it's products.

I had no problem installing the card (I guess I'm one of the lucky ones). It works, but the video editing software that comes with it is useless. I'm not a pro, but it took me forever to figure out how to input the video, and now I can't figure out how to edit it (it did not come with instructions). I'm going to buy some other software. There were no bad reviews before I bought this product, but after reading the others, I'm glad it worked for me. However, I would be cautious about buying this product due to other's experiences. Good luck.

What a terrible product. I spent countless hours trying to get this thing to work. At best, I got a fuzzy TV picture and never got the computer to recognize the capture driver. The install software that came with the product is useless. You have to install multiple programs from ATI's website, if want to have any chance of this thing working right. I recommend going to their frequently asked questions section of their support area before purchasing. It provides a good idea what your in for. I finally pulled the plug on this experiment and returned it.

I am amazed at the bugginess of the drivers, even the latest ones on their web site. After a full day on the phone with their tech support guys, and a new computer, the graphics display works, but NONE of the features for which I purchased the card actually work. No TV, No FM, none. The tech support specialist with whom I spoke for some time acknowledged that these were commonly occurring problems, and gave me a scripted e-mail solution. After that did not work either, the support guys said I could keep the card and wait for an e-mail when ATI develops a solution. NO THANKS. I have never had this experience with NVidia-based cards.

ATI software is subpar, they obviously rushed it out the door.
I got my card to work after a lot of work, but even after I got it to work, the product either degrades or has VERY annoying bugs.

1. GuidePlus software isn't properly integrated. After awhile, when you start GuidePlus, the TV function will turn on instead-- preventing you from recording shows or anything else.
If you want to watch TV only, get yourself a cheap tuner. If you think you are going to get a Tivo player out of this-- hah! Forget it.
2. DVR (Tivo-like) feature is weak. Even with a great connection, the DVR records very shoddily. You can watch a show after recording (well, at least until the GuidePlus stops working) but it will come in worse than your cellphone reception.
3. The radio software is abominable. After installing an FM antennae (not included), the radio works but the software makes it equivalent to your grandfather's 1800s radio. Enjoy tuning a radio one tick at a time? Then you'll love the software. No seek function.
4. Customer support? Good luck. If you don't work for a living, maybe you can reach them during mon-fri hours. Make sure you call within 30 days of getting frustrated, otherwise you pay more money per minute ($1.25) than phone sex with an Antarctican eskimo.

The hardware all works, but it's the software which ruins this product. If you have all day to mess around with computers and customer support, than you may like this product. I say, get the Windows Media Edition of Windows and save yourself the hassle. It may be $800 for a new computer, but that's $600 less trouble for you when you try to put all this annoying software on your machine.

You can't beat Microsoft's integration and value.

Using for a month has shown many good qualities and a few bad ones. First the bad ones. The rate is slower than it shows. When larger resolution is used movement along with voice are slower ,and lag behind. The still pics are good. As with all cameras in this price range, When enlarged, quality suffers. But the overall quality looks good to me. If it were in a price range of several hundred dollars it would be disturbing. The overall quality performance are very acceptable to me.The software programs that come with it are to say the least, most satisfactory. I have used a logitech video camera with it's programs, and all functions perfectly. As neither are the "Top of the line" cameras. I would recommend this camera to all who would like a useful and handy camera. For the price,it will be very hard to find another with it's features and software.To be able to use as a VIDEO WEB CAMERA,and also a DETACHABLE STILL CAMERA, ALL IN ONE, is a very hard offer to refuse.

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I have been extremely impressed with the Ezonic EZ DualCAM. I was also very skeptical of the price and even more skeptical when I received the product (it seems like it is cheaply made). However, the camera's software was easy to install and I had the camera running in minutes. The quality of the pictures is good. Granted, you can spend $500 more dollars for better resolution; however, then all of your friend with slow internet connections get frustrated with you due to the large files to download. My computer appears to lock up a little more, but that is probably due to me unplugging the camera from the USB port while it's running. Overall, this is an extremely good value for the price. You cannot find a better value!

Inexpensive dual-function camera. Pretty cool when you don't need fancy digital cameras. Doesn't look too stylish, but in person it looks better.

Teaching with a presentation remote is a declaration of freedom. No longer having to seat in front of the computer to flip through my Keynote or PowerPoint presentations allows for more participative discussion. The Keyspan's cluttered yet complete interface provides all the functions of the competition at a fraction of the price. Moving the cursor, flipping pages, laser-pointing... It's all there. Regrettably, it only worked for just three months. I even changed the battery (a very expensive and even more difficult to find 3v model) but nothing happened. It turns out the original battery was still fully charged.

In conclusion: I can't recomment this product. I have now ordered the RemotePoint Navigator. Hopefully I'll be luckier next time.

