Adaptec ADAPTC VIDEOH DVD MEDIA-CENTER 2410 PCI KIT ( 2043000 )

Rating:
Summary: Hardware is probably OK, but the software sucks
Review: Don't bother with this one. I returned mine for the following:

I installed it and my DVD drives were lost on reboot. The software appeared to corrupt registry settings for the existing dvd players. (Can you say rollback.)

It seemed to work OK as long as you don't reboot... other than the MySonic DVD writer would crash 2 out of 3 times.

Another nit. The driver is not signed. I know Adaptec knows how to do this. It is not that difficult. They do it for their SCSI devices. Device driver signing is MS mechanism to insure everyone plays nice in kernel mode. It makes a statement about Adaptec's interest and confidence in the product.

Rating:
Summary: ONLY compatible with the included software...
Review: I purchased this card as part of a system to be based around SnapStream's Beyond TV personal video recorder software. The card works fairly well with the included [albiet mediocre] InterVideo WinDVR software, but nothing I tried would make it work with Beyond TV. An email response from Adaptec technical support finally explained why:
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04/01/04 06:20:32 tse23545
Hello from Adaptec,
Unfortunately the VideOh products we have only work with the bundled software MyDVD. So the Beyond TV, Pinnacle Studio, Roxio Easy CD Creator, Adobe Premiere and Windows Movie Maker will not work with it or they will have problems recognizing the device. But you can capture the video using Sonic MyDVD to MPEG Clips and other editing software should be able to edit the clips. Or try the included WinDVR to capture the clip from the TV signal. Unfortunately there won't be a driver release for the hardware to be compatible with 3rd party video editing software.
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For this reason, if you ever plan on using your TV Tuner card with anything other than the included software, you'll do better to look elsewhere...

Rating:
Summary: Adaptec Video Oh is a 5 Oh
Review: I wanted to convert my 8mm tapes to DVD for the random access through many hours of camcorder tapes. Everywhere I looked in the market I found negative product reviews for the video capture cards and the related software. One friend had good luck with the Adaptec Video Oh product so I tried it after disappointing results on a Hauppauge VCB card that uses software MPEG recording. The thing I liked about the Adaptec product was the hardware assisted compression.

I installed the PCI card in a Pentium 4 2.2 GHz motherboard with only 128 MB of ram. (256 MB recommended) I have Windows ME on this system...and basically no other stuff except for a DVD drive and an IDE tape drive. The system installed the Sonic DVD software and Adaptec drivers without incident.

By default, the system makes a DVD with the highest quality possible...allowing about 60+ minutes of video on a 4.7 GB DVD. The image quality and audio were beautiful and rock solid. To get two hours on a DVD, I cranked down the "quality" (upped the MPEG compression) and the results were very much like VHS tape, maybe a little better.

I found the software pretty easy to use although it is a little challenging to learn how to eliminate scenes from the middle of a video clip. This editing process is not done in the Sonic software but in a second package (ShowBiz) that comes with the product.

The video capture preview mode display is not a good indication of the quality that ends up on the disc (disc is better and frame rate solid); also there is a few second delay in the preview window. Aside from that, this is a underappreciated product. I think the Adaptec Marketing folks may have missed the boat with this one; the Engineers have winner.