Customer Reviews

Plextor ConvertX Digital Video Converter (PX-M402U)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I blundered when I first stumbled into the video-capture market by buying a cheaper product without checking the specs. It could not capture beyond what appeared postcard-sized frames on playback. This item replaced that dud and oh what a difference -- in sound, picture quality, ease of use...

First: The bundled software -- OK this is great for capture, and utterly brilliant if you just want to copy directly from video tape to DVD disc without any editing. It's a breeze. I did it all the first time from set up to beginning the burn in three minutes!

Beyond that, re: editing and trimming, forget it, get another program for these functions. WinDVD creator was very basic (templates were too cartoony and few for my liking) and trimming was ridiculously time-consuming -- ie for a small top-and-tail trim it took 15 or more mins to re-save an hour's worth of previously captured video.

Other programs are better at this eg Ulead DVD MovieFactory where trimming time is tiny because any earlier cutting/editing is really actually only physically done when at the burning stage. (For the record: Of seven DVD editing programs I have tested in the past six months, Ulead had the most options for me with chapter creation etc, followed by Sony, then Roxio. WinDVD was pretty low in functionality and a severely limited choice of burn quality settings.)

The verdict: The Plextor unit itself is seriously, awesomely good although of course it depends on the quality of your initial tape/source, and the VCR etc playing it. It rates as the Best Buy for all products of this type.

Some things to note: I experienced a small problem in sound and vision dropping slightly out of sync on one dvd created; and on another it briefly happened and came back into sync again. I downloaded the patch at the official plextor site which fixed this immediately. Now it works perfectly.

Also, if you are in the Asia Pacific region, factor in the cost of a 9-volt AC power adaptor (these are usually no more than $20-25 in Aust) because it is not included.

Lastly -- an installation note. You have to go to the drivers folder, click on them and install manually. Directing the Windows XP "Found New Hardware" to the folder as you'd normally do does nothing as it's a self-extracting program.

I would only recommend this unit if you are planning
to convert high-quality tapes. For the average home
video that was produced with consumer-grade equipment
and has been stored for years, there are two serious
problems:

1. The horizontal sync is awful. I have done some
research and I believe this is the infamous Time Base
Correction problem. Straight vertical lines in the
footage will become slightly squiggly or crooked in
the capture. This is caused by old tapes physically
distorting or stretching, and it could be overcome by
TBC circuitry, which the unit lacks.

2. The software will not start capturing until after your
tape is rolling, and it will automatically stop capturing
when it hits a recording gap. This is fine if you're only
converting TV recordings which were recorded in one run,
with all commercials and everything. But it's really
unacceptable if you have camcorder footage which was
stopped and restarted multiple times when taped. You
have to sit by the computer and you will lose the first
few seconds of every shot, because you have to hit Play
in the VCR and you cannot hit Record on the PC until after
the input signal has stabilized. If you hit it too soon,
you are interrupted by a pop-up window that says no input
signal detected.

If you want maximum quality, I recommend picking up a used
Sony DV CAM like the TRV17 and using the Firewire passthrough
to capture from the analog input. The Sony analog-to-DV
capture is not aflicted by either of the problems mentioned
above. But you will not get real-time compression to DVD
format when you do that, unfortunately.

If one other option that you are considering is a combo
VCR-DVDR unit, beware my results with that were not any
better.

As far as the whole bundle goes, I am fairly well pleased. I haven't had any problems capturing good quality video or burning DVDs with the software. With the onboard hardware encoder, it's also a great solution for those without fast PCs!

The only complaint that I have is that WinDVD Creator is kinda lacking in the features department...But then again, you really wouldn't expect feature-rich software from an OEM bundle. So, I basically just use it to capture video, then use other software to author and burn the DVDs. Also, it's really kinda flaky (WinDVD Creator, that is), so you probably don't want to be doing anything else on the computer while you are capturing and saving your videos. I've had a few problems with WinDVD Creator locking up on me if I try to do something else (like surf the web).

All-in-all, I am very pleased with the PX-M402U. As far as the hardware goes, I haven't had any problems. I've converted some of my VHS to DVD now, and started recording some of my favorite shows to make DVDs (Good Eats, if you're that curious :) If I had the purchase to do over again, I would definitely pick the PX-M402U. The only exception being if I found a similar box that would capture digial audio.