I bought this remote to make PowerPoint presentations and I have to say I am pretty satisfied with the purchase. It does what it claims, installation was painless, just insert the transmitter into USB port and WinXP can recognize the device. I haven't tested the maximum operating distance, but I never experienced a problem with the laptop not responding to my actions. Just a couple things I would like to mention that I feel need improvement.

First, it's difficult to turn on the laser pointer. You need to press one button and then hold two buttons together and wait for 10 seconds. And the same you would like to turn it off. I cannot really understand if such complexity is really necessary.

Second, the battery used is the round flat one, like the one in the watches, just bigger. You can find it online, but not in the convenience store. I would rather them use a standard one.

Otherwise, I think for the money that is the best you can do. Comparable Logitech model is probably better, but costs $100 more at the time of this review.

This remote is excellent for those who spend a lot of time teaching or making presentations, and abhorr the thought of being perched behind a podium. The coverage is excellent, and the size is small enough to almost disappear from view. I actually position mine horizontally, using a rubber band to attach the bottom of the remote against my belt with the top latch hooked to a belt loop.

The only issue I would have, if I were big on laser pointers, is the activiation of the pointer itself. Other than that, this is the best I've used thus far.

I have tried this product and found it to be deficient. Could not get it to operate properly within my system. I arranged for a return to Pinnacle Systems and it disappeared into a "black hole", never to return. Repeated attempts to get some response from Pinnacle has not helped. Pretty disgusted with the company and their policies.

To make a long story short, countless customers like myself have spent months trying to fix the same problem -- "hardware installation failed" -- with not a peep from Pinnacle. There is some problem with Windows XP recognizing the drivers. The bleepin thing does not work. STAY AWAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I just bought this device last week, and so far it's been working great and stable, no halts, no freezes. I bought this product 'cause I own a laptop and this is one of the very, very few usb tv tuners that works at the usb 2.0 speed. Good things: good design on box colour, has S-video and composite inputs, supports usb 2.0 and 1.1, stable, comes with video and audio conversion program, time shifting technology, and remote control. Bad things: doesn't support any other 3rd party tv capture program (limits capturing capabilities and options), takes 2 seconds to change a channel (vs a split second on my previous PCI tv card), and cannot be used with game console due to it being an external tv card. I plugged my PS2 into the device and the movement on my LCD proceeded 5 seconds after I pressed the buttons. So, buy this ONLY if you have a laptop. Otherwise, go for a PCI card. I am running the device with a Compaq Presario 2525CA, P4 2.4 GHz, 512 ram, and Radeon 64 Mb IGP 345M on Win XP Home.

I haven't actually used the MovieBox, but came here to read reviews on it.

However, I have been using Studio 8 for a while with another capture device and have also experience the audio out of synch problem.

I have found a work-around that works for me and have been posting it everywhere I see other comments on the problem.

The answer is to NOT allow the hardware to capture the audio. Rather than connecting the RCA audio to the box, connect the audio directly to your PC's line-in jack on the soundcard. I use one of those RCA to headphone jack splitters for connecting a portable CD player to a sound system. Then you set the audio capture source in the Studio program from the breakout box to line-in.

I was pulling my hair out like everyone else until I stumbled upon this solution (by attempting to capture with Adobe Premiere which doesn't recognize my hardware as an audio input). Since I've been doing it this way, I have made about a dozen DVD's, with lengths from 10 min to 1 hour with perfect audio synch.

Maybe it will work for you guys who've already bought the software. If you haven't bought it yet, though, look elsewhere.

I received the MovieBox for Christmas 2003 and have spent about 40 hours with it. First to pros. It is easy to install, captures video flawlessly, and the editing software (Studio 8) is fantastic. Being able to take 3 hours of home videos (which like everyone's included things that in hindsight didn't turn out great) and cut it down to an hour+ of fun scenes, add music and digital photos was worth every penny.

The negatives. MovieBox only imports audio in mpeg format. I didn't even know this mattered until I went to make a DVD and I ran into the out of sync problem where the sound is 1 second behind the video. The product claims to be able to make DVDs from any source, but this audio limitation is a real problem. Second, my video ended up being 75 minutes long. Studio 8 appeared to burn the disc properly, using a lower quality setting to fit it all on the disk, but when the disc is played in a DVD player random sections of video are missing. Pinnacle says you can only put an hour on a DVD, which is a stupid and erroneous claim. Lastly, the support on this product is horrendous.

Luckily there is a fix. Instead of using Studio 8 to burn a DVD, I created an MPEG file of the video on my harddrive. This solved the audio syncing problem. I then used ULead's DVD Moviefactory (which came included with my PC) to turn the MPEG file into a DVD. It worked great. This method does require you to render the video twice, which can degrade the picture, but I didn't notice any difference in my case.

