Rating: 
Summary: Don't Blame the Device - It Works Fine
Review: I read all the reviews first and took a chance. Big mistake, but fortunately Amazon is pretty good about the returns. I had the same problem I keep reading about. It works for a minute or so, then it just quits when I'm in the middle of capturing video. That makes it pretty much useless.
Rating: 
Summary: Keep Looking
Review: I read all the reviews first and took a chance. Big mistake, but fortunately Amazon is pretty good about the returns. I had the same problem I keep reading about. It works for a minute or so, then it just quits when I'm in the middle of capturing video. That makes it pretty much useless.
Rating:
Summary: Trouble in River City
Review: I'm sure there are some of these units working somewhere, but lets address a problem this unit has that will have me selling mine or sending it back.If you are capturing from a battery powered device like a camcorder, you'll probably be happy. However if you are trying to capture from your DirecTV or anything else that is plugged into a wall socket, things get strange. It seems that any type of imbalance in your homes electrical system will cause the bridge to disappear from the 1394 buss. I measured only 2 millivolts between the shield of my satellite receiver and my bridge, but that's enough to shut it down. I might try building an isolation transformer for the inputs, but they really should have thought of this in the design of the unit.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Blame the Device - It Works Fine
Review: I've had mine for over a year. It works just fine. I've converted many VHS and VHS-C tapes to digital - the longest was a 55-minute company training video which I squeezed down to less than 600MB to fit on a CD-R so I could send it out for people to view on their PCs & laptops. (The video image was smaller and the sound not as HQ, but that was the trade-off I accepted for the given file size.) It takes beefy hardware to capture video without errors - and I suspect some people complaining don't have equipment that will handle the heavy demands required, especially a hard drive that does not perform thermal recalibrations periodically. On a suitably equipped system, the device seems to do exactly what it promises. I gave it only four stars because the bundled software is only so-so. In my system the bundled software has a conflict between installed CODECs which causes the video and audio to go way out of synch. The tech support for the software was outrageously terrible and - predicatbly - they blamed the installed CODECs which work fine otherwise. So I threw the software away and used something else. It even worked with Windows XP Movie Maker. The hardware works fine, though, in my experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Canopus ADVC100 is far superior
Review: I've owned a Hollywood DV Bridge for more than a year, and also a Canopus ADVC100. The DV Bridge is adequate for importing analog video into Adobe Premiere. Just adequate. But having the benefit of owning both products, I have no hesitation about recommending the ADVC100 over the DV Bridge. The ADVC100 allows you to lock audio to video during capture, the image quality is superior to that captured with the DV Bridge, and I have yet to drop a frame during capture with the ADVC (even with older vhs tapes). The DV Bridge might look cool to some (I thought so when I bought mine), but it's simply not as functional as the ADVC100 because it tends to fall over when it has cables plugged into the front and back of the unit, whereas the ADVC100 is a nice looking box that sits flat and cables fit snugly. Snug cable fit is an issue with my DV Bridge because my S-Video cable fits somewhat loosely and works best if I wrap scotch tape around the unit and plug to improve the integrity of the S-video input connection. Finally, the ADVC100 has a built-in on-off switch while the DV Bridge does not. It's a small thing I suppose, but I'd rather not have to plug and unplug the DV Bridge's power supply from my power bar after each use. It can get dusty down under my desk sometimes. Since getting the ADVC100, my DV Bridge is officially retired. In my opinion, the Canopus product is superior to the DV Bridge in every way, and is the way to go for those interested in purchasing a product for capturing analog video.
