Video-Capture Reviews

Hardware installation was easy but the software was strange to say the least. It's hard to use, inconsistent, crashes, blue-screens my computer. An updated driver and TV tuner program from the LifeView website was heaps better, but it's still poor, and I still get a blue-screen about once a day. Don't go near this thing.

This thing is very unstable. I couldn't even use it. Constantly crashed my computer, which is state of the art. It should work, but doesn't. DO NOT buy this. Only get one from a company called Hauppage. They make the WIN TV, awesome cards. I wouldn't use anything else. Especially not this piece of junk. I sent it back.

This is one of the most efficient capture cards and tv tuner that I have ever delt with. While purchasing this item I read the review from the so called "Engineer for 10 years" and I was kind of nervous about odering this item, but it was definitely worth the $80. The only problem is that the instruction booklet does not show you how to operate the software, also while recording a movie, I could not record the sound. I am sure there is a solution, and I'll find it.

This is a great idea. Unfortunately, the HP people forgot to give any thought to how people might actually use this thing and ended designing something that has all the problems of computers (crashes and poor interface) with the worst parts of traditional receivers (inflexibility and inability to customize). The biggest problem I have with this is that it is very slow to respond to button presses. This is especially evident when trying to get it to shuffle or repeat playlists. You push the button, no response. An hourglass would have been nice, just so you know that it's at least trying to do what you asked it to do. Even a beep from the player would've been nice.

Then there are stability issues. It crashes often, and sometimes you have to unplug it to restart (the power button on the remote and on the unit itself becomes unresponsive). After one such crash it forgot my settings.

Also, there's no way of adding files to the playlist on the fly. Let's say you're having a party and you're playing a playlist. Your friend says, "hey could you add Song X to the playlist?" You'll have to go to your computer, add the file to the playlist, and then re-synchronize the receiver. No problem, except resynchronizing can take like 5 minutes and the music stops playing during that time.

Then there's the screensaver. Again, say you're having a party so you've turned off the TV and you just want to use it as a, heaven forbid, a media receiver. Let's say now you want to skip to the next song using the remote, so you hit the "next" button. Nothing. Why? Because the screen saver was on and hitting a button only inactivates the screen saver. You now have to push the button again.

Also, it can't use windows media player play lists. You have to save your playlists as m3u playlists. This is fine, except windows media player has some nifty features like blending songs and equalizing volumes. The HP Media player is like the first versions of media player or winamp: no blending, no volume equalization.

And no visualizations, either. I wish they had built in some simple visualization routines that show up when the music is playing. If you want to add visuals to the music you have to associate a playlist with a photo album, but then it has no option for shuffling the pictures in the album, so you end up cycling through the pictures in order. I had to write a simple app to randomize my picture names. How hard would it have been for them to build in a shuffle option for the photo album.

Another issue with the photo album is that you can set the duration for each picture, but the settings get applied to all your photo albums. This is annoying, as you may want pictures to have different delays in different albums.

Save your money. Get an IR remote control for your computer and run a stereo wire from your computer to the stereo.

I really, really wanted this to work. I had previously purchased the SonicRio Digital Media Receiver ... but as the reviewers point out, this is no longer a supported product, and when my device crapped out on me, I was stuck.

So I had been eagerly awaiting this product, hoping that a more reliable, trust-worthy vendor would do a better job with a networked MP3 receiver. Sadly, this was not the case.

This is very similar in design to the SonicBlue (with the exception of photo viewing and TV UI as opposed to embedded LCD screen.) Otherwise, many of the flaws pointed out in the review for the SonicBlue apply here as well:
"1. You MUST run THEIR software on your server.
2. You MUST log in ( and stay logged in)to the server for their software to work (it SHOULDN'T, but does!).
3. They don't pay any attention to Track Numbers on an album. It always plays in ALPHA order. "

These may seem minor, but they are a real pain. Example: you need to keep your PC on (and not in standby or hibernation, either) for the system to work. I don't like having to run 2 flights downstairs to my office to make sure my PC isn't hibernating in order to listen music on my stereo.

