Customer Reviews

ADS USBAV-700 Instant DVD (USB)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Quite a contrast from other reviews, but honestly, this box works wonderfully! I've been using it for the last six months transferring all my old VHS tapes to DVD video and burning them to disc with my DVD-R. Reccomendations I can give to other owners or those considering purchasing it: Go straight away to their website and get the latest driver and the latest version of CapWiz for maximum performance. Also, ensure that you plug it directly into the machine and not a hub, and make sure NO other USB devices are plugged in with it. It's a beautiful box but it eats up almost all of the USB total bandwidth when you use it.

Beyond that it's worked perfectly for me every time at a standard rate of 4Mbps and I can't reccomend it more highly. Setup is easy if you follow the wizards in the updated software, and you can't go wrong with it.

I am extremely happy with this product. It is extremely easy to use and comes with all the software you need to capture, edit, and burn your videos to DVD. This external device captures and compresses your videos to MPEG-2 (DVD-quality) so it takes up less disk space on your computer because the video already comes in compressed. And, it does not drop any frames. You can then edit and save your videos with no loss of quality whatsoever. Well worth it considering its low price!

I bought this product about a year ago and it has worked great for me! Installation was easy, no problems. It captures great video in Windows 98 and Windows Me. However, in Windows XP, I was not able to capture video at 5 mb/s, only at 3 mb/s and 4 mb/s. I was able to convert my entire analog video collection with outstanding quality to DVD with this product. The only thing that annoyed me is that it captures video at 704 x 480 instead of 720 x 480, requiring a conversion of some type before it is able to be burned on to a DVD.

This product is a good idea. However, the software is not easy to use. Unless you have a very powerful PC, and get installation right the first time, you'll be in trouble. Included documentation is of little help and Tech support is a dead end (not to mention arrogant).

I have a 1.7gig P4 running XP and found this product to be very unstable which is a nice way to say it doesn't work. The hardware would always hang my computer no matter which software I used with it. Also a note to their clueless tech support, my Maxtor hard drive was the cause for the sound and video being out of sync, when I reinstalled XP using a Western Digital drive the sync problem went away but not the instability. Believe Microsoft when they say use of an unsigned driver may make your system unstable.

I bought the ADS Tech Instant DVD +DV after reading some great professional reviews in some of the online magazines. I was really excited to get this product. I now wish I'd paid more attention to the actual user reviews, as near as I can tell the people writing the magazine reviews must have never actually tried to use this product. Put simply... it doesn't work. Believe the user reviews, this is a bad product.

I wanted to transfer some old VHS videotapes to DVD, and I also got the +DV option thinking that it would be a nice way to add Firewire capabilities to my USB 2.0 based system for use with my new Digital camcorder. The Instant DVD box failed miserably to deliver on either of these goals.

Using the DV input with my digital camera I had strange artifacts start to appear on the screen. There were weird blotchy sections that started out small, but then grew as the capture progressed until half the screen was covered. While transferring my old analog VHS tapes, certain sections of the tapes would cause the box to completely lock up. When I could get a capture that didn't freeze, I couldn't get a capture where the audio and video would stay in sync. I tried multiple tapes, multiple DVD mastering programs, even multiple computer systems, nothing worked. This was simply making DVD's straight from the captured footage, I wasn't transcoding anything. The only thing that worked for me was taking a nice clean analog signal from my digital camera (since the digital DV capture didn't work.) That was the only thing that stayed in sync, any input that was less than perfect, like 10 or 15 year old VHS tapes, forget about it.

I sent several email queries to the ADS Tech support, after giving up on their telephone support after waiting forever on hold. Other than the automated "Well get right back to you as soon as possible" responses, I've heard nothing else from them. That was six weeks ago... and I'm not holding my breath. If you buy this product, you're definitely on your own.

I've long since returned my box, and chalked it up to a learning experience. Here are a few things to think about, first of all, do you really want a box that converts straight to MPEG2 format? If you want to change *anything*... clip out a few scenes, add a title screen, join several clips together... you have to reencode the file anyway. By uncompressing then recompressing you're sacrificing quality, and not gaining anything from the built in compression. Also, I didn't realize at the time, but you can get a Firewire card with a cable for almost the same price as just a cable... it's cheap, and much better than spending all the extra money for the +DV option.

I now own a Canopus ADVC-100, it's more expensive but worth every penny. More importantly... it actually works! That's much more than I can say about the ADS Tech Instant DVD.

I would have rated this minus 5, but that was not an option. This is neither instant nor is it DVD. It took 2 weeks of intensive work to try to get it to work--it never did! I even had to reinstall Windows XP! Tech support NEVER got back to me, and by the time you finally give up, its too late to return. This will make you homocidal! Don't waste your time and energy.

I was unable to get the driver for Win XP Pro to work. When I had problems I went back, erased my drive and did a clean install of Win XP, twice. The second time I was very careful about the order in which I loaded the driver, but to no avail. The applications that came with it kept hanging and never worked. Instant DVD is a total piece of [junk]. I regret wasting this much time on a product that does not seem to have been tested with Win XP. I contract this with Pinnace's product. I installed Pimmance PCTV Pro and it was easy to install and works like a charm.

Nearly everything that could be wrong with this device and its software is wrong. First, the capture wizard program displays the file list boxes over the top of the preview screen and control buttons if your advanced display settings use large fonts. So you're forced to use small fonts which are hard to see on high resolution displays. When you capture, it's a ...shoot whether it will work or not. Occasionally, it actually will capture a two hour tape, but mostly, it will crash after 10 to 30 minutes with an "error in clvsd.ax blah blah blah restart your computer." You'll get real good at restarting your computer with this thing. The capture doesnt work at all with Ulead DVD Movie Factory or Dazzle DVD Complete. ADS claims full MPEG-2 compliance, but it's not DVD compliant so you have to re-encode the files for DVD anyway. Then there's the audio-sync problems galore! Another ... shoot. One day in sync, the next day out, and you never changed a single setting. Picture quality: Quite good, except for the occasional blocky artifacts, and the three or four lines of distortion at the bottom of the screen. A known issue ADS claims don't appear on a TV set, but they do, and it's annoying. ADS tech support is pretty weak. After two weeks they'll answer you with "uninstall, re-install" or "get a better sound card." If you still think you might like this product, do a Google search for "USB instant DVD problems." Read some of the tech forums and you'll hear all kinds of dissatisfied customers. And if you really must have it, keep your task manager handy, because it's the only way to close the capture wizard because it stops responding nearly every time you use it. You'll save a lot of frustration if you just take your $ and light it with a match instead of spending it on this piece of junk.

Was unable to get the USB drivers for this item to install correctly. E-mail to company went unanswered, except for auto reply. Phone numbers were always busy. Returned the unit to the store of purchase for a refund.