Rating: Summary: fair over heats Review: keep it cool and the color seem to do better not bad product for money but ther is beter they should have made biger and put fan in it just put in cooler with ice works fine use 2 litter bottles
Rating: Summary: Very Poor Product and Software Review: Over the period of a year...and after "many hours" on the phone with the ADS Tech support dept.
I never could get the product to work as ADS Tech says it should. the software has a lot of patches.
I even had a hard time getting the product replaced by the ADS Tech.
"Don't Buy it" is the only thing I can say!!
Rating: Summary: ADS DVD Xpress Review Review: The ADS DVD Xpress works exactly as advertised. Though I was apprehensive about being able to capture and burn analog video due to my HP PC being a little long in the tooth, a few simple upgrades had me capturing and burning like a pro (almost). The ULead editing software, included with the unit, comes with somewhat sketchy instructions and, as another reviewer pointed out, is prone to just quit in the middle of an editing session. This can be a REAL nuisance so it is imperative that you proactively SAVE your work frequently. However, I did not purchase the ADS unit for the "free" editing sofware. Anyway, once I got the hang of it, it was reasonably easy to use, though the edits and effects will never win an Oscar. There are other more powerful editing tools available for the serious user.My HP Pavillion specs are: PIII, 733 mhz. 512 Meg Memory HP 300i DVD writer 40 G HD plus external 120 G HD USB 2.0 card Windows XP Home Edition I replaced my PC's original CD writer with the 300i, upgraded from Windows 98 to XP, added memory and an external hard drive. Adding a USB 2.0 card is a MUST for decent performance from both the external HD and ADS DVD Xpress units. I have transferred 23 VHS tapes to DVD, with lots more video capturing to do and am very satisfied with the ADS device.
Rating: Summary: Great if you use Capwiz v3.1 and dump VideoStudio editor Review: The good: Its hardware based encoding design means that the conversion from analog video to mpeg2 is done inside a chip on the device, not by your computer's cpu. It also menas that while digitizing video it doesn't hog your PC's cpu nor does the resulting file need any post processing.
The bad: the bundled Ulead editor is a big pain in the back end. If you just want to do quick edits and cut scenes out pretend that the included Ulead software is missing and install VideoReDo instead. (www.videoredo.com)
Install was flawless for me on WinXP home. The bundled video capture application on my CD was Capwiz version 3.1 dated February 2004. If you check the Adstech.com web site you can find Capwiz 3.5, which adds "on the fly" capture and burning to optical media, but I suggest everyone buying this device to stay with Capwiz 3.1.
ADSTech technical support warned me in no uncertain terms back in Nov 5, 2004 that there were still "stability issues". "Note that many customers have reported stability problems with this version so if you have any problems with it we strongly recommend getting rid of it and going back to version 3.1".
Version 3.1 of Capwiz, still offered on the site and I guess for a reason, seems to have everything a user might need, without "feature bloat" or "instability" warnings. Speaking of which, a new beta version of Capwiz 3.6 has been released in mid-December, adding yet more features to the mix like "direct capture into DivX" (mpeg4), but that sends cpu requirements through the roof and defeats the whole idea of a hardware based mpeg encoder because it's you cpu which has to then convert the mpeg2 video sent by the device to mpeg4, thus requiring a 2.4 Ghz. P4.
In short: I've found the bundled VideoStudio 7 editing software to be a poor choice. The bundled Capwiz 3.1 is ok and you should use that to save digitized video to your hard drive. Then I suggest you check our VideoRedo for editing.
I give this unit 4 stars. It delivers what it promises... decent quality hardware MPEG2 encoding for common people (people doing professional video work will surely need a higher-bitrate capture board). And it comes at a price that anyone can afford.
Rating: Summary: Very poor quality Review: This box does what it promises, but the quality is very poor. Video quality lacks, even when setting the rate to more than 4 megabits; the box itself, too, has a very cheap feeling and assembly. To top this off, the right- and left- audio jacks are mislabeled... Not reccomended.
Rating: Summary: Total waste of time Review: This is one of the most unrealiable hardware I've ever seen. You start capturing a video and then suddenly stops, the software gets locked. And there is no way you can unload the software, even with alt+ctrl+delete End Task, you need to re-start the machine to try to make it work once again. You need to reboot several times until the software and hardware start working again. Extremely frustrating. Don't waste your money and your time with this.
Avoid it completely is my opinion..
Rating: Summary: Good Product- Bad Customer Service Review: This product works well to transfer VHS to DVD. The set-up itself was easy and it comes with editing software. The editing software instructions were not very clear especially if you're a novice or working with editing software for the first time. I figured it out through trial and error and then it became fairly simple. WARNING- Older VHS tapes can cause the ADS software to freeze. Forget calling the tech support just unplug the little ADS box and plug it back. It starts working again and you don't have to reboot your pc or do anything else. You can then continue capturing your video and merge it together using the editing software. Make sure to also turn off everything else on your pc. I'm using a 1 yr old Dell 5100 laptop with 2.4GHZ, 512MB and still had to turn all other operations off. TECH SUPPORT- If you MUST call tech support then I hope you have better luck than I did. The guy I got- tech # 5- was extremely condescending and impatient. I basically answered only with yes and no to get through the call. In the end the product got the job done.
Rating: Summary: Good but Finicky Product with No Support Review: When it works, it is very good; quality of video and sound captures is great. Unfortunately the problems are:
1. Recognizing the hardware, repeated rebooting and power on and off to start it.
2. Ulead Software, absolutely fantastic when it works, freezes for no reason.
THE WORST FEATURE IS THE SUPPORT: NON EXISTENT. AFTER MORE THAN A WEEK'S WAITING AND SENDING TWO E-MAILS OF DISTRESS TO SUPPORT, THE REPLY WAS WHICH VERSION OF CAPWHIZ?
COME ON, ASK THAT ON THE DROP DOWN MENU WHEN HELP IS SOUGHT WHEN OTHER RELEVANT QUESTIONS ARE ASKED.
I am still in two minds about returning it, awaiting tech support reply after giving them information that it is CAPWHIZ 3.0
Any help from other users?
Rating: Summary: How Hard Can It Be? Review: Worked fine...ONCE. I got one so-so 20 minute capture from VHS (picture was poorly aligned and sound was severly attenuated), after that I got no love (same tape). Software locks up requiring the machine to be turned off (unplugging the device didn't cut it), and it doesn't work any better when it's turned back on. I can't comment on the customer support cause I'm not going to deal with them...this dud it going back. Maybe it's unreasonable, but I expect relatively simple devices to work as advertised out of the box.
What I'm really fired up about is the software seems to have corrupted my machine...my soundcard promtly stopped working correctly after install. I HATE trying to nerd my way through the obscure corners of my computer trying to right things that would not have been wrong if not for a bad product.
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