So bought this item in a gold box deal and had not used it till couple of days ago when i had some off time so I decided to give it a try.
First of all the kit comes with all cables that u need to connect, a small box called vidbox and instruction manual. You insert the CD into your laptop and off you go.
You will of course need a separate VHS player to play your VHS tapes.
Run the CD, register the product online which is easy and remember to re-start the computer, the software should prompt you to restart the computer once fully installed, once done the Cd installs the software and instruction manual onto your computer, click on the icon which guides you through the process. Now that I have used both easy menu and expert menu I can comment on both.
One caveat is that the best quality is achieved only when you record upto 110 minutes in one sitting, you can still record for longer duration with slight compromise in the quality of the recording. SO MAKE SURE UR TAPES ARE NOT LONGER THAN 70 MINUTES DURATION BEFORE U START RECORDING, if they are longer than 70 minutes duration then you can adjust the recording time on the menu pretty easily to fix this issue.
overall the converted video quality is decent, I personally use cocusoft products to reconvert dvd files to MP4 for palyback on quicktime.
Of note though you will need a seperate 3.5 to 3.5 mm cable or 3.5 to rca audio cable to convert audio cassettes to mp3 or wma format, I ordered them from amazon and recieved them today.
I am using 3.5mm to RCA cable via vidbox to convert my audio cassette files to WMA files, and LO IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM, AWESOME!!!.
I have previously tried audacity but found it complicated and confusing to use, but with Honestech the audio-file conversion is a breeze!!!, truly, just remember few things.
1. In the settings click on the noise reduction box and set noise reduction below - 10.0 ( minus ten point zero), I initially set noise reduction at the highest and the recording quality was very bad but once I set it to low level it worked like a charm, no hissing unlike with other software. ( NOW NOISE REDUCTION LEVEL OF - 11.2 IS WHERE I FOUND THE BEST QUALITY OF RECORDING WAS, BUT FOR YOU ALL IT MAY DEPEND ON YOUR COMPUTER SETTINGS AND ALSO THE QUALITY OF THE TAPE USED TO RECORD THE ORIGINAL, SO BY TRIAL AND ERROR USE YOUR OWN JUDGMENT.!!!)
2. In the audio device properties keep the ''master input mix'' bar at 25% level or lower, and in this setting the recoding was smooth and the output file had no hissing for me and the quality of recording was better than original.
3. Now this one is important, when you record using 3.5mm to rca audio cable via vidbox I have very little hissing only, however if you use 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm cable bypassing vidbox there is lots of hissing noise, so i think either the vidbox has a built in filter or it just does good job eliminating hissing, I have so far used only one type of 3.5mm to 3.5 mm cable to record the audio so unsure if the quality of the cable i used had anything to do with it??, anywayz if you want to convert cassette to wma then connecting to your computer through the vidbox probably gives you the best quality.
I shall try out various setting for video recording over next few weeks and update this review again.
Once again the audio conversion software works like a charm, I am happy with this software, so far it has been a great buy, instead of spending a fortune at walgreens or sams or other stores trying to get your old tapes converted, with he help of this software and a laptop you can get it done at home!!!, wow, I am happy.
Overall this product works as advertised and is a winner, thanks Honestech for a great product.
ADDENDUM - 01/06/2010
Advanced Video options are nice to use as well.
You can convert either in 4:3 of 16:9 format, one can convert the VHS to WMV format and store it on hard disc whils the basic simple format only lets you burn it onto dvd immediately after aquring the content. Easy record format only lets you record 110 minutes of best quality of video whilst advanced recording input u can do about 5-6 hours of WMV format recording which is awesome.
Some of the settings I used for advanced format included WMV format best video output possible at 4:3 since my VHS tapes were standard definition only. I initially did a mistake by trying to record to an external source HD connected via USB drive, you will achieve best performance quality by recording on the internal hard-drive of a laptop or a desktop, you can always transfer it to an external storage device, software froze up when i tried to record to an external HD but worked fine with internal HD.
You can also edit, join, unjoin, add effects to your video using th existing software which is cool too. you can also record it in various formats suiting VCD or DVD or WMV. For some reason there are no options for recording the video in MP4 format.
Overall an excellent source for someone who doesnot want to spend a fortune trying to get their home videos or LP or cassette tapes converted to digital MP3 or WMV pr WMA formats. VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe - Camcorder - Honestech - Digital Video - Vhs To Dvd'
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