stse's Full Review: Diamond Multimedia ( VC500) Video Capture
Background I am sure people were born in the 60s, 70s or even 80s should know what VHS is and have VHS video tapes for the family video recordings. In the old days, there are many forms of Camcorders ranging from VHS, VHS-C, and 8mm. Those are the big giant devices that you probably won't see people carrying them any more. (except perhaps professional)What we have now are small and compact camcorders. Regardless what you used before, you live in the computer age now, you need to archive all your older medias. The best way to preserve them is to have something to convert over. I used to have a TV card on a desktop pc. So, the only way for me to convert is to bring a VHS recorder to that pc and hook up an extra audio cable to it and convert over. However, with the technology of UBS, this device will do what you need where ever you go. All you need is a laptop (or desktop) pc and converting is a easy job.
Introduction The Brain - The model is called VC500. This USB device is about 2 inch long (without cables). It has two ends. With the cables it is about 3 feet long. One end is the USB plug along with 3 feet cable to the body and the other end has 4 cables. 2 Audio female, 1 video female RCA cables, and also a composite video cable. The software - It comes with two CDs. Basically you only need one.One that you must have is Drive and Basic Software. It is called One Touch.The other one is additional Video Editing software called Ulead Solution SE DVD. It is a movie editing software. This is when you need fancy video, and that is more like Windows Movie Maker. Installation guide - Basically you don't really need that. It is a replicate of things you will see when you do the installation. However, there is no manual for the software Ulead Solution SE DVD Extra RCA cables - 6 ft. Male to Male white, yellow, red cables are come with this box for hooking up any camcorder, video recorder that you have RCA outlets. Installation
Requirements:-
Processor Intel or AMD CPU 1.4GHz or faster Graphics Card Video Card Supporting Direct X 9.0 (most computers nowadays can work on this product) Memory 256 MB System RAM Available Slot Available USB 2.0 port Operating Systems Supported Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or above, Windows Vista, Microsfot MCE Others CD-ROM Drive 300MB Hard Disk Space 600MB to 3GB per 1 Hour of Recording Features
Video System --- NTSC 30fps 720 x 480, PAL 25fps 720 x 576 Video Format --- MPEG 4/2/1 - This is also called VCD format Image Format --- JPG or BMP Ports In Composite RCA or S-Video Specifications Push Button: Pres to start/stop video capturing NTSC Video Capture:720x480 @30FPS PAL Video Capture: 720x576 @25FPS Burn support files to DVD/VCD Video editing with Ulead Video Studio It is very easy to install. It takes less than 10 minutes to install basic software and the driver. But you may need to reboot it to have the pc recognize. How to use it Basically it is plug and play. When it is plugged in to your USB port on your computer, the red led light will be on. When it is plugged into your VHS/Camcorder and if the software is played, the blue light will be on.
All you need to do is plug those RCA male cables/composite cable to your VHS/Camcorder female RCA outlets (output if it is VHS recorder), on the other end, they will go into the USB device. Of course, if you only have one video and one audio, then you only plug it two. The reason why you need two audio RCA cables is because you have stereo sound. After plugging into it, hit play on your VHS/Camcorder, and on the software itself on your pc, just click and hit the red button on the software. You will see Recording indicator in the bottom.
If you just want to backup your old media, plug it in and record it, and it will automatically record to a format of MPEG which you can view it on most DVD player nowadays. If your VHS is in SP mode (standard play), you will have 2 hours and record to a MPEG file will be about 1.25 gig in file size. So, burn it to a 4 DVD, and a 4 gig DvD-rom can hold about 6 hours of movie in MPEG or they call that VCD format.
As for as image or picture itself, after you capture it, you can have it captured as JPEG or BMP format which is good. But the focus is not really on that because most software nowaday can let you freeze screen and output to a image file.
Why I like it Convenient - It is quick and simply. Besides easy installation, all I need to do is plug my cables to this device and hit a button and let it play and record at the same time. There is no need to fumble around for another sound cable just because you want to record sound as well. This device includes sound/audio input which is very convenient. Also each time you start recording. The sound quality is also good. Of course, it comes from the original way you record it first.
When you save the file, it automatically goes to a folder (My video under the sub-folder of the program) and save it for you according to the date and time. Of course, you will have to rename it as however you like what it is called later.
Affordable - The price is good. It is less than $40 dollars. This is considered a good and worthy product because it works well. Good software - Even the basic software is good. You can choose many kind of format (MPEG, WMV, AVI, etc). The major one is mpeg (by default) or DVD format (which will be more disk space) With the additional software, you can make your video fancy with special effect.
What should be improved
1. Manual for Extra software - It is almost like the Windows Movie Maker. However, the software Ulead Solution SE DVD may be a little complicated than you thought if you want some special effects. They should include a manual for that software instead of the basic one.
2. Not really one touch - There is a button the device which says REC, but after I set up and have the VCR on "Play", and I press that REC on the device, nothing really changed. The one touch I really had to do is to go to the software itself and click it. I can live that that I guess, but I found that one touch misleading in some way. *this could be just my device, but I tell what I have
3. Not smart enough in recording - When you capture from your media, you have to watch it to stop it. The software will let you capture it, but at the end, if you don't watch it and stop it manually, you will consume extra hard disk space. If the software is intelligent enough to stop recording at blank, that will be great.
Conclusion
Overall, it is a good product. It is a MUST if you have all those old media recording. After all, those magnetic media will stop working after long period of time. Putting them on a dvd/cd or hard drive for backup will save you lot of memories!! I am in the middle of converting all those old tapes. Don't wait until your old media goes bad!
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