Here's a pretty decent review and explanation of this unit.

http://dvdcreation.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=193834

I got the red one and it works great... for about the first 30 seconds to a minute, then it slows down and gets choppy/skippy. I don't know if that is because of the product or because of the computer. I have a Pentium 3.2 and 1 gig of RAM... anyone have success with that processor and RAM?

Actually Pinnacle makes "pretty" good hardware. But like the others mention, their software blows chunks. This model does mpeg 1, 2, and 4 compression in hardware. If (like one of the earlier posts mentions) you only need the hardware drivers to make it work, you should be able to use the capture program of your choice. As long as you stick with USB 2.0 instead of 1.1, it shouldn't drop frames. Use a moderate-to-high bit rate and the capture quality with mpeg 2 and 4 should be on par with VHS originals.

For the Intel Mac guy out there... last I checked Pinnacle didn't make any OS X drivers for this one. That might have changed but don't get your hopes up. Of course there's always the (very) slim chance OS X will recognize the hardware, natively (yeah, right). Then again, your Intel Mac can run Windows, so there's still hope.

Over the years (since before the turn of the century) I've used several of the various Dazzles. Pretty much, if you stay away from the Pinnacle software and stick with the ones that use hardware compression, they're pretty good. If memory serves me, the "red" one only does software compression. That's going to be the reason for the slowdown and dropped frames. Additionally, you'll want to capture to an internal drive (or Firewire), otherwise you end up bringing data in and pushing data out over the same port (USB) which is a problem waiting to happen.

Be well...

Have to agree with this... Lousy hardware/software support. Drivers stop mysteriously working...

You are better off buying a Hauppauge HVR-850 which has A/V input and also Hardware compression. It also functions as a ATSC/NTSC tuner. Not sure what the specs are for the HVR-950 but that is supposed to include clear QAM

If you use the SVideo input instead of the composite, would the quality of the final video be much better?

lahfroyg wrote:If you use the SVideo input instead of the composite, would the quality of the final video be much better?

It should be noticeably better, I won't say "much" better. It's only a $5 cable so do it if you can.

lahfroyg wrote:If you use the SVideo input instead of the composite, would the quality of the final video be much better?

Yep... S-Video seperates black from the rest of the colors which gives you sharper images compared to composite video. Component video is better, but that's not a option on this device.

Been looking for a cheap (price wise hopefully) capture device. In for one, hopefully won't be disappointed.

Looks like a great gadget, but if I want to back up my home videos to DVD, what's preventing me from hooking my camcorder directly up to a DVD recorder?
Is this mainly so you can record "to" or "through" your computer for any variety of reasons?
Thanks in advance for an answer!

Yeah...I'll keep sitting on my money unless there's another woot-off before the second weeks of December. (Chances are this thing will be in it.)

I was thinking about needing this exact sort of device earlier today.

I'm in for 2. One for me, and one to be gifted in the holidays if it works out.

Thanks for reading my mind, woot.

/thumbsup

Don't buy this--you can get a GameBridge (exactly the same thing) for cheaper on google.

a few months back, i bought 2 of the regular dazzles here and sold one on ebay for the price i paid for both of them, so i got one free. the strange thing was, i used ebay's 'calculate shipping' and it added 45 dollars to ship from tennessee to maine. the buyer just paid it without questioning it. it was like i struck gold... shipping with insurance was only ten bucks, so i DID refund them thirty five bucks.

i asked the buyer if they thought the shipping was 'a bit on the high side', but they said they were 'used to that kind of thing' on ebay. i still couldn't rip someone off.

if you are ordering one, you should consider ordering more... check the price for sealed units on ebay... check the search box for sold items. you might just be able to get one free or close to it after you sell one or two online.

be careful though... i had to relist one item three times last month before i got a sale of an item that i always sell within two or three days of listing. sales are a bit soft right now.

bill
btw. i did place an order for this!

bill

anyone knows if this works on linux? any recent ubuntu?
thanx.

tennesseebill wrote:i still couldn't rip someone off.

Good karmha TB; your reward is in heaven!
In for 1.

b166er01 wrote:anyone knows if this works on linux? any recent ubuntu?
thanx.