Other flaws: the "server" software was very basic and poorly designed -- it wouldn't keep my preferences for where to look for music, so this needed to be specified each time. They take the HP approach of making something "simple", but they remove all control and provide no documentation for the server software. This might be fine if everything ran perfectly, but when you run into problems, you're hosed. The documentation for the receiver itself is adequate, but the "Troubleshooting" section didn't address any of my problems (below).

Finally, though, the fatal flaw was that it just plain didn't work. I think the problem was that I had too many MP3s (20GB+) and too many pictures (30GB+)for it to handle. Anytime I started the server software on the PC or turned on the EN5000 Receiver, it would start "synchronizing", and take anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour to complete. Often, it would just hang up entirely in the "synchronization" process.

I hooked up the device to my work laptop which had only a few albums worth of music and a dozen or so pictures, and it synched more quickly, but still failed to perform as promised. It would frequently hang up, or it would show me the title of the song or picture but nothing else -- no music, no thumbnails, no actual image.

I tried troubleshooting my problems with HP tech support, but I found that I knew way more about the product than they did. In their defense, it is a new product, but still, it was very frustrating talking to someone who obviously was just reading from a script and had no idea what they were talking about --

30 minutes on hold, 30 minutes of explaining the problem, then the following exchange...

HP Tech: "Let's see, let's see, 'no sound' -- OK, here it is. First, check and make sure all your cables are connected and the power is on"
Me: "AAARGH!!! I JUST TOLD YOU THAT IT WAS DISPLAYING THE TRACK INFORMATION, SO IT'S OBVIOUSLY ON AND CONNECTING TO THE COMPUTER! THINK! WORK WITH ME!"

Please, HP, invest a little more in customer care and technician training.

If the product works for you as advertised, congratulations. I hope it does, and you'll probably be very pleased. However, just be aware that this is a new product that looks like it was slapped together very quickly. You might want to wait or go with a more low-tech solution.

Good luck.

Bought this with the idea of showing pictures stored on the computer on the TV -- and listing to music on the computer thru my sound system.

Very straight forward hookup -- took longer to get the cables and unit out of the box than it did to have it up and going. HP made this very simple! And it does exactly what I had wanted --

(Of course now I wish I had gotten the wireless unit. Oh well...)

Not compatible with WindowsXP.
Not really compatible with Windows 2000.

No documentation
No online information

No support and distortion problems

This unit was not made for recording high quality movies or tv shows. If you're looking for something to capture home videos or something for your web, this is probably the best option. Installation is pretty easy, and I recommend you download the latest software from the soundblaster site, rather than use the one they give you.

It's pros are it's USB and portability. I bought one for work, but I've used it on several machines, running W2k and WinXP and everything worked fine. However, the software (and possibly hardware) only allow you to get a max resolution of 320x240. It encodes into .mpeg1 or mpeg2, each of which resulting in a file about 1 GB for a bout an hour of moving. I used it to make a bunch of streamed lectures and it works great for that. As well as adding lightsaber effects to a home movie.

But when trying to record full length movies, it's terrible. The quality just isn't good enough. Also, this unit (unlike others sold on the market) has no out feed. It can only get incoming video and audio feeds. Thus, if you need something that can feed back onto VHS, you're out of luck here.

Overall, it works well if you're buying it for web streams or home videos.

This is a very disappointing product. It is supposed to enhance the image but it actually made it a lot worse. I have a perfectly calibrated home theater and after I put this cheapo upconverter everything needed to be readjusted. Color, tint, brightness. I couldn't believe it. If you are serious about upconverting, invest in a real box like the DVDO iScan HD. Now that's about the performance. About the rest, it sucks even more. The case feels cheap, switching between the different inputs takes forever (like there is a 5 sec delay between the moment you push and it does switch) DO NOT BUY.

