Anybody ever use these products (video stuff)

[TJ_Tigger]

http://www.canopus.us/Index_US.asp

I ran across them today when my nephew sent me a link to some gamer videos. www.redvsblue.com I guess they use Canopus to make their videos which are quite funny, raw sometimes but funny none the less.

Just thought I would ask

[Intrigued]

SAMS CLUB, last time I visted one, had a screen saver (or background was it...) from that web site's offering.

[Michael]

Tigger,

Yes. I use the Canopus products and have been very pleased for the past 2 years.....but at the moment, I'm having some what of a problem. I have the DVStorm2 for Realtime Editing on the PC with both software and hardware codecs, comes (came) with Adobe Premiere 6.5, other software and is quite good at capturing, editing, and adding effects to video on the computer, converting to MPEG1 or MPEG2 or a selection of other formats. I also have Canopus' Procoder (pricy, but does an excellent job of converting to many different formats of video.....in league with CleanerXL) and Imaginate, a tool to animates still images...(think...Ken Burn's Civil War photos).

I've used Canopus and have been very pleased. Well, up until this point. Now, I'm waiting.....and waiting...... :huh

Here's the deal. With the move to Premiere Pro and all the new architecture there, Canopus has been very slow to create and ship drivers that support the RealTime so essential for editing. Without drivers that work, the Canopus equip. can really be replaced by a $39 PCI card for doing the same thing with Pro. Pro renders fairly fast anyway. In fact, Canopus users are angered by the lack of communication from Canopus Japan. Just see the forum: http://forum.canopus.com/

After spending $$ for Premiere Pro, the 7-set DVD training from Total Training and learning Pro, I was ready to go. (BTW, Premiere Pro is a fantastic editor...from one who is reluctant to jump to the new stuff quickly...check the NAB reviews) Canopus promised its hardware would work and now we're finding out it doesn't. Premiere is out, I think, with 1.5 and still no word from C. I've signed the petition, etc. So, now....we wait.

Sorry to go off on a tangent. But.....there's my take. If they recover, by sending out the working drivers for Pro soon, then I'll go back to recommending them. Otherwise, ebay....here we come.....

Regards,
Michael

[Brett]

On a similar note, I was thinking of buying the Dazzle Digital Video Creator 150 (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=1426&Langue_ID=7) for grabbing video from VCR and Camcorder to burn to DVD. Does anyone own this product? How does it perform? What do you like about it? What do you dislike? Does anyone else have any suggestions for similar devices in the $100-$200 range that are better?

[AGRO]

Brett, I bought Dazzle awhile ago (1999ish). It is an old one, only works on win98. When I used it it was nice. I had no problems with it at all. Of course the software for editing the video was something to say about, but third party video editing tools and your good to go. The only thing I did not like about it was it captured a compressed .mpg. I would think they have changed that by now.

I recently purchased a Formac (http://www.formac.com) and I like that better. It captures in .dv format. I was going to post a link to the actual one I bought but I dont see it there anymore. I bought a converter that works with Windows and Mac. It is really nice. It is a firewire with no external power supply needed. The computer views it as a camcorder so capturing video is nice and easy,and done with my choice of software. I can open Squeeze and go to town. It is also nice because my cable box (http://www.sciatl.com/products/consumers/Exp8000HD.htm) has firewire ports in the back. That is really nice!

[Corey]

Brett. I'm no expert but I did try Dazzle a while back, I was just mentioning it to Colin the other day. My impression is that it wasn't really a pro app per se. Like AGRO said, seemed kind of old and basic. That's just an observation through.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)

[AGRO]

Yep Corey hit the nail on the head. A dazzle is very basic. A non pro piece of hardware. I think in the very least, and considering the fact that you mentioned buring to DVD, you are looking for something that will capture in DV format. I think Eric Darling would be a great source of info on this subject.

[eric_darling]

I think Eric Darling would be a great source of info on this subject.I wish I was, AGRO. I just don't have any knowledge of these kinds of products. Brett had already contacted me privately about my thoughts and I came up pretty much empty. I just don't work with consumer/prosumer level gear - it would be a waste of time in my business. I would absolutely love to help, and I'm not trying to stay aloof. I'm just no good on information for this kind of stuff.

[Corey]

I always like to read those "shootout" type articles where a credible source reviews the top ten products within a category. I have purchased things from lists like that dozens of times in my life and have been pretty pleased with the results pratcically every single time. That's how I usually make big purchases actually. I tend to buy prosumer gear for the most part and I've been pretty lucky so far, there's some pretty excellent prosumer stuff on the markets nowadays especially in the A/V field...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)

[Intrigued]

I have a recommendation...

http://www.hauppauge.com/ (main web site)

Here is a link to one of their more powerful offerings:

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html

or...

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_350.html

[Corey]

Interesting how experience differs regionally. I have a Win-TV card here. I've used it enough to reccomend very strongly to not buy one. This is one of the ten worst pieces of hardware I ever bought, plus I found that hauppage has terrible driver and product support although that also seems to be often the case with many of the manufacturers. Just my experience anyhow, I might have gotten a bum card or something though I guess. I bought mine at London Drugs, normally I have good luck with stuff from them... Or maybe their new cards are much better, mine's a year or so old...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)

[Intrigued]

Do you have the '350'? Or are you running one of the less expensive units?

