ADS Tech "Instant DVD Xpress"

[SimonSez07]

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV_701/intro/usb701intro.asp?pid=USBAV701

this product is an external (usb 2.0) capture device with hardware mpeg2 compression. it captures and encodes analog and dv. it seems to be fairly versatile and seems to come with a good software package.

anyone have any idea how good the quality is and how good the software is?

[rfmmars]

I have heard about problems in certain NLEs like Virtualdub with audio sync issues with their Mpeg2 format..

richard
photorecall.net

[SimonSez07]

that sounds like a mpeg2 multiplexing problem that could possibly be a non-issue with re-muxing using a more advanced tool. im not sure that i would use virtualdub to edit the stream anyways.

rfmmars: im sure you use much more expensive equipment for photorecall, but what kind of low-cost mpeg2 capture hardware would you recommend?

as far as basic editing of the final vobs, what tools would be very simple to use and maintain dvd compliance. i was looking at dark avenger's mpeg2cut based on dvd2avi. very simple tool.

thx

[rfmmars]

Tools don't have to be expensive........ I use ATI 8500 & 9000 series capture cards and their capture software for MPEG2 capture and VirtualVCR if I want to capture .AVI codecs.

I multi frameserve with (VirtualdubMOD)s to Mep2004 NLE by Magix see www.magix.com with excellent results, no dropped frames and if the .VOBs have a audio offset, it is super easy to correct in MEP2004.

as far as basic editing of the final vobs, what tools would be very simple to use and maintain dvd compliance. i was looking at dark avenger's mpeg2cut based on dvd2avi. very simple tool.

Yes that works too.

At photorecall I have custom built all my telecine and video chain for peak performance. This too is not expensive except for time spent for R&D, which is half the fun.

Right now the ATI-AIW can be bought for $79.95 OEM package.

richard

[stl]

I tried using this product for analog to digital conversion. It was a completely useless experience.

This product is absolutley terrible, never worked, crashed, right out of the box. At best it worked for about 10min of capture.

Even worse, Nasty tech support who claim that it's everything but their product. and finally "that this is not a prosumer product" as if that's an excuse for it not working.

I was happy to get my money back from the retailer. STAY AWAY FORM THIS PRODUCT.

My advice is to buy a standalone DVD recorder (I've got a Pioneer for $240 US) for analog to digital conversion. Media is now cheap enough to simply use for capture to digital, then you can import it to a PC for editing. This is much better than any PC based capture box that I've ever used.

[SimonSez07]

thanks stl. i dont know if im gonna get a standalone quite yet, but i like rfmarrs' idea of using an ati card (thanks ro frmarrs as well).

i love this forum

[stl]

Yes, this is a great forum.

And yes, a good cap card will work, however, keep in mind (I don't know what kind of system you've got) that many capture cards have issues with dual CPU systems.

[vhelp]

Originally posted by SimonSez07
http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV_701/intro/usb701intro.asp?pid=USBAV701

this product is an external (usb 2.0) capture device with hardware mpeg2 compression. it captures and encodes analog and dv. it seems to be fairly versatile and seems to come with a good software package.

anyone have any idea how good the quality is and how good the software is?

I just did a very brief review of this product. I also included a small
sample MPEG-2 (VOB) that you can D/L and view.

I thought that this unit did a very good job (when it work in my OS,
before I screwed around with it and messed things up)

I want to use this (or am planning on) for those tv shows and things
when the source is pure Interlace or badly doe Telecine film that I
don't want to wrestle with or have any time for messing around and
encoding.

Check out what I said and see if this is for you. Your comments are
welcomed.

--> ADS DVD Xpress - My experience so far. (http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=242340)

Good luck in your decision,
-vhelp

[trolltuning]

I have been using this with the following procedure based on some ideas Fred Thompson gave. 1)Capture in mpeg2 Constant Bitratte at 15000 MB (avoid using separate audio-I've had trouble getting the audio accepted by an authoring program. 2)Author with TMPenc DVD Author (or some other program that will allow a non-comliant bit-rate 3)Use DVD Shrink to reduce to a legal bitrate (Do a deep analysis and use the adaptive option)
I think you'll like the quality.
I only use Capwiz not the Ulead or Videowave software that come with it.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I used to use the ADS Instant USB2.0 before it died and found it to be very good.

In use, I would capture to the highest possible Mpeg2 CBR, prior to converting to Mpeg4 VBR.

Does anybody know how well this device stacks up against say, the Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U. Or if there's any difference between the "Instant DVD Xpress" and the "Instant USB2.0"


Cheers

[stl]

AFAIK, the xpress I had was also USB2. Without going into detail, the best this thing did was 10 min of capture,(only with capwiz) the quality was good though. Believe me I tried everything including about a week of ADS support. I know that many others had similar issues.

Before it died, I used a dazzle USB device, which worked very well for about 2 years. The only problem was that regardless of NTFS or not, 4GB limit. Only their crap software would see this device, so To get around this I had to use graphedit.

Seemoredigital, I'm glad you had a better experience, maybe because you've got 1CPU (I was told 2CPU is no problem by ADS).

Seriously, these days, I would not go near any PC device for analog2digital. I'm more than happy with my standalone recorder.