I bought the ADS upconverter because I bought a HDTV only to find out that my cable co. didn't offer HDTV and after 3 failed attempts to switch to a satellite provider that did offer HDTV (too many trees around my house). I wasn't expecting the upconverter to magically turn my standard signals into an amazing HDTV picture, but for $550+ I was expecting the upconverter to do something that was actually noticable. When I first turned in on I asked my wife to look at the picture and tell me what she thought. She looked at the TV and said okay I'm ready turn it on. I said "it IS ON!!" This is pretty much the reaction I had also when I looked at it. The image I got for my digital cable was certianly different, but that's all it was, different. It was NOT noticably better. In fact, in some instances I though the picture was worse. I called ADS tech support and they kept insisting I try it with my DVD because that is what the product is best for (even though that's not what I got it for). So I did and to be honest I really preferred the picture I got directly from my DVD over the picture I got after running it thru the upconverter. It didn't matter what display format I put it in it just didn't do anything to improve the picture. Save your money. If you can't get HDTV don't expect this box to give you anything close to the next best thing.

I just bought this thing from Amazon and all I can say

is WOW!!!!

This is probably the best purchase I have ever made.

This thing is everything I ever expected and more!! It's

very easy to use as well!

I have bought other brands before, and this one just

blows everything else out of the water! I have to say,

everyone out there who is thinking of buying this, stop

thinking. I bought it and I am extremely happy with it

the moment I powered this thing on. YOU ABSOLUTELY

POSITIVELY CANNOT GO WRONG WITH THIS PURCHASE! I

GUARANTEE IT!!!

This thing sucks with MAC programs. It drops frames all over the place in Imovie and Final Cut. (...) If you have a MAC, do not buy the Pyro link! (...)I read up on a forum where MAC users bought the Pyro link and everyone had problems with it.

Okay, so I've been really wanting to record video sequences from PS2 games to show off to my friends. I figured this would be a great product to do this!

So I started off trying to capture a video sequence from SSX-3, and it looked great! I was able to record four minutes of video and audio (via S-Video) no problem. As an added bonus, this unit can be used in "pass through" mode (+1) - I have my PS2 hooked up to it, and it connects directly to my TV. Of course, I have to press the "mode" button on the front, and it needs to be on, but on the bright side I didn't have to buy an S-Video splitter.

Oddly enough, I tried playing a DVD that I thought was macrovision protected through it, and it recorded just fine. (+1, though it is interlaced and looks like...crap) :)

Now the bad news - I then tried to capture a sequence from La Pucelle Tactics, and right off bat it had problems. The image was shifted across the screen, and slowly rolling down from the top. Without the expensive test equipment from my old work place, I cannot figure out why there is a problem with this, but ugh, it's a standard video source. It shouldn't have any problems... (-1)

Other things that bothered me about this:
1) It isn't firmware upgradeable, and thusly I cannot naturally put a custom or different codec in there (not all people have access to say, a DV codec as readily as say, DivX or WMV)

2) It does not have any form of deinterlacing built in (TV signal sources will have jagged lines every other frame unless you run it through a pass of say, virtualdub with a deinterlacer turned on)

3) It doesn't stay in "passthrough" mode when off. So I eventually do have to get a splitter... (-1 for all three)

Leaving it at a ranking of 2...

i dont know why, ads technologies dont stop miss leading people
this thing dosnt capture correctly any anolog signal coming
from video tape, of course many people claim it works well fore
digital signal, like dv cameras or dvd player, but i thing most
people that have purchase this unit were planing on capturing
analog tape video. i can return the unit, because i just recently found out this F***** unit dosnt work and allready time has pass, the god thing is that in my efford to make this work i have learn o lot of stuff, anyway i dont have the money to buy a TBC unit to correct my videos, so i thing im goin to go for the canupos advc-100
this one has tbc correction included wich is the main problem with pyro link, i dont get it if everybody allready knows whats
the problem why they dont do something about..maybe ads technologies dont care for long term bussines.

A few years ago this would be a good card to have. Today it is too far out of date to bother with. For this price you can have a newer card that runs faster. Why bother with this one?