[Corey]

Defnitely "less expensive" it only cost a couple hundred bucks last year... Not the pro one. On the other hand one could suggest that "good" companies provide equally decent product and support over all their consumer lines. But anyhow I'm certainly no expert on Hauppage. Once I realized they didn't care about me I abandoned all thought of them as is my tendency. Same happened to me with Guillemot and a couple others... Anyhow my data on Hauppage is far from current or complete. :)

You know who "the man" is on this, and you can bet Brett has already heard from him, is Lorne. He knows more about video cards than anyone I know. Micronesian boatbuilding too.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)

[kpsmith]

Coming from the Home theater PC world these are the two capture cards of choice.

MyHD card & the fusion III card

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/hdtv-cards.html

Bit pricey but supposed to be good. The big advantage to these is you can capture HDTV quality video. There is also a QAM version of the fusion III that can capture US unencrypted cable signals

I personally don't own either of these but hope to pick one up soon.

[Intrigued]

Well, I recently installed the '350' card for a client. In less than a half hour we were up and running. DVD-R media was used to record and the quality was very nice.

I did call into their technical support department and was professional helped to a successful conclusion, by a polite technician.

Their software could use a 'face lift' in my opinion.

As far as driver issues, I did not run into such problems thankfully.

The whole deal worked out good for me. I received the DVD+R that came with the package the client bought, for helping with the installation and setup.

[Corey]

Intrigued, yeah, I'm totally out of my league on this topic. :)

Cool link kp. Also the Edius demo video from the canopus site is now my all time favorite product demo. :yes

http://www.canopus.us/US/support/streaming/samples/edius_launch_video.wmv

Man I wish I could do stuff like that for our software, that's such a great video...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)

[Michael]

Brett,
as you look for capture cards, make sure you match your vcr and camcorder outputs to the card's inputs. Sound too simple to mention, but if your connections to the card aren't considered, you're in for a trip to radio shack at best and at worse out to buy more equipment you didn't count on. If your camcorder has firewire (1394), get a card that has that input (digital). If it has only the RCA (analogue) connectors, look for the yellow, red, and white component connectors. Finally, S-Video connections are somewhere in the middle of those two.

Out now, some cards in your price range, like Pinnacle and ADS, have USB 2.0 for video. I don't know about the rate or quality, but a 2.0 card in the computer is required.

Surfing on http://www.pricewatch.com/ for video capture cards now allows you to choose a price range. Handy! The Studio MovieBox Deluxe looks good at about $200 http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=2251&Langue_ID=7 and there's ADS: http://www.adstech.com/

One or two last rambling comments: look for the software, if any, that comes with the card. Most important, if you're going to assemble your clips and add fades and transitions AND look for the format that the card will capture to. For example, if it captures to the avi format, you can use the software that comes with xp for simple editing. However, saving and burning to DVD will require format conversion to MPEG2. Some cards do that as they capture saving all that time converting between formats. Question: Will the software capture as MPEG2?

Sorry if this is too elementary and good luck with your purchase.
Michael :cool

[Brett]

Thanks for all of the info and links, folks. I appreciate it. I am going to research the whole issue in the next month and probably buy something in late June. I am by no means looking for a professional solution. This is just to get my home movies to DVD and to do some basic video editing experimenting with. I'll have to keep an eye on the prices and reviews in the next bit. If anyone does come across a good article online that compares these types of products, please post the link here.

[JimS]

Here is a link to a resource that I like.
http://www.videoguys.com

[Brett]

Just an update:

I ended up getting a ADS Tech "Instant DVD 2.0" (http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV702/intro/usb702intro.asp?pid=USBAV702) unit. Actually, I first bought a ADS Tech "DVD Xpress", but then realized my father-in-law already bought the Instant DVD unit so I took the Xpress one back.

It costs about CDN$230.00 so it was decently priced. The Xpress version also worked just as well for the most part, but the Instant DVD version includes video/audio out as well as in and included more software. The Xpress version costs only CDN$115 and did do a good job, though.

I hooked it up through a USB2.0 link and it does nice, real-time encoding. It has an MPEG encoding chip in the hardware so it requires very little system resources. I am bringing in full-sized DVD-quality MPEG-2 on an Athalon 800 Mhz system with 256 MB RAM and an older ATI video card.

Very good product overall. If you are trying to bring in home movies, etc. it definitely does the job nicely. VERY good results when I tried the DVD in my set-top DVD player. I would highly reccomend it so far.

[Intrigued]

Just an update:

I ended up getting a ADS Tech "Instant DVD 2.0" (http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV702/intro/usb702intro.asp?pid=USBAV702) unit. Actually, I first bought a ADS Tech "DVD Xpress", but then realized my father-in-law already bought the Instant DVD unit so I took the Xpress one back.

It costs about CDN$230.00 so it was decently priced. The Xpress version also worked just as well for the most part, but the Instant DVD version includes video/audio out as well as in and included more software. The Xpress version costs only CDN$115 and did do a good job, though.

I hooked it up through a USB2.0 link and it does nice, real-time encoding. It has an MPEG encoding chip in the hardware so it requires very little system resources. I am bringing in full-sized DVD-quality MPEG-2 on an Athalon 800 Mhz system with 256 MB RAM and an older ATI video card.

Very good product overall. If you are trying to bring in home movies, etc. it definitely does the job nicely. VERY good results when I tried the DVD in my set-top DVD player. I would highly reccomend it so far.
A computer technician aquaintance of mine has used that company's product(s) before and said he was also please with such.

Sincerely,

[MWMTex]

I purchased the product when it first hit the market several years ago. They offer free updates and have for the life of the product so far. I also use it with Ulead Video Studio which came with it. I have purchased all the upgrades for Ulead (Version 8 now I think) and ADS has released plugins all along for ulead. They said one is coming soon for V.8. I like this product because it is simple to use yet It produces an excellent result for the money. Hope you enjoy this as much as I have. Good luck and have fun. :D