One lesson learned, for those that are starting out with this device (and probably others). It would probably be better, when you save your video, to save as "Dolby Digital" instead of "MPEG Audio" (which is the default in WinDVD Creator). I have both analog and digital connected from my DVD Player to my receiver, so my first few DVDs play fine on my system. But my parents only have digital hooked up, not analog, and the same DVDs played on their system had no audio. Apparently "MPEG Audio" only plays via the analog ports on our DVD Players.

There are several MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 hardware encoders out there, but this is the first one to actually encode DivX directly and in hardware (real time). That was the main reason why I've bought this product - DivX real time encoding speed.

But it comes down the encoding profiles are quite restrictive if one wants to produce smaller files while keeping good video quality (that's what DivX is for, right?). There are only three DivX encoding profiles available with the PX-M402U: very low, high and very high bitrate. It's either too low or too high.

You can either create a small video file with lame image quality (Portable profile) or very big DivX video files with great image quality (Home Theater profiles). There does not seem to be an in-between solution for DivX encoding with this product.

The frustrating part is that one can easily create WAY smaller files keeping the same image quality using software DivX compression - but software encoding takes a long processing time. For example, a 26 minutes video can be encoded into DivX 640x480 with 128Kbps MP3 audio into a rather small 200Mb file. In the other hand, the PX-M402U will force 720x480 or SIF resolutions and only offers rather obscure MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio compression, and will generate 2 to 3 times my target file size. The best DivX encoding bitrate is (IMHO) around the 800-1200Mbps range, but the PX-M402U only offers 780, 2000 or 4000Mbps - way out of range to reach my target file size.

In my opinion, the PX-M402U defeats the purpose of the great DivX compression by offering only extremely low or extremely high bitrate profiles for creating your videos. Perhaps Plextor is targeting the rather yet inexistent hardware DivX playback appliances market, leaving empty handed those of us who just want to play our videos on a PC.

If you enjoy using DivX to produce small video files with near-DVD quality, the PX-M402U is not for you. Of course you can use the bundled software to encode smaller DivX video files in software - but then why bother buying this product? For those of you who do not care about DivX filesizes, go for it. It does what it claims.

This unit works great for me (using WinXP). I use it to capture and record a real-time video feed directly from the camera to my hard drive. The quality is fine and the set-up is fast and straighforward. The unit does the conversion internally which saves your computer from having to do all the labor. The software that comes with the unit is also pretty easy to use for capturing video. It allows you a number of options for file quality, etc. If you want to do some slick video editing with effects, etc., you will likely want to use a separate video editing program. This program only has some basic editing features. But for just capturing and archiving, this works just fine.

Overall this seems to be one of the best options (if not the best) on the market for low-cost digital video conversion using external hardware. The other products available seem to have a lot more problems than the Plextor unit.

Note: After you install the software, I recommend downloading the most up-to-date drivers from the company's website. Also, you may want to avoid having your computer hooked up to a generic docking station (e.g., the Targus unit sold at BestBuy) and the Plextor unit at the same time. My computer will only run one or the other, not both simultaneously. (When I disconnect the docking station, the Plextor works like a charm.)

I wanted an external device for capturing video to 1) eliminate the possibility of noise between PCI cards 2) have easier access to the connectors instead of digging around the back of my computer. ConvertX has these features.

In researching video capture devices, I was stunned to see that very few products had primarily good reviews. From my investigation, ConvertX had the best.

I have a P4 3.2Ghz (OC), ASUS P4C800 deluxe, 1G ram, 120G SATA RAID 0, some IDE disks, (2) Liteon DVD,RW CD +etc, USB2.0, Firewire blah blah blah.

Installing the cigar-box sized device was as trivial as setting it down. The software provided (WinDVD creator) does what it's intended to do with respect to capture, although I admit to not having tested its editing abilities yet.

I have not had conflicts, crashes, hangs or any other problem with the hardware or software (yet) after digitizing about 20 8mm tapes.

Rarely do I take the time to write a review of something that merely does what it says it does, but that kind of "performance" is very hard to find these days.