If you want high quality gaming and you're on a tight budget, go with this card. Although not as powerful as the GeForce3 series, this card still delivers incredible graphics, and a cost that can't be beat!

If you play games based of the Half-Life engine like Counter-Strike or Team Fortress, this card will blow you away. Prepare to double your resolution, and get a huge boost in frames/second from this economy card.

You'll also be stunned by the quality of graphics this card can produce with a more advanced engine like Quake III's.

An unavoidable negative to this product is that it is an older model, which means it might not be able to handle games in say 5 years. But this goes with all technology. This card will still perform great in the years to come.

Another plus was PNY's support. one word: outstanding. They help you every step of the way, including awesome details and examples.

Overall this card just rocks!

So if you can't drop the (dollar amount) for a GeForce3, but still want a powerful graphics card, buy this one.

I purchased this to transfer old analog camcorder movies to my computer and VCD. My system is a 1.4 Athlon, 40G HD, 512M, TDK 52X CDR, 32M Geforce II, far beyond the minimum req's.

The unit installed easily enough and the learning curve on the included software is not too steep. I set everything up and began capturing. After fiddling with any number of capture settings, I could not get the unit to capture enough frames. It was consistently dropping 3 to 5 percent of the frames. This number does not seem large until you try to watch what has been captured. I went to the ADS website and that for the included software. There was a suggestion to turn off the audio preview during capture. I tried this and there was no change in the dropped frame rate.

After a four hour evening of troubleshooting, I emailed ADS for help. I heard nothing the next day and emailed again. One week after the first email, I got a reply. I haven't read the reply because it arrived five days after I returned the product.

Barring other explanations and with limited knowledge on the matter, I concluded that USB 1.0 or 1.1 are simply not fast enough for acceptable video capture. I will next try a USB 2.0, Firewire, or PCI Card capture device and see how that works.

I bought the ADS USB INSTANT VIDEO CD as a stopgap measure. I wanted to preserve my old videos on a more permanent media than tape, but cannot afford to upgrade to a Pentium 4 machine with a DVD burner.
I have a 3 year-old Compaq Presario with Windows 98SE, an AMD K6-2 500 processor, 256MB ram (8MB shared for video), a 6GB hard drive and an HP 12x CD-RW burner.
I successfully installed the USB drivers for the input device and the Ulead Video Studio 6.0 SE software. Although I was able create a couple of VCDs so far, I would recommend a more powerful computer with a separate video card.
But, if you're in a situation as myself, the USB INSTANT VIDEO CD package does a nice job, so far.
I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the video CDs play in my Magnavox MDV435 DVD player, whose instructions stated that video CDs would not play on it.
Some hints for fellow low-powered users:
Before installing the USB INSTANT VIDEO CD programs and drivers, uninstall as many unnecessary files and programs as possible to free up space on your hard drive. Run scandisk & defrag to optimize your hard drive's performance. Before using Ulead Video Studio, close all running programs except Explorer and Systray to keep the processor's load as light as possible.
In conclusion, the ADS USB Instant VideoCD does exactly what it's supposed to, but the biggest factors towards its successful will be your computer's specs and your patience with learning the Ulead software.

The concept is great and so is the price. This card and its software are full of problems! If you are enjoy computer crashes and rebooting every 15 minutes than buy, otherwise stay away. After several weeks trying to find the problem (thinking it was my computer) I managed to find on the web site that this card does not work well with Compaq Presarios and IBM Abtivas. This could not be any more correct. If you have one of these computers do not waste your money!

I bought this card initially to use as a capture device in conjunction with an older camcorder. I was attracted by the video editing capability as a secondary use, thinking it might be fun. It's true that it is buggy, but if you go to the Pinnacle website, the support area has lots of info on how to work around them. Check it out before you buy! And after you've spent hours getting it to work right, the resulting edited video is never as good quality-wise as the original analog recording. Could be fun for the patient, determined hobbyist with a tight budget, though. If you are serious about video, spend the extra bucks on high end video editing software, or wait for writable DVD cameras. Additionally, the card does not support CUseeMe, only Netmeeting.