Rating:
Summary: Great product
Review: It works just great with a beefed up computer, about twice the RAM of the suggested. Easy setup, but the software that comes with the program is hard to use and not worth bothering with. If you want a very simple, easy to use and effective editing program, use Windows Movie Maker which comes with a Windows XP update.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY
Review: Please, I beg you, do not buy this product. The reason why? It was a waste of [X]. I had an analog camcorder and was looking for a way to get the video on my computer. I sure wasn't going to buy a USB capture device, so I figured a stand-alone Firewire (IEEE 1394) capture device would work good, and Dazzle was pretty much the only brand that made one. Or so I thought. What I didn't know was that just about EVERY DIGITAL CAMCORDER has an Analog to Digital converter (before you buy one, make sure it does- it should say it somewhere on the box or webpage, as it is a popular feature). So, for an extra hundred bucks, I could've bought a decent Digital Camcorder that, along with being able to digitally capture video without being hooked up to a computer, converts analog video to digital MUCH better than the Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge. If only I knew that today. Why do I regret buying the DV-Bridge? I have had mine a little over a year, and it didn't always work the best. It makes it extremely hard to capture segments from my analog camcorder. It will often drop frames, making the video you are trying to capture worthless. When the Hollywood DV-Bridge drops a frame, that frame is a mess of colors and a loud noise will accompany it on the audio track. When it is capturing regular, the video it captures is just OK quality- nothing spectacular. I also stopped trying to output video using the DV-Bridge, as it just doesn't work. The longest I was able to get it outputting without stopping or the picture becoming distorted was around 40 seconds. However, I tried outputting the same exact DV file using the same program to a Sony Digital-8 Camcorder, and it worked fine. I would call Dazzle to complain or to see if maybe I got a defective product, but phone support is only free for 30 days- after that you have to pay [X]. The support it provides online is worthless and didn't help me at all. So please, learn from me and absolutely do not buy this product, as paying [X]for peice of garbage that gives you a headache just isn't worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: DV Bridge: A Good Linux Solution
Review: So far, all of the reviewers who I have seen speak against the DV Bridge have been Windows users. I'm not one of them - I'm a hardcore Linux user who doesn't maintain Windows on any of his systems at all. However, I still needed a video capture and output solution, and Linux's support for capture cards gets mixed reviews at best. On the other hand, Linux does have really nice support for my firewire-based Sharp 255 camcorder, and I decided I was going firewire in my choice of analog -> digital converter as well. I used the Dazzle to convert a few videos from VHS tape to digital format for a friend who had been into independent film back in high school, and presently had some of his prized work degenerating on VHS. Using the Kino video capture software (download it from Sourceforge), I was able to import the video flawlessly and then store it as a raw AVI. After that, editing was trivial and I was able to output it to a VCD. I can't speak to the D->A conversion features on this unit because I haven't ever had cause to use them. I can say however that it encoded the video just fine for me, without lost frames, on my Athlon 750 w/512M RAM and a 60G SCSI Ultra160 hard drive. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who were experiencing dropped frames were running into Windows OS specific issues - I know my Linux experience was flawless. In short, if you're running Linux, this bridge works fine. Note that it does come with an IEEE1394 Firewire card - I don't know if it works properly with Linux or not, because I just used the SIIG 1394 3-port card I picked up at Best Buy to transfer the data. It's possible, if this card happens to be one of the better ones, that the problems other people experienced may have been partly attributable to a less efficient firewire card (or less supported driver). What was my setup?
SIIG 1394 3-port card.
Dazzle DV-Bridge
Redhat Linux 7.3 operating system
Manually compiled kernel with IEEE1394 + Video4Linux support
Kino video capture / editing software
Athlon Thunderbird 750, 512M RAM
Adaptec 29160 U160 SCSI card (in a 32-bit PCI slot)
10K RPM Seagate SCSI U160 hard drive. This machine's I/O subsystem was as optimized as I could make it - as I understand it, fast I/O and not trying to compress your video on the fly is the key to not dropping frames in *any* video capture, regardless of vendor.
Rating: 
Summary: It does the job
Review: The Dazzle does not come with directions and it hard to figure out, but once it works it does do the job. The customer service is in CA and that makes it hard. They tell you go on the web site but if you are enginner please let me know because the directions are in PHD form. A beginner may have hard time butit is worth the try because at end there are not many products out there that do this so what choice do we have. As market gets better it will open up and until then there is dazzle.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing but trouble
Review: The device I purchased is only capable of capturing about 1-2 minutes of video before it starts dropping frames from older tapes. The Dazzle forum is full of similar complaints. Dazzle has done nothing to rectify the problem, and they blame PC setup as the cause. I tried all of the tech suggestions for Win XP and the problem was not fixed. Some newer tapes captured with only minimal "choppiness" problems, but the majority of my tapes are older and caused the bridge to lose sync and produce a choppy, noisy, unwatchable DVD. After a month of troubleshooting, I replaced the Dazzle with a Canopus ADVC-100. The price is similar, but the results are far superior to the Dazzle bridge. No lost frames anymore, even from the older tapes, and the picture quality is superior to the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge. I just wish I would have done the research before I bought the Dazzle unit. The Canopus ADVC-100 is an outstanding performer, and it actually delivers what is promised from Canopus, unlike the false claims from Dazzle. If you are smart, you will steer clear of the Dazzle unit.
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