After four days with this unit, I have to say that I feel like a beta tester. Yes, the hardware works. But the software support is so buggy, feature-deprived and aggravating that the unit is unusable.

In transferring a video tape, the audio and video were massively out of synch. WinDVD Creator pops out of record mode at the smallest glitch in the tape. Yes, I searched the registry and changed the value of "Warn when no video" to zero. The next time I booted, the value was back to 1.

This would not be a problem if I could use the unit with my Pinnacle Studio 8 software, but the Plextor driver is so unlike any other capture hardware's driver that other programs 1) do not even recognize it or 2) crash when the Plextor device is selected.

WinDVD Creator is unstable, buggy, and lacking even basic features. One cannot add a fade-out to the end of a file! They are only allowed between clips!

Who woulda thunk a Plextor product could be bad??

This has been a very disappointing experience for me. I hope Plextor reworks the driver and make it compatible with real-world video editing programs. Vegas? Pinnacle? Sonic? Adobe?

I had great hopes for the Plextor PX-M402U Digital Video Converter - after all, I have three Plextor CD and DVD burners that still work flawlessly. Unfortunately, the only software that works with this device is InterVideo WinDVD Creator. When I open this software and try to do anything, I receive the fatal message "Windows has encountered an error and needs to shut down. Send error report" After sending the error report, there are no suggestions whatsoever, just back to the desktop!

I emailed both Plextor and InterVideo. No response from InterVideo after 3 days, and Plextor sent me a troubleshooting document. My PC is a P4, 2.0Ghz, Windows XP sp1 with all critical updates loaded, Direct X 9.0b, and I downloaded both the latest driver from Plextor and the software patch from InterVideo. Now, after all this, I still get the same exact error message! This one's going back.

I'm looking into the ADS Tech Instant DVD 2.0 or the Canopus ADVC-100 as alternatives, though neither offer DivX. The ADS Tech is bundled with more "robust" software, and the Canopus is a hardware-only device that requires all compression be done with the software. In my opinion, digital video conversion is not quite ready for prime time - maybe I'll just wait!

I have converted around two dozen VHS and Hi8 tapes to DVD using this device. It works OK, but not out of the box.

You have to capture using Plextor's software, either their GoCap or the bundled version of WinDVD Creator. The WinDVD Creator 2 that came with my unit was out of date, and I had to download some updates from Plextor's web site. GoCap exposes more settings than WinDVD Creator, but only outputs audio in MPEG-1 layer 2 format, which some programs and devices don't support.

WinDVD Creator is pretty useless for anything but capturing. To edit MPEG-2 video at a reasonable speed, I use Womble MPEG Video Wizard. To author DVDs, I use Sony Vegas DVD Architect Studio, which has pretty good themes and is quick because it only has to render the menus.

To get the best results when capturing to hard disk in WinDVD Creator, I use the following device settings:
Use "MPEG-1 and MPEG-2" format with "DVD HQ (High Quality)" profile.
Uncheck "Stop recording if detects bad video signal" (such as between camcorder shots).
In Options>Output Format, use LPCM Audio (some of the other programs I use don't support Dolby or MPEG audio).

Even at the highest quality setting, I see block artifacts and choppyness during action scenes such as fast camera pans. I would rate its output "almost DVD quality"; in general its output looks a little grainier than the original sources.

I haven't had any problems with crashes, freezes, or audio/video sync. My PC is an Athlon XP 2800+ with 1GB RAM running Windows XP SP2.

This is a real mixed bag. My impression is that the capture unit itself works pretty well. I've been using it to transfer Hi-8 video to DVDs. When I preview video on my PC, it's fine...audio and video synched up, etc. But actually getting useful output saved to disk has been a struggle. It's not clear to me if my problems have been my PC or their software, but it's been tough. Getting the InterVideo WinDVD Creator software to work at all was a hassle. Many software freezes, many reboots. Two tips: 1) before you do anything else, download and install all the applicable updates from Plextor's site. 2) when you hit the 'record' button in the software, don't touch your PC again until it's done recording. It took me a while to figure out that any other activity on the PC can screw up a recording. The main problem I have now is with audio synch. It seems like the higher the resolution of the video, the more lag is introduced in the audio track.

My PC: Athlon 64 3000 (Venice core), 1 GB RAM, Abit mobo.