Apparently, this model does not work on Ubuntu or Linux in general. The DVC100's that Woot sold a month or so ago had gotten support in the kernel, but this one is a no go. Specifically, a post on the Ubuntu forums that states this model doesn't work was dated mid-September so I'd say the information is pretty recent.

can this be used to play videos on tv? my laptop doesn't a s-video port so would this work?

ToothyMcshark wrote:Don't buy this--you can get a GameBridge (exactly the same thing) for cheaper on google.

Gamebridge is absolute carp

Hijackedflavor wrote:My mom wants something like this for Christmas...does it really require DX 9, or is that just the software it uses? I doubt her low-level Dell could handle it if so...

The min systems requirements are quite low on this device, it even works on USB 1.1 which is ancient, you'd be suprised but should work on quite old systems since it has hardware compresion it's doing all the work not the PC.

You make the comparison:

The item on shirt.woot! sold out in less than two hours and generated at least 165 comments. This Dazzle puppy is sitting here like a lump and has produced about 67 comments as of this message.

Which do you think is the more popular item? The really weird thing is that Dazzle has been selling devices that have looked more-or-less like this one for (what?) eight years (I'm willing to be corrected) and they never seem to have evolved very much.

Yeah, I know - on-board compression stuff, probably can handle the data flow better, but it is still an ANALOG input device! Of course, there are still jillions of VCRs and DVDs that only produce analog output, but be honest - how many people are going to sit around playing those oh-so-supposedly important movies and stuff (and having to do it in real time) when - unless it is personal footage - they can get the commercial equivalents in increasingly better formats and condition with a few button clicks and (presuming they are employed at better than minimum wage) a rather low cost?

Furthermore, no matter WHAT Dazzle says about their software, it has been consistently panned year after year as being substandard, as causing system crashes, yada, yada, yada. It really isn't sufficiently good to act as the true selling point of this moribund young doggy.

Well, at least I got an interesting t-shirt tonight.

foxzeta wrote:
It CANNOT however stream on ustream or the like. It just doesn't work. You have to use the DVC100 for that. If you're wanting to stream stuff, you'd be better off finding one of those instead. The only difference in them is that the DVC100 doesn't record straight to mpeg2, so you have to encode it after, and it takes up a lot of space before you do.

Can anyone explain why this device can't be used to stream on ustream or anything similar? Isn't it supposed to be better than the red one, which can stream?

Does anyone know if the white Dazzle DVD Recorder is capable of streaming?

Is this old technology, or can it handle high-def video? We currently download video from our Canon high-def hard-drive ... to our laptop hard-drive ... then burn a DVD ... then back it up to an external hard-drive. Those files are always too dense to upload to our family blog ... could this also convert/compress them to a format that would make high-def footage less monstrous and more easily shared with far-flung relatives? We currently use the "uled" software that came with the camera.

I have a dvd camcorder. Will this help me save the content to my hard drive to edit? I cannot do this now without a conversion program which I lose most of the content and it takes hours to do.

I have the simplier version, and I love it. You have to have the VCR & TV right beside the computer. I works well for laptops. I have digitized almost all of my old video tapes this way. It digitizes in "real time".

sirhcmin6 wrote:Um.... someone clarify me this... Can this be plugged on to computer and TV to watch movies or computer screen on TV?

Not really, at least not with the provided software.
You get a small window (2 or 3 inches square) to watch what's being recorded. If that's all you want, then it'd do the job albeit poorly.

I bought one of these the last time Woot! sold them (not the platinum version), and it allowed me to capture a bunch of my old VHS tapes and burn them to DVD-R. As others have said, it has a metric buttload of software that you've got to install, but it's pretty easy to use once it's set up.

If you've got a bunch of tapes to convert, it's going to take a while but the results are probably worth it.

This looks similar to the pinnacle dvd maker deluxe I bought here a while ago. It works ok for making dvd copies of old vhs copies. At the highest quality setting it takes a couple discs for each movie. Not a bad copy.

