Video Audio VHS VCR USB Video Capture Card to DVD Converter Capture Card Adapter

This little device works incredibly well! I have basically nothing to say about the device itself - it does exactly what it is supposed to do: get your VCR's signal into your computer, with no discernable signal loss. It seems that any issues people have do not involve the device, but the other factors, so that is all I will address here.One thing I have never seen discussed anywhere else is to be aware that your VCR machine itself is surely the biggest factor in quality. I switched from our primary (older) VCR to a combo device we had bought after VHS tapes were already a thing of the past - so it had basically never been used. The quality improvement was remarkable. Nothing else I did even approached that difference. That said, VCRs are remarkably low-fi, so do not expect much in the way of quality (compared to the HD we are conditioned to expect these days).In line with several recommendations here, I never even bothered to try the software that came with this device. Instead, I used three free, open-source programs: OBS Studio (for the video capture), Avidemux (for editing the resulting videos - mainly trimming the start/stop points), and Audacity (for my mainly fruitless efforts at noise reduction). These three programs are simply remarkable - kudos to the developers of each. But they are also advanced, with more options than you will want. So here are my tips for each program:OBS Studio:I did a lot of research to try to find the optimal settings for recording from VHS, and there are competing opinions all over the place. Don't bother trying to resolve this dispute. Instead, just right click on the video when you can see it in OBS Studio, and choose "Resize output (source size)" - this tells you that "The base and output resolutions will be resized to the size of the current source" which is really what you want. Mine ended up at 720x480, which might be overkill as far as file sizes for quality tradeoff, but really works just fine (a couple GB per hour). The other not obvious issue I had was activating the sound. Here is how to turn on the sound monitoring and recording: Audio Mixer, settings wheel icon, Advanced Audio Properties, switch to Monitor and Output.Avidemux:First, be patient when you open a large file in Avidemux: it takes a remarkably long time to load a long video, much of the time with no indication that anything is happening. Walk away from your computer and do something else while you wait. Second, it took me a while to figure out the easy way to find the permitted cut points on a video. Video compression works basically by noting the parts of the video that have not changed from the previous frame, and then not storing those parts. But the frames have to be connected to each other for this to work. Which means you can't just cut at any old frame (unless you re-encode the resulting video, losing a bit of quality). Every few seconds or so, the video compression resets, so you can cut at that point without having to re-encode. Finding those reset points can be difficult. Fortunately, Avidemux has a trick I eventually found: use the arrow-up and arrow-down keys to move between the frames you are allowed to cut on without requiring re-compression (I frames). The rest is easier. Select A (start delete point) and B (end delete point) and press delete. But be warned - the delete is instantaneous and invisible. You will think nothing happened, until you play it and see the edit you just made. I also had a hard time choosing between the MKV and the MP4 file output types, and in the end decided to output to both (because my recordings were effectively archival stuff, and who knows what format will still be accessible 20 years from now?). Saving the video is really simple: choose your output type, and then File, Save. You can if you want also find some other software to encode your results into DVD format, with some quality loss due to the extra compression step. I did not do this, so I have no suggestions in that regard. A final tip: to prevent quality loss, I tried to avoid multiple opens and saves. So open the video in Avidemux, and then do not close or save it until ALL edits (including audio editing if need be) is complete.Audacity:This program is only if you want to attempt noise reduction (a couple of my VHS tapes had remarkably bad video camera motor noise). First, you will want to export the audio from Avidemux: switch to audio output PCM (.wav, because Audacity can import .wav, and it is lossless), and then Audio, Save Audio, and then switch audio output back to Copy. Then you can import this .wav file into Audacity and try using the noise reduction feature. I ended up exporting my Audacity results as high quality MP3 (if I remember right, trying to import a .wav file back into Avidemux created problems for the video MP4 output), and then adding those results as a second track to the Avidemux video. Since my videos were basically archival stuff, I didn't want to lose the original sound, even if it was painful to listen to. When the result is played, in many players the user can switch between the two tracks, like you would switch between the language tracks in a movie. In other players, they are stuck with the original track.

I bought this specifically to digitize old 8mm tapes, and I'm impressed.Pros:+ It's Plug N' Play, as advertised. It shows up as an audio and video input device which can be captured on any decent capture software.+ In relation to the above point, it comes with capture software. The install is a bit of a pain if you don't have a disk tray on your device, but I happen to. There's an annoyingly long product key, and the software looks a bit sketchy, but it works fine once it's installed. Still, if you have something else, there's no particular reason to use the provided software.+ It's a lot cheaper than some other options for digitizing composite stuff. There are dedicated units for this type of work, but they tend to retail for much higher than this.Cons:- The unit's casing is bulky, so it won't fit on your USB hub unless you use the provided extension cable. The cable works just fine, so it's not an issue, just another step to be aware of.Conclusions: It works. There's not a ton to say about it other than that. Like I said, it's cheap and easy to use. I've done about thirty tapes so far and haven't seen any issues, so I'd say it's robust. I'd recommend it for sure, and I'd definitely use it again if I need to digitize anything else.

I have been poking through all the options for a VHS to Digital converter for a while now, trying to find the most reasonable option. The reviews were favorable for this product even though there were so few, and it offered free returns, so I thought I'd try it out since it was cheap (famous last words).It was certainly an easy set-up. You need your own male component cables as the converter is a male USB to female component cables. I already had them, so it was easy and simple. I had no trouble setting up the CD-ROM installation, except it didn't run automatically so I had to manually open the CD's files on my computer and find the correct file to run the program installation. Once everything was set up, I opened the program. The program is very straightforward. You make sure the appropriate inputs are selected to record, set up the timer if you wish, then press record on the computer program and play on the VHS player or video camera you're recording from.There is a window in the program that is supposed to show the picture of what is being recorded. on my first computer (pre-Vista laptop), pressing the record button did absolutely nothing. I tried multiple times thinking that maybe it was recording and I just didn't know, but it never recorded anything. I change the file format and the quality multiple times thinking that might help, but it didn't. It was weird though, whenever I connected the camera to the computer with the converter and played the video on the camera, the video would play full-screen on the computer without any way to exit out of the picture unless I disconnected the converter from either the computer or the camera. Not even if I just turned the converter off, I had to actually disconnect the connection. But it never recorded anything and later the video wouldn't even play on this computer.So I decided to try to install the program on my laptop which runs Vista. Again, install was simple and easy. When I finally went to go record, this computer actually began to record. The first time I recorded, however, the image/audio was so choppy and the video was delayed badly. I tried changing the file format as well as the quality, but it wouldn't record the picture after that, only the audio.So I gave it one last try on my Desktop computer running Windows 10. I figured if it had anything to do with memory or the system operation, it would be resolved here. Install was, once again, easy. But no matter how I changed the recording settings, it only captured the audio.In each instance, I checked the input for both the video and audio being recorded and they were always on the appropriate options. I even emailed the seller and explained in detail but their solutions didn't take into consideration what I had already tried. For example, they sent me the installation key again saying some people got the wrong one and couldn't install the program when all the problems I explained having were with the already installed program. Clearly I wasn't having problems installing the program.So after three days of hopping between my 3 computers trying to play with the program to make it work, I gave up and did the free return. At least that worked without an issue.