Video-Capture Reviews

Initially I believed this worked reasonably well. That is if you put up with the capture freezing periodically. However, after owning it for two months (and therefore stuck with it), I find that it will capture off my DVD player perfectly, but it will not capture at all from my VCR. There simply is no video in the preview box and it does not capture. Pinnacle's "support" is poor. Forget speaking to a person. I am currently waiting to hear a response from email, however I suspect that it won't be helpful. If it was not for the expense I would simply throw it away. It is beginning to take up so much time. All for wanting to transfer tapes to DVD. I did end up buying a Panasonic DVD recorder with a hard drive for that purpose. It works well, the only draw back being the inability to edit beyond creating scences.( which is great to edit out commercials)

Everytime my source video has a scene change the capture hardware hangs, producing a stuttering image of the last frame sucessfully captured. The MovieBox manual says that during video "dropouts" the MovieBox "will wait for an interference free signal" and that this "can take a few momements" to acquire the new signal. It suggests that the unit be reset or power cycled if it does not properly reacquire the signal after it has stabilized. Since this issue occurs at every scene change you will need to babysit your capture so you can reset your hardware and restart the capture each time you turned off your camcorder during the original recording. The included software is good, but the hardware is fatally flawed - and the manufacturer is trying to sell it anyhow!

I bought this product to copy old vhs movies and copy my analog camcorder hi 8mm tapes to mpe(dvd) format. Like the other review says, the hardware is a piece of junk and in my opinion should have never been allowed to be sold to the public. It still amazes me how companies get away with this and still stay in business. The software seem ok Pinnacle Studio 8. I have a Dell 8300 running xp pro with sp1 installed, 512 memmory and 200mb harddisk, ati 9800 video card, siig 1394 firewire card. I have a high end sony hi 8mm camcorder. The bottom line is that when you capture video and you have a scene transitions(ex. tape a scene of my kids one day and then next day I tape a nother scene - normal use), it HANGS up(the video goes crazy and it starts making all these popping sounds). My first scene was 5 minutes and then it hung up. I could never get it to capture more than 5 minutes. I tried for hours to make it work and I have 20 years experience as a computer developer. I then started researching this product and found no good reviews, they were all terrible. The moviebox usb is going to have the same problem because of the mpeg encoder chipset in the box, it just does not work. If you want a great production, then the anwser is the Canopus ADVC100(approx $250.00 street price). I bought it the other day and have burned 4 hours of old vhs and hi 8mm movies to the .avi format. You can buy other Canopus products that do mpeg hardware encoding with variable bitrate, but they are in the $500 range. If you want to edit movies, you should be capturing the video to .avi(need a lot of disk space), editing it, and then converting it to mpeg-2(dvd) fromat. Editing in MGEP format does not work well. The Canopus worked flawlessly with hunderds of scene transitions. I could not find one bad review on the Canopus product. It is plug and play. I have used Microsoft Movie Maker 2 and Pinnacle Studio 8 to capture the video. Hope this review was helpful.

... Read the fine print on your Dazzle video capture screen - you only get 50% of the resolution on your TV - this should be called "Dazzling Fuzzy Pics Creator"!!! Bundle programs will only install one component at a time - leaving all the install boxes checked will cause your computer to crash because of install hangups. Will not "build" and "burn" your DVD at the same time. After much time and grief, the best analog to DVD movie conversion was a one frame per 3 seconds slide show (with the in between frames lost) and totally garbled sound. The program/hardware concept sounds great, which is why you will believe you ought to buy this RIGHT NOW. The program/hardware execution and results leave me furious that I did not read the reviews. There are other on-line stores with this product's reviews too, and they all sound like my review. I'm not ordinarily this stupid, but my impulse to buy this thing definitely was duuuuumb!!!

This is a great paperweight... Customer/technical service is terrible... Online troubleshooting is terrible... It plain just doesn't work... Even their message boards for pier technical-help agree, don't buy this...

I purchased the dazzle fusion product because of the multi card reader capabilities and the ability to run slideshows. Problems started from day one with this software. Updates first need to be downloaded from their website which take awhile. The slideshow program was slow to load pictures and I always had problems burning the pics with music to a cdr. Don't expect to call the company and get answers either. I called numerous times and no answer. My last try I waited 45 minutes until someone answered and then he had no clue on how to fix my problems. I since downloaded a software program from photodex and this software works great with 10fold more features compared to the dazzle program.

