OT: Any Experience with ADS Instant DVD 2.0?

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/25/2003, 11:32 PM
This forum is such an amazing resource I thought I’d ask this here:

Last weekend by brother-in-law asked me what did he need to buy for his PC to turn his old VHS tapes into DVD’s without any editing. I told him to get a firewire card, the ADS A/V Link and a Pioneer DVD 106 burner and he would be all set to go. When he asked how long does it take, I told him it was real-time to capture, about 3x to encoder to MPEG2 (at least on my P4 1.7Ghz it does) and 1/4x to burn. So an hour of VHS tape should take approximately 4 hours and 15 minutes. He was not happy that it would take that long. (I guess he's in a rush) ;-)

I was wondering if it might be easier for him to capture directly to MPEG2 so I found the ADS Instant DVD, which seams to have a hardware MPEG encoder. The problem is that this is a USB device and his PC is probably only USB 1.1, which limits him to 6 Mb/sec according to the ADS website. I’m not sure if 6 Mb/sec is high enough encoding for VHS tape to DVD but my Pinnacle DC10 card captured great video at this rate.

So, has anyone actually used one of these devices? How is the quality? Are you using USB 1.1 or USB 2.0? Are there any other solutions I should consider? Should I just tell him to be happy it only takes 4 hours because the quality is worth it. ;-) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

~jr

Comments

farss wrote on 11/26/2003, 1:52 AM
Trying to come off VHS and dgitize directly can be a bit of a nightmare.
I have an ADS Payro A/V Link and to say but the least it's far from reliable. Part of the problem isn't its fault, its the nature of VHS tape. Without a TBC in front of the A/D converters the converter has a hard time with the wandering syncs coming off VHS.

I've just about finished making a set of DVDs for a client who'd tried doing it on a Philips STB DVD burner. Most of the tape the burner refused to recognize. Going through a TBC and DNR it's watchable. Recording the tape on a 4 hour cassette in LP sure didn't help of course!

Your brother would be better off getting the job done by someone with a good setup. After all it is usually a one shot affair, the intention being that once the material is on DVD the VHS becomes redundant. He's going to watch the DVDs for years to come and at the end of the day someone who has good gear should be able to do it for less than the cost for him to buy a cheap setup.
MDVid wrote on 11/26/2003, 6:23 AM
How about a reasonably priced stand alone DVD recorder? Can be bought for about $350 (or less), and you eliiminate the hassle of transfer to computer, then burn.

JTH
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/26/2003, 6:54 AM
> Your brother would be better off getting the job done by someone with a good setup

Good point. I’ll look into that as an option.

> How about a reasonably priced stand alone DVD recorder?

Are there any you can recommend that work well? This may be a better option if he wants to do it himself.

~jr
jester700 wrote on 11/26/2003, 7:08 AM
I have an ADS IDVD (first version; USB 1.1). I got it solely because I wanted to be able to do this stuff on my laptop. I recommend against it.

Although never had audio-video sync issues, MANY people do with this device, because it uses your sound card to cap the audio and knits the streams together in software. The audio is also crappy. The practical bitrate limit for me was 5500k, which is only "ok" at full res.

There is a newer USB2.0 version of the machine, but at 2x the price, and I've read that it's buggier than the first one.

If he needs real time encoding on the cheap and wants to do it himself, I suggest a Hauppauge WinTVPVR-250 PCI card. I've had much better experiences with this puppy. It's about $100, and does a fairly good job at full D1 and half D1 res.