I'd call it an ok product that with some tweaks could be great.

I've had a project sitting around for about a year; to transfer a VHS tape of a newscast(involving my Mom's retirement) to DVD and send it out to my family members. After reading the reviews here on Amazon, I passed by this product this fall, but received "Pinnacle MovieBox usb" as a Christmas Gift. I love it!
The software is almost completely intuitive. OK, I tried to do my project the night after Christmas and messed it up, probably by not manually setting the software to mpeg2, but the second burn worked great and played on our 2 year old dvd player! This included two VHS tape segments, one of the newscast and one of diving in Bonaire with some 8mm waterskiing video from my old Canon camcorder. Titles were easily added.
Luckily, I saw none of the audio sync problems other people have complained about. My computer is only a year old though and pretty much new. Is a P4 2.4 gig, with 512mg ram, and a Western digital HD with 8mg buffer. MovieBox aparently "renders" projects differently depending somewhat on the speed of your machine. Not being a tech type, I can only be happy that I didn't run into any problems with MovieBox. I love the size (very slim), feel (very sturdy aluminum) and overall simplicity.

I recently bought the Adaptec videoh media center and right from the start I had problems. When trying to install the drivers I would get an error saying that this hard-ware cannot be installed. I called the tech support. They sent me an email on how to install the drivers which didn't work, so I called tech support again. They had never heard of this problem, but told me that the problem was with my computer. So I reformatted my hard-drive. When I tried installed the drivers the computer would freeze up and my mouse would not work. I called tech support one last time. Their response was something is wrong with my computer and they could not help me. I tried this on another pc and I ran into the same problems. I sent this back to Amazon with a note explaining all the problems I was having asking for a full refund.
Don't buy this product! I am a computer tech at a university and this was the first time I had any problems like this or ever heard someone say sorry we can't help you.
If I could I would give this product no stars, but I can't

I recently bought the Adaptec videoh media center and right from the start I had problems. When trying to install the drivers I would get an error saying that this hard-ware cannot be installed. I called the tech support. They sent me an email on how to install the drivers which didn't work, so I called tech support again. They had never heard of this problem, but told me that the problem was with my computer. So I reformatted my hard-drive. When I tried installed the drivers the computer would freeze up and my mouse would not work. I called tech support one last time. Their response was something is wrong with my computer and they could not help me. I tried this on another pc and I ran into the same problems. I sent this back to Amazon with a note explaining all the problems I was having asking for a full refund.
Don't buy this product! I am a computer tech at a university and this was the first time I had any problems like this or ever heard someone say sorry we can't help you.
If I could I would give this product no stars, but I can't

I've had this product for about 2 months now. I use it solely for watching television on my laptop, so I haven't explored the bundled video-editing software, and can't comment on that.

My impression is similar to that described in some of the other reviews on Amazon, but I can sum it up by saying that the device itself is functional and works as I expected. It's the bundled software that stinks, and it's just as bad as one of the other reviewers suggested. Intervideo WINDVR 3.0 comes with the Adaptec Videoh, and it's what you use for viewing, and recording, live television. It often has a tendency to hang for no apparent reason, and then when you try to use the "Windows Task Manager" to shut it down, it doesn't work.. 5 minutes later, the computer goes to the dreaded blue screen, completely out of the blue (so to speak). And I'm running this on a new laptop (1300 Ghz Centrino, 256, 80 gig, etc.). The Windvr software crashes the whole system almost on a daily basis.

You can't trust the scheduling software, and one of the most serious design defects I've encountered is the fact that Windvr will stop recording when it reaches the 4 gigabytes limit for the individual file it's recording - in other words, slightly more than an hour's worth of recorded material. Imagine that you've paused a live broadcast of a movie you've been wanting to see.. after about half-an-hour of recording, you come back to press play. Everything is fine for another half-hour, when you notice that Windvr is no longer recording the live feed.. the "delay time" (indicating how much recorded material you have left to watch) keeps getting smaller, when it should remain the same. You reach the end of the recorded portion of the movie and the screen pauses.. you have to hit "stop" - so that you're now viewing the live feed - and by now the movie has gone off the air and they're broadcasting something else.
I've missed more movie endings, and more exciting finishes to sports events in this way, you'd think they would have released an update for this obvious flaw.

Think again. A quick survey of the Intervideo website reveals that they have *never* issued any sort of update to this software, and evidently don't intend to - there is truly no support. Why Adaptec chose this particular software to bundle with their product, I'll never know.

I am told that other software is compatible with the Adaptec Videoh, including the "Personal Video Station" software (which for some reason wouldn't install on my machine). At any rate, the added software will probably set you back an additional $100 or so - but it sounds like it does have the advantage of being more functional, at least.