ADS Tech DVD Express 2.0 (USBAV-701)

by ADS Tech

Product Details

Product Manual [330kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009YUPS
• Item model number: USBAV-701
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #46 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Video Capture Cards
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 6, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

DVD XPress is the fastest and easiest way to get Hollywood quality video into your computer so you can burn to disk or publish on to the Internet.

Now you can capture video into MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (VCD, SVCD or DVD) at up to 720 x 480 (720 x 576 PAL) from any analog or digital source.; DVD XPress is the fastest and simplest way to get movies from video tape to a high quality VCD, SVCD or DVD disk.; Capture video in the Easy to use Capture Wizard application or Video Studio 7 SE DVD and then "Create Disk" to burn your movies on to CD or DVD disk.

If you want to do more than straight archiving to disk, DVD XPress includes video editing with an integrate DVD Authoring tool that allow you to get very creative.;Use Video Studio 7SE to add transitions, video filters, video overlay, fast or slow motion effects, and animated titles, back ground music and then Author your DVD disk.

DVD XPress utilizes the latest in video conversion and filtering technology to reduce noise on old VHS tapes to produce the highest quality video, DVD XPress also offers exclusive "Audio-Lock" technology to provide perfect lip synch all the way through the capture, edit and disk burning process.

Features

• Use temporal and spatial video pre-processing filters to help reduce noise on old VHS tapes or TV signals.
• Supports MPEG 1 Layer 2 compressed and LPCM Audio
• Capture from any analog video source in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video formats including VCD, SVCD and DVD formats via RCA (Composite) or S-VHS video inputs.
• Capture DVD (MPEG-2) at video bit rates from 1 Mb/sec. up to 15 Mb/sec. (up to 4 Mbps for USB 1.1 connections)
• Capture using Constant or Variable bit rates and other custom settings.
• Features a 9 bit video digitizer with 2x oversampling and 4 line comb filter
• Brightness, Contrast, Chroma, Saturation and Hue controls
• Use Video Studio 7 SE DVD to capture and then burn to disk in quick, simple steps.

Product Description

DVD XPress is fastest, easiest way to get Hollywood quality video into your computer so you can burn to disk or publish on the Internet. Exclusive Audio-Lock technology provides perfect lip synch Requirements - Pentium III 800 class processor+, Windows 98SE, 2000, ME or XP, 128MB RAM, 4GB+ hard drive space, USB port

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great if you use Capwiz v3.1 and dump VideoStudio editor, December 29, 2004

By 

FERNANDO CASSIA "-Writer and Computer Geek-" (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ADS Tech DVD Express 2.0 (USBAV-701) (Personal Computers)

The good: Its hardware based encoding design means that the conversion from analog video to mpeg2 is done inside a chip on the device, not by your computer's cpu. It also menas that while digitizing video it doesn't hog your PC's cpu nor does the resulting file need any post processing.

The bad: the bundled Ulead editor is a big pain in the back end. If you just want to do quick edits and cut scenes out pretend that the included Ulead software is missing and install VideoReDo instead. (www.videoredo.com)

Install was flawless for me on WinXP home. The bundled video capture application on my CD was Capwiz version 3.1 dated February 2004. If you check the Adstech.com web site you can find Capwiz 3.5, which adds "on the fly" capture and burning to optical media, but I suggest everyone buying this device to stay with Capwiz 3.1.

ADSTech technical support warned me in no uncertain terms back in Nov 5, 2004 that there were still "stability issues". "Note that many customers have reported stability problems with this version so if you have any problems with it we strongly recommend getting rid of it and going back to version 3.1".

Version 3.1 of Capwiz, still offered on the site and I guess for a reason, seems to have everything a user might need, without "feature bloat" or "instability" warnings. Speaking of which, a new beta version of Capwiz 3.6 has been released in mid-December, adding yet more features to the mix like "direct capture into DivX" (mpeg4), but that sends cpu requirements through the roof and defeats the whole idea of a hardware based mpeg encoder because it's you cpu which has to then convert the mpeg2 video sent by the device to mpeg4, thus requiring a 2.4 Ghz. P4.

