Yes, I bought the Dazzle DVC 90 extrenal capture box. I know it's not the best one out there, far from it, but I couldn't spend anymore money. Anyway, it's supposed to be DVD quality captures, but when I turn the quality up, it drops loads of frames, or has kind of horizontal lines arcoss the video. My question is: what does my PC need to make Dazzle DVC 90 work at optimal quality?
oh, and i was wondering, the difference between the DVD 90 and 120 is that the video encoding is "hardware" for the 120, and "software" for the 90. Does that mean I don't need a drugged up computer to use DVD 120 properly, whereas I do need to have an awesome machine to get DVC 90 working optimaly?
Here's a general computer tweaking site that may help get you on the right track. It has helped me although I don't use a Dazzle product. http://www.tweakguides.com
For the 90, you do need a "drugged up" computer, as everything is done by the CPU and software. For the 120, everything is done by the device's hardware. Personally I wouldn't purchase either one. There are much better options, for about the same money.
Ah yes, I like better options for the same price. Could you give them to me? I'm looking to put maximum 90 euros into it.
Hauppauge PVR-250 They're a little more, at about 120 Euros, but well worth it for quality, time saved, and 3rd party software and driver support.
I have a question about the Dazzle 90. I've had mine for a while now. I can capture at 352x240 AVI format fine. But when I go to try and capture at 720x480 AVI format, the video plays faster than the audio when I play it back. Any suggestions on how to fix this?
Wutflip: what you are describeing sounds like it is being caused by Dropped Frames... Dropped Frames when captureing to a Low Compression AVI format are usually Caused from not haveing a fast enough hard Drive to write all of the Video Data in real time.... If you are Captureing to a High Compression AVI format Like useing the DivX or XviD codecs then the Dropped Frames are probably caused from not haveing a fast enough PC to Compress a 720+480 Image in real Time.... To Solve these problems you Should have a seperate Fast Hard Drive Just for Video capture and you should have a Fairly Fast PC like at least 2.0ghz.... Also Non-Hardware Encodeing USB devices are not very good because even with USB 2.0 there isn"t enough Bandwidth to transfer Uncompressed Video to your PC without some Data Loss be it dropped Frames or Loss of Video Information which results in Lower overall quality.... When getting a Cheapo Capture device I prefer to go for a PCI card over a USB 2.0 Card as the PCI Interface has Much more Bandwidth than USB so these quality is generally better and the Chances of Dropped Frames is Less..Pluss PCI cards are Generally Cheaper than USB devices..The Cheapo card I have Right now was only $40 and it Has a 10Bit decoder Chip and Captures pretty good Quality Considering how cheap the card was..... Cheers
Minion, which PCI card would you recommend? I am trying to run a small business of transferring other peoples VHS tapes to DVD. But obviously I can't do this if my capture device wont work right. Also, my computers setup is somewhat like this. Intel Celeron 1.30GHz, 256 MB RAM, Win XP Pro SP2.
If you're going into business doing this, then I suggest you purchase a standalone dvd recorder. It's much faster than any computer solution. If you need to edit, then you need a computer, and your Celeron just won't cut it. It's too slow. A 64 bit Athlon, with a gig of RAM would be a good place to start. You should also purchase a good TBC such as the Canopus ADVC-110 (minimum, the ADVC-300 would be better), and capture using firewire. Have two hard drives, one for the OS, and the other to capture on. Make sure it's LARGE, at least 80 gig or more, as high quality captures take up a lot of room. Invest in some professional software. Sony Vegas 5, Pinnacle Studio Pro, or similar. If it's a hobby, keep plugging away with what you have. If you intend to make money doing it, you should do a lot more research. It's not as simple as plugging in a tape, and outputting a finished DVD.
exactly what he said...you will get absolutly nowhere with a dazzle 90 ...not even the 150c is any good... I recomend nothing less then a ADVC 300... if you dont you will be sending your customers low quality DVDs with frame drop and unsynched audio and video....They will NOT be happy!! take this from someone who knows....I used to use a dazzle 150c... I own jp-imaging.com and had a couple unhappy customers... another thing. If you are trying to start a buisness doing this then you should do alot more research...trust me there is alot more too it than you think!! You need a DBA or possibly file as a LLC if you are doing with a partner. And watch out for copyright infringement and make sure you have your butt covered with a good TOS If you need any advice just hit me up here...id be glad to help out..
So how does the ADVC- 300 work exactly? Just plug the composite cables from the VCR/TV into the ADVC? I'm not understanding it exactly.
That's exactly how it works. It then plugs into your firewire port on the computer. Again, the system you have just won't cut it as a video system.
Alright, got the ADVC-110, and captured some Xbox footage for testing with it, It's PERFECT. It is all stable, and has awsome quality, now I have to go transfer some VHS's
I think I must be missing something pretty obvious, but when I connect my VCR to my Dazzle 90 using composite cables I cannot see anything in the preview box and nothing is recorded, but when I connect the 90 to my DV camcorder via S-video everything seems fine. I have tried using a cheapo Legacy capture card but with similar results. Any suggestions on how I should be connecting up the VCR to the Dazzle as that is the reason I bought it in the first place. Thanks
Hi Minion, yes I selected the Composite tab. I have tried using the VCRs scart 'out' socket that I can connect the three line jacks to with the 21 pin adaptor, then connect to the corresponding plugs on the Dazzle. As there is no aerial socket on the Dazzle I am assuming that I cannot use the RF cable to connect the VCR to the Dazzle, besides I would have thought that would be a lower quality signal. I know that the VCR is working correctly, but I am still getting no picture on the preview window. Any ideas? Thanks
