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Picture courtesy of BobTech.
| Ease of Set Up | 7/10  |
|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 6/10 |
| Value for Money | 9/10 |
| Overall rating | 8/10 |
Full review by
BobTech
on 6th Apr 2008
User Rating : 8
Respect :
0
Good Points: This gadget is tiny but it lives up to the claims made about it, unlike the other similar products I tried. In conjunction with the supplied ArcSoft Showbiz DVD2 software, it turns composite/S-Video video signals and stereo audio from a VCR etc into good quality digital files and DVDs without needing a late generation very high performance PC. They say it will work well with a 1.6GHz P4 processor and it works OK with my 1.7GHz P4 ... as long as I close down all other programs so they don't steal CPU resources.
Bad Points: No complaints about the actual device. The ArcSoft software is a bit daunting the first time you use it and the instructions aren't very clear in places. There's a slight lag (maybe 1/10th of a second) between the video and the audio which is usually not noticeable. It's a very slow process, first digitising the contents of old videocassettes etc then working out the layout you want for your DVD, then having your PC do the file converting to make the actual DVD. But this applies to all analog video to DVD conversions using a PC. Maybe dedicated DVD recorders with inbuilt VCRs are a better idea?
General comments: Aldi stores sell this DVD Maker under their Tevion brand but it appears to be identical to the Dexatek unit which looks the same, has exactly the same model number and includes the same software. After I got a refund on the Belkin F5U228 DVD Creator I reviewed here recently, I bought the DK-8701 on special at Aldi. I wasn't expecting it to work very well, but as they say, it rocks! It was very soon up and running and I was successfully saving old videotapes onto my hard drive. Now I'm starting to run out ouf hard drive space, but that's another story. It took a bit of practice and experimenting, but I was able to edit my video files and create a fairly professional-looking DVD which plays properly on my DVD player, from some of them. If you're looking for a good USB 2.0 video + audio grabber, I recommend this one way ahead of the Belkin F5U228 and the Cypress USB201 which I also experimented with and was equally disappointed by.
BobTech's review and ratings | 374 words
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