SABRENT USB-AVCPT USB 2.0 Audio Video Creator Capture DVD Maker Editor Adapter

by Sabrent

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches ; 4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0011N9QNC
• Item model number: USB-AVCPT
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,223 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 2, 2004

Product Description

Sabrent USB 2.0 Video Capture Adapter provides a link between a PC and a video device with RCA connector or S-Video connector, such VHS, VCR, DVD, TV, DV, analog camcorder, camera.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Qualified Recommendation, October 22, 2009

By 

bayoutides (Florida) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SABRENT USB-AVCPT USB 2.0 Audio Video Creator Capture DVD Maker Editor Adapter (Personal Computers)

This is a great product...with a few reservations. But bear some things in mind and read through the other reviews before you purchase. First, you'll find that a lot of people have complained about problems with Vista; I use XP. Second, you'll see that others have complained of the software. So I just ignored it and installed the drivers only. It works fine with various alternate software, Windows Movie Maker, for example, so why bother. (I couldn't get it to work properly with Roxio 9, however; but I blame that on Roxio.) Speaking of drivers, by the way, I'm not sure why so many people have had problems with them (except for Vista users). The ones that came with the unit were identical to those I downloaded from the internet, and both worked (again, for XP). Having said all that, the first unit I purchased was defective -- couldn't get the device to install properly. I decided to take the chance that it was a manufacturer's defect and return it in exchange for another. The second one installed without a glitch and worked perfectly...almost. The primary use was to salvage old VHS tapes. I never experienced any problems with video/audio synch, and the quality was every bit as good as the tapes themselves. I did, however, have a periodic crackle/scritch in the audio. After a lot of research without useful results (people advising you to buy gold wires, etc.), I found a video on YouTube that solved the problem in sixty seconds. This fellow pointed out that if the internal wiring was a bit bunched it would cause the unit to get hot (mine was), causing this problem. I followed his recommendation: popped open the case (with my thumbnail), gently pushed the wiring down a little, closed the case back up...and it worked like a charm. You have to consider the price. After deducting the (admittedly small) manufacturing costs, then the shipping from China, these things are probably being made for a profit margin of about two bucks apiece. Yeah, they're cheap. Which is, after all, a lot of the appeal. I didn't want to spend fifteen times as much for something only slightly better suited to my purposes. Mine works great now, no flaws, no issues. If I use it on an old "factory" tape, the result is perfect. Try one of these to test your set-up (that'll let you know if your VCR is OK, too). Remember, though, some of those old, home-made tapes that were recorded on an EP setting, then stored in the attic for twenty years, may not come out too good, no matter what you do. Hope this helps.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice Product, Once You Get It Working, January 7, 2010

By 

Cubs Fan (Louisiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SABRENT USB-AVCPT USB 2.0 Audio Video Creator Capture DVD Maker Editor Adapter (Personal Computers)

This device works very well, and it did just what I wanted it to do (converting home videos to digital media). I'll give it four stars, though, since it's not simple to set up, and there are virtually no instructions. Here's what I did to make mine work:

First of all, I'm running Windows XP, SP3, so I can't speak to the way this product works on Vista. Also, make sure your computer is fairly powerful if you're going to use this device (mine is 2.20 GHz, with 3.46 GB of RAM and plenty of space on the hard drive). Finally, the device only worked for me when it was plugged directly into the USB port on my computer; the USB extension cord provided rendered it inoperable.

--You may need to download the correct drivers for your device. If this is the case (that is, if the device doesn't work properly with the drivers on the CD-ROM), run a search on Google for drivers for STK1160 (not STK1150 as the product would have you believe). Before I downloaded the correct drivers, the device wouldn't transmit video, but after I found them, everything worked great.

--I didn't install the software included on the CD-ROM. As another reviewer has mentioned, there's no need to do this, especially if, as others report, the software is not user-friendly and slows down the computer. I couldn't get this device to work with Adobe products or VirtualDub, but with the right drivers, it did work with Windows Movie Maker. But there are smaller, easier programs that capture video also: see below.

--For capturing videos, I used a free program called Virtual VCR, which you can download after a Google search. I also looked at AMCap, which is great but has a 15-minute capture limit on the software demo (you could purchase the software, though, which isn't expensive). Virtual VCR saves video as AVI files directly to the computer.

--With Virtual VCR, eventually (after about 30 minutes) the audio goes out of sync a bit--but this is fixable through editing of the files. I was able to get much better results with the audio-video sync by choosing video as the "Master Stream in AVI file" on the "AV Sync" tab under "Settings." Otherwise, I had no problems with the audio from this device--everything sounds fine.

--The uncompressed files on the computer will be very large (about 1 GB per minute of video), so make sure you have lots of free space available. On the program you use for capturing, I recommend selecting a codec to compress the video a bit: Huffyuv (not the beta version, but the last stable version) is a lossless codec you can download from the internet that maintains video quality but reduces file size (a 30-minute video file for me was about 12 GB). I did not compress the audio.

--If the AVI files you capture are still too large for you (I saved many at a time, so this happened to me) and you plan to burn them to DVD, convert them to MPEG-2 (DVD) format with a program. There will be a slight loss in quality, which will most likely happen anyway with your DVD authoring program, but the file sizes will be much smaller and more manageable. I used the free, downloadable program ffmpeg (the GUI) for this process, and it actually helped the audio-video sync issues I was having with the longer files--the converted .mpg files were in better sync than the .avi files. After that, you can simply burn the files to DVD with your favorite authoring program.

This device is not at all self-explanatory, but once you start playing with it (and once you download some small programs), you can achieve some really nice results. I'm happy with the audio and video quality, especially for the price--this is a bargain. And the installation of the product couldn't be easier: you just plug it in and go. All in all, this product is very good.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrible!, February 15, 2008

By 

Diversified Programming (Rochester NH) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SABRENT USB-AVCPT USB 2.0 Audio Video Creator Capture DVD Maker Editor Adapter (Personal Computers)

This is the only product i've ever seen that isnt recognized by its own software! This has crashed my powerful machine 3 times and none of my software (except Windows USB BUS) even sees it. The manual is also in quasi-english so is no help either. This is being returned.