This card is great value for the price, just make sure you meet the manufacturer's specifications (pinnaclesys.com). The software is very intuitive/user friendly and extremely easy to use. The only drawback to this card is that it uses and is limited to the proprietary software made by Pinnacle for the editing, and once you become proficient (and you will) at editing with this system, you will want to upgrade to other software and then will run into snags. The output quality is excellent - I have actually produced instructional tapes which I then sold - especially when you consider the cost of the card.

A had a Typhoon TV Card with bt848 Chip before this Lifeview Flyvideo 98 and as far as I am concerned was far better , at least you could get some support from Anubis. The installation and setup was poor and frought with hang ups. Picture quality poor, lots of horizontal lines. I am useing a G Force Pro on Pentium III 600Mhz. AV in was sub standard to. Sent it back. I Think I will keep to my Typhoon.

This is the worst purchase I made all year. After finally completing the bug filled installation, you will surely be disappointed with: poor customer service, poor picture quality, channels you should have not coming in at all, a partially working remote control, a vanishing mouse pointer, countless reboots due to FlyVideo crashing your operating system(I have Windows 98), and a screen that will turn to black and when you try to close the program - everything will close except the sound - which you will be unable to get rid of without restarting windows. To secure a miserable tv card experience, FlyVideo '98 is the way to go!

I bought this card a week ago and I am very pleased with it. Comparing it to some other tv cards that my friends have, this card by far has better picture quality and the remote control is a plus. I love the mouse motion function on the remote. I can open and close programs while I am watching tv. Installion was easy too. The only negative is the radio program that comes with it. It is very poor.

I had great hopes for the Plextor PX-M402U Digital Video Converter - after all, I have three Plextor CD and DVD burners that still work flawlessly. Unfortunately, the only software that works with this device is InterVideo WinDVD Creator. When I open this software and try to do anything, I receive the fatal message "Windows has encountered an error and needs to shut down. Send error report" After sending the error report, there are no suggestions whatsoever, just back to the desktop!

I emailed both Plextor and InterVideo. No response from InterVideo after 3 days, and Plextor sent me a troubleshooting document. My PC is a P4, 2.0Ghz, Windows XP sp1 with all critical updates loaded, Direct X 9.0b, and I downloaded both the latest driver from Plextor and the software patch from InterVideo. Now, after all this, I still get the same exact error message! This one's going back.

I'm looking into the ADS Tech Instant DVD 2.0 or the Canopus ADVC-100 as alternatives, though neither offer DivX. The ADS Tech is bundled with more "robust" software, and the Canopus is a hardware-only device that requires all compression be done with the software. In my opinion, digital video conversion is not quite ready for prime time - maybe I'll just wait!

I had great expectations for this product, but am highly disappointed. After creating a few test videos which would not play, I contacted Tech Support. I was quite surprised they did not guarantee MPEG output compatibility with any software except the WinDVD player that came with the unit.

It's hitting the trash can....

After four days with this unit, I have to say that I feel like a beta tester. Yes, the hardware works. But the software support is so buggy, feature-deprived and aggravating that the unit is unusable.

In transferring a video tape, the audio and video were massively out of synch. WinDVD Creator pops out of record mode at the smallest glitch in the tape. Yes, I searched the registry and changed the value of "Warn when no video" to zero. The next time I booted, the value was back to 1.

This would not be a problem if I could use the unit with my Pinnacle Studio 8 software, but the Plextor driver is so unlike any other capture hardware's driver that other programs 1) do not even recognize it or 2) crash when the Plextor device is selected.

WinDVD Creator is unstable, buggy, and lacking even basic features. One cannot add a fade-out to the end of a file! They are only allowed between clips!

Who woulda thunk a Plextor product could be bad??

This has been a very disappointing experience for me. I hope Plextor reworks the driver and make it compatible with real-world video editing programs. Vegas? Pinnacle? Sonic? Adobe?