I was doing research in order to buy a hi-end video board for my design work. Since I went looking for the "good" names, 3Dlabs, Nvidia, ATI... then I realized that the Oxygen GVX 420 was a very good choice (price/features). I read the evaluation about this video card before buying it (just in case). I got a little concerned because the only comment provided here at Amazon.com was negative. But then I thought, this is not going to happen with me... and yet you know, statistics, two in a row...
Man! It happens again! One more for the list...Brand new, coming from a beautiful sealed box! After installing in my computer, dead video, and no nothing. Called the 3Dlabs support, explained what happened, and the person who attended me just said a flat "try another one".
At the moment I felt like abused by a stupid guy at a company that do not care about customers at all. But then a pretty good solution came after all. I just followed the support advice!
I sent the Oxygen GVX 420 from 3Dlabs back (free shipping both ways, thanks to amazon.com) and purchased another one. This time I went to Nvidia Quadro 4 750 XGL from Compaq.
I felt so good after having that advice, "Try another one..." 3Dlabs has the best support system on earth; they provide the best information for the customers, and it was so fast. They did not take much on the phone with me. Time saving! Money saving! What amazed me was that they did not make any question! Isn't that amazing! "Try another one" right on. Man! So fast! Those guys are genius! They already know what is going on without blinking their eyes, WOW! They must have the best training program and quality control on earth! Don't forget that:).
I am a happy man now. Thanks to competition and the amazing answer I got from 3Dlabs support system!
I will put my evaluation for the Nvidia Quadro 4 750 XGL from Compaq when I have a chance to install in my machine. It is coming from mainland.

Regards,

Luiz

I have purchased 3Dlabs products for years. I currently own 2 3Dlabs video cards and they work great.
So, when I saw the 420 for under $$$$ I thought it was an unpassable bargain. ...
The card would not install. After several talks with customer care from 3Dlabs I was told that I had a defective card...
I returned the card without a hassle, and I have been pondering if I should just get it replaced with the same model... Then I'll post a real review.

I purchased this card as part of a system to be based around SnapStream's Beyond TV personal video recorder software. The card works fairly well with the included [albiet mediocre] InterVideo WinDVR software, but nothing I tried would make it work with Beyond TV. An email response from Adaptec technical support finally explained why:
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04/01/04 06:20:32 tse23545
Hello from Adaptec,
Unfortunately the VideOh products we have only work with the bundled software MyDVD. So the Beyond TV, Pinnacle Studio, Roxio Easy CD Creator, Adobe Premiere and Windows Movie Maker will not work with it or they will have problems recognizing the device. But you can capture the video using Sonic MyDVD to MPEG Clips and other editing software should be able to edit the clips. Or try the included WinDVR to capture the clip from the TV signal. Unfortunately there won't be a driver release for the hardware to be compatible with 3rd party video editing software.
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For this reason, if you ever plan on using your TV Tuner card with anything other than the included software, you'll do better to look elsewhere...

This is not really a GeForce 4 MX 440 chipset-based video card. I ordered and received a GeForce 2 MX 400 chipset-based card. Actually, it is Diamond Stealth's S70. I was so disappointed when I received it because Diamond cards' quality is terrible, and I had very bad experiences with this brand before. I wanted to return it but I received an equal card again. My conclusion is either details of this product are wrong or Amazon people are completely ignorant about the difference between those two chipsets. I've learned my lesson, I will never buy a hardware component from Amazon. Amazon is good selling books, DVDs, CDs and even some electronics. But when dealing with hardware, I would prefer to find a specialized store. Don't buy this card, it is not worth, there are much better cards in the market for similar prices, and furthermore the Diamond brand might be the worst in video cards.

I bought this IEEE 1394 card soon after I got a brand new computer. My computer was operating fine until this component crashed my system everytime I use any type of multimedia. It has caused me a lot of headache and agony. Not even XP OS can tell you what crash your system. Until I removed this card, everything was running the way it supposed to be. Don't waste your money on this item.

I wouldn't recommend anybody to buy this item. I tried this item on all my TV and is very poor quality picture. Is very difficult to read any text on the screen. You have to use the zoom option when ever you want to read the text. Even my Son don't like it, when I attached his computer to his TV. It takes awhile to adjust all the options to really get it right and believe me you won't get it the way you wanted. I'm a technician and I deal with video and sound and this item does not perform as advertise.

I spent hours trying to get this card to work on two separate systems, one with win98, the other xp professional. both machines were freshly formatted and never had a different video card installed.

the included drivers AND the newest available drivers on the jaton site were tried. BOTH new and provided drivers caused both PC's to fail to boot...the pc's would restart over and over prompting me to choose 'safe mode'.

multiple uninstalls and updated driver installs were attempted, nothing I tried enabled this card to work.

The DEFAULT windows drivers (in both xp and win98) allow the card to provide graphics, but you can't use tv-out or (in win98) even adjust the resolution with default drivers.

This card will waste a day or more of your time before you give up on it. Don't waste your time or money on this garbage.