I absolutely loved the Andrea Thompson reference. She was one of my favorite characters on the show.

can you use this to play wii or ps2 or gamecube?

i bought the red one and cannot figure out how to get the movies recorded to dvd and the help line is always busy.............so i figure i just handed woot about thirty five dollars cdonpugs

Humm, what about the S-Video input My VCR has that for an output? Ddifference between the 2 wire RCA and 4 wire S-Video is significant. How much better. My subjective experience says RCA plug video is about 70% and S-video is about 90%. of the original video quality .

Many lower end video units don't have the S-Video. And obviously garbage in only gets worse garbage out.

Best to all wooters

Eeezee wrote:Of course it is - this thing uses RCA cables, what were you expecting? When you're converting VHS tapes, there's really no room to complain though.

I checked on this in Cnet. Most of the user reviews were not real favorable of this.

http://reviews.cnet.com/tv-tuner-adapters/dazzle-video-creator-platinum/4852-9332_7-31852230.html?tag=mncol;rnav

Since this is a refrub maybe it will work

I have one of these and it worked great at converting all my old vhs tapes. You can even convert the video for use on the web or ipod/psp etc. This is a great deal since i paid $89 for mine...

msspurlock wrote:Okay, one of you lurking geniuses out there, real quick.

How is this different than the red one they offered last month?

I ask because I bought that one and want to know if this one is better.

Anybody know?

(You scoff, but last time somebody asked a question like this, a full spec sheet appeared in no time, even though it was a legacy product and there was no info at the maker's site.)

It is better since it has hardware encoding, it also comes with more advanced software...

mattangiefowler wrote:Anyone know how this will save files for a PSP? My daughter has one but we can't seem to get any music/vid on it. Thanks...

There is a drop down setting in the software so it converts the video to the proper psp format - then you can put the file on the memory stick duo and play it back on your daughters psp

danaparker wrote:Can this work on a Mac?

I have a DVC100 (the red Dazzle) and MacOS leopard on a MacBook. The DVC100 isn't recognized as a video source when it's plugged in. When I tried to install Pinnacle's "Video Capture for Mac" software hoping it'd have Mac drivers for the Dazzle, it's still not recognized. Google wasn't able to find drivers for these for MacOS (and in fact found wooters that hoped in vain to get it to work on their Mac.) I'd say give this a pass unless you've got a Windows system.

I wooted the standard red one a while back and I have been exceptionally happy with it. output is very good. the capture/editing software (I imagine its the same) is pretty intuitive after a few minutes of button mashing, creating DVDs with menu etc is easy. I would definitely recommend this for anyone looking to convert VHS tapes or miniDV to DVD.

slayerkamikaze wrote:Can I hook my xbox 360 into this and be able to use full screen for playing video games?

Not a chance. The latency introduced by the encoder will lead to horrible lag. What you'll see on the screen will be a couple of tenths of a second behind the Xbox, which makes it unplayable.

rhmurphy wrote:Not a chance. The latency introduced by the encoder will lead to horrible lag. What you'll see on the screen will be a couple of tenths of a second behind the Xbox, which makes it unplayable.

Not entirely true. Using web-cam software (SuperWebCam in particular), I have been able to play Playstation2 with the red version of the Dazzle on my computer with absolutely no issues. It should be USB 2.0 of course, and you might need a computer that is not 4+ years old, but it is perfectly do-able.

You will only be able to max the resolution to 640x480 though, so quality won't be GREAT, and to get the "full-screen" effect, you would need to bump down the resolution of your monitor.

That aside, I have used the Red version of this for capturing old home-video's. The family love's having these on DVD. The software isn't GREAT, so I ended up capturing alot through Winows Movie Maker. If you need something with better quality but not as much technicality as Adobe Premiere, use Cyberlink Powerdirector.

ilovereality wrote:According to the specs you need Windows Xp or Vista. Doesn't say anything about Mac OS - so I would say no.

It "may" be possible to use this with iMovie 08 which is capable of taking video through the USB ports. There used to be a Dazzle device that had a Firewire output, now that was a good product, but they no longer manufacture it.
P

I got the red one a few months back and it works just fine. I transferred some old Camcorder stuff and old VHS videos. That's what its for, old stuff. Your new stuff will go from your NEW camcorder to your comp using USB or firewire.

The software for the red one was for Windows only... no Mac.