In short: I've found the bundled VideoStudio 7 editing software to be a poor choice. The bundled Capwiz 3.1 is ok and you should use that to save digitized video to your hard drive. Then I suggest you check our VideoRedo for editing.

I give this unit 4 stars. It delivers what it promises... decent quality hardware MPEG2 encoding for common people (people doing professional video work will surely need a higher-bitrate capture board). And it comes at a price that anyone can afford.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works fine, with some attention, October 10, 2004

By 

DTG "dtg9000" (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ADS Tech DVD Express 2.0 (USBAV-701) (Personal Computers)

I originally gave this device a low rating, but now I've converted about 30 hours of Hi8 and VHS tape to DVD, and I have to say that's it's a decent buy for the money. Here's why I say that...
The first one I got was DOA - - would not even turn on. Bad start. But to their credit, both ADS and Amazon were great about a return. So a new one showed up 2 business days later.
And it works. I've transferred tapes from a Hi8 camcorder and a VHS player now - - and no serious problems yet. It's been a reliable, no-frills transfer device for me - - someone with a 10+ year library of analog tapes to put on DVD.
Here are the problems: Do NOT use the "Direct to disc" option. The result is horrible - off-sync audio, mainly. Go to your hard disk, then burn the DVD.
The bundled Ulead software is cryptic, and the instructions are of no help whatsoever. And there's no in-program help. So it's "figure it out yourself". I use the bundled "Capture Wizard" to capture all of the analog video to my HD, and it's worked fine so far. A few crashes,but nothing that corrupted what I had captured. Then I use Ulead to burn the mpg's to DVD - - and I don't try and edit individual mpg files - - I just burn them on the DVD as separate files. That has worked fine for me. I know there's alot of functionality to the Ulead software, but I don't have the patience to figure it out myself, and there's nothing in the package to help me.
Bottom line: for me, it's been a reliable, no-frills way of transcribing about 30 hours of analog tape to DVD. The hardware works, and the software will function adequately if you don't expect much from it, and provided you're not hoping for a no-brainer "out-of-the-box" experience.

UPDATE 1 year later: DVD recorders have become widely available since I originally bought the DVD Express, and their prices seem to be manageable - $150 to $200 I think. The time for this box may have passed - - Recorders usually have inputs for analog tape machines, plus you can record off TV with them, so if I were looking today I'd probably just go with one of them instead.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hardware=Good, Software=Bad, January 8, 2004

By 

Tony Koz (Charleston, SC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ADS Tech DVD Express 2.0 (USBAV-701) (Personal Computers)

I bought this product yesterday from Circuit City. I just got a chance to try it out, after reading the manual i thought i'd give it a try. Setup and installation is VERY easy. Capturing video from my Hi8 Analog camcorder was really easy too. The software that came with the product is called Capture Wizard. Capture Wizard simply just captures the video, but it does not allow you to edit the video in any way...this program has not crashed on me yet. The product also comes with another software program called Ulead VideoStudio 7 SE DVD which allows you to capture video, edit video/audio, special effects and more. Problem is when i capture video thats more than a few mintues the program crashes without warning, so if you don't save your work EXTREMELY REGULARLY then you will get utterly frustrated. I thought something was wrong with my computer so i defragged and virus scanned and then tried it again only for it to crash one more time. Here is my system specs:
1. AMD Athlon XP+ 1600 (1.4ghz)
2. 40gb 7200 rpm hard drive (with 20gb free)
3. Nvidia GeForce 4 64mb video card
4. cd burner and dvd drive
5. 256mb DDR-RAM

I think i will purchase more RAM today and then try it again. If i don't write another review for this product then it means it didn't fix the problem.