I purchased this item to extend the reach of my webcam. I plugged the active usb extension cable into my computer and rebooted and now the computer doesn't recognize the webcam. I then plugged my keyboard into the active usb extension cable and the computer doesn't recognize the keyboard either. I came back to the website to see if anybody else wrote a review which reported a similar problem. Either this cable is defective or there is some special procedure that must be employed to have the computer recognize a device plugged into it. At the moment, this item is totally useless.

I have been utilizing Matrox video cards exclusively over the past few years: G450's, 550's and most recently, a Parahelia dual-DVI 256MB. I have always liked their products, but seeking help from Matrox technical/service, however, is analogous to dealing with cell phone companies: Life is wonderful until there's a problem and you have to call them for help. Matrox is just as difficult and frustrating. Let me cite two examples, occurring fourteen months apart.

Last year, I had a Matrox G550 fail; luckily, it was still under warranty. After being transferred from Tech Support to Matrox Customer Service for an RMA, I was informed a replacement would be shipped only AFTER Matrox had received the defective card. When I asked the CS person what I was supposed to do with a PC with no video for two weeks, she didn't seem to care.

Almost all electronic industry manufacturers have a identical return/replacement model: You give them your credit card number, they send the replacement unit, and if you don't return the defective unit in a prescribed period of time, they charge your CC.

When I prompted this to the CS person, she replied they did have such a program. However, Matrox charges the replacement to your CC BEFORE shipment, then credits the charge upon return of the product. I was so bewildered by this, I forgot to ask why she neglected to mention the replacement scheme to begin with. After I got off the phone, it dawned on me: It generates more paperwork; she has to charge off the CC, perform the refund, etc. Lazy, perhaps? You be the judge.

Then, more annoyances: When the replacement card arrived, it had a "refurbished" tag on the circuit board. I can't ever remember any electronics company sending me a refurb'd device for replacement of a retail-value warranty item. I remember thinking, "geez, how cheap can you get?" Then I noticed on the enclosed paperwork that Matrox had charged my CC the full $125 list price of a new G550 card for the replacement, refurbished device! As we like to say here in the U.S., you have to have large, brass ones for that kind of chutzpah...

Fast forward to last week: I just finished building a new PC, utilizing the same G550 card. Suddenly, after working perfectly for days, I powered the unit on; no video. After much back-tracking (and cursing), it finally occurred to me to test the PC on two separate, identical IBM P260 monitors; the analog video port of the G550 would not function on either monitor. The only conclusion I could fathom was that either the card had failed again, or the driver just stopped functioning (and yes, I had diligently downloaded & installed the most current G550 XP driver posted on the Matrox site when I did the SW build). Deleting and re-installing the driver did not correct the problem.

At 10:15amPST Friday, I called Matrox Tech Support. Matrox's TS automated phone attendant requires a unique client ID number before it transfers to a live TS person. I punched mine in, and was informed that no one was in queue and my call would be answered immediately. The attendant paused, then stated there was a problem with my client ID and that it was transferring me. It paused again, then informed me that TS was closed! All the while, I'm staring at my confirmed client ID number (and the model/serial numbers of all the products I had purchased from them over the years) on the Matrox web site on my other, Parahelia-equipped PC, and it's the middle of the business day in Canada. ARGH.

I called back repeatedly, each time re-performing the client ID procedure, but the attendant kept booting me out. DOUBLE ARGHH.

In total frustration, I called Matrox's main line. I dug thru the menu and finally got a receptionist, who informed that, indeed, TS was open and transferred me... right into somebody's voicemail. TRIPLE ARGHHH, I'm thinking: "I want to fix this before Matrox goes home, I don't want to be dead for the whole weekend." So I "zero'd" back to the operator and begged for a live person, but she refused to help me. I ended up leaving a frustrated voicemail message.

That was three business days ago, and I have never received the courtesy of a return call. All those fruitless phone calls, BTW, were on my nickel, from Los Angeles to Quebec, Canada: Matrox provides no 800- support telephone numbers.

What happened to the problem? Just for the heck of it, I removed the G550 driver and installed the latest Parhelia driver, then lit up the PC with the G550 installed. IT WORKED. The G550 is a analog/DVI unit, and my Parhelia is a dual-DVI device, so go figure.

To be honest, I had forgotten the G550 return incident last year, but this situation brought it back into sharp recall. I decided to post this because I believe users should have their expectations set appropriately when considering purchasing a Matrox product. This new PC I built is a high-end RAID A/V workstation that I wanted dedicated to Adobe PS/video editing. I had it in mind that the Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme HW/SW bundle was my product of choice to crown this new unit, but now, I going to take a second look at the market. Why would I want to spend this kind of money on a product from a company who treated me this way twice?

To summarize: Matrox builds great stuff, but if you ever have a problem, be aware of what you're likely to face: Matrox is seriously flawed, almost arrogant and uncaring (possibly the "French" in "French-Canadian"???), in their support operations. And long time, loyal customers, like myself, especially don't deserve such treatment.