StarTech.com USB S-Video and Composite Video Capture Cable with Audio TV Tuners and Video Capture SVID2USB2

by StarTech

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 2.4 x 7.8 inches ; 15.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000O5RIWO
• Item model number: SVID2USB2
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #6 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Video Capture Cards
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The ideal solution for portable audio-video applications, StarTech USB 2.0 video capture cable offers real-time MPEG 1, 2, and 4 recording, to provide a bridge between your computer and VCR, camcorder, or other S-Video source. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, it integrates seamlessly with notebook and desktop computers. And its plug-and-play design requires no power adapter.

Featuring a small, lightweight design, this cable provides easy portability for on-the-go applications. You can capture still images with the SnapShot function and control brightness, contrast, and sharpness. The video capture cable supports NTSC, PAL, and SECAM and uses USB 2.0 transfer rates for high-quality video capture. This cable boasts five connectors and up to a 30 fps motion capture capability at maximum resolution of 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL. It is backed by a 1-year warranty.

Product Description

The SVID2USB2 USB 2.0 S-Video/Composite video Capture Cable lets you connect devices that output S-Video or Composite video to a computer through an available USB 2.0 port. The cable also features two channel RCA stereo audio inputs that let you capture the audio accompanying the S-Video or Composite video signal. The perfect solution for bridging a computer and an S-Video or Composite video source, the capture cable offers real time MPEG 1, MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 recording. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, the Capture Cable is a great solution for mobile applications that integrates seamlessly with laptop and desktop computers. Backed by a StarTech.com 1 year warranty and free lifetime technical support.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DRIVERS AND NEWER GRABBEE CAPTURE SOFTWARE!!! DON'T GO TO STARTECH'S SITE TO UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS!! READ ON..., June 6, 2011

By 

A. Koziol (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: StarTech.com USB S-Video and Composite Video Capture Cable with Audio TV Tuners and Video Capture SVID2USB2 (Personal Computers)

While this product is actually pretty good for a simple USB capture device, you HAVE TO, HAVE TO, HAVE TO get the most *current* drivers for it to work optimally. I understand the pain that 99.9% of users have with installing and using this product and I partly blame StarTech and the Chinese / Taiwanese hardware industry.

Guess what, if you get updated drivers from StarTech's site, they're old. "What? But StarTech makes this thing, they'll have the newest drivers. Right?" Wrong. In fact, this device is really just a re-branded product call the GrabBeeX+deluxe made by VideoHome of Taiwan. The drivers on StarTech's site are newer-ish but since the Taiwanese company that makes the GrabBeeX+deluxe (a.k.a StarTech SVID2USB2) is still around and have WAY newer drivers than what StarTech offers, go to their web site and get the latest drivers (look for the GrabBeeX+deluxe). Unless you really know computer's and how to read driver properties, you'd NEVER figure it out. It's no surprise this product gets a bad rap. Also, you can and should upgrade the GrabBee video capture software to version 1.0.9.3 if you go to VideoHome's site (see link info below). Startech's GrabBee video capture software (bundled or on their support site) is the WAY old version 1.0.7.6. The newer 1.0.9.3 version has updated codecs (read more below).

Having 21+ years in IT to track down who makes these obscure hardware components has become a refined skill and I can say that the chipset that is in the device is made by eMpia and it's the 28xx series. But don't go to eMpia's site to get newer drivers, go to the makers of the GrabBee hardware / software (VideoHome): [...] . tw and look for the product called GrabBeeX+Deluxe (USB Grabber). Under the "Driver" and "AP" section you can find the newest drivers and version of the GrabBee capture software. By the way, the newer GrabBee capture software has capture software and codecs as new as Feb of 2011 and supports formats like XVid and has a far newer MPEG encoder than even the 1.0.7.3 version. These newer codecs will yield far better results and are more optimized to take advantage of modern CPU features like SSE2/SSE3/SSE4 (which help in video / audio / multimedia processing) that the older codec versions were not as well optimized to use.

Do yourself and others a favor and get the newer drivers and GrabBee software and THEN review this product. What comes out of the box is ancient as far as drivers and capture software go and you WILL HAVE PROBLEMS, especially if you have Vista or Windows 7. By the way, the latest drivers do work on Windows 7 64-bit.

One other issue some people might have and not realize is that your computer may only have USB 1.1 ports. For this device to work well, you have to know if you have USB 1.1, USB 2.0, or USB 3.0 ports for it to plug into. You should also try and figure out if you have the chipset drivers for your motherboard installed already as they can help immensely. Also, if you're not tech minded, you may not know that in your computer's BIOS, your USB settings may be, by default, set to not fully utilize the max speed of you USB 2.0 ports which is called HighSpeed. USB 1.1 uses FullSpeed and USB 3.0 uses SuperSpeed. Theoretically, a USB 1.1 port has just enough bandwidth to capture *compressed* MPEG1 video stream but not raw, uncompressed video streams which is why you need USB 2.0 or faster. Also, having a slower speed IDE or SATA hard drive that spins at 5400RPM or less may impede writing to the hard drive fast enough and cause drop-outs and other anomalies. Always defragment your hard drive!

It's no surprise people get frustrated with this nifty device. I hope posting the below link directly to the GrabBeeX+deluxe will help some of you. Everything you need for updated drivers and GrabBee capture software is there (copy and paste to your browser and just remove the spaces): [...] and if it doesn't work, go to VideoHome's site and click on Products > USB Grabber > and find the GrabBeeX+deluxe at the bottom of the list and click More Details. The Driver and AP sections are what you want to download from. Have fun!

UPDATE 6/27/2011: GrabBee software 1.0.9.6 is now available on the [...].

UPDATE 8/9/2011: Well, it seems VideoHome has retired the GrabBeeX+Deluxe from it's products page in place of new hardware and as such have made it a bit tougher to easily find the driver. You can now find it here: go to VideoHome's site and choose Technical Support > Download, change Product Name to USB Grabber, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and go to page 2 or click Next >>. Have fun.

UPDATE: 8/15/2011: Amazon has removed the links to the drivers so follow the directions I have up on my 8/9/2011 update.

UPDATE: 10/4/2011: It seems eMpia has updated their drivers for this device around 8/23/2011 even though it seems VideoHome has stopped updating them. Just do a search for BDA_082311_UAC and that should get you to the eeti . com web site. If not, try [...] and remove the spaces. Updated my driver to one from 8/23/11.

UPDATE: 1/30/2012: Don't use the eMpia driver from eeti . com. It seems others have been having issues with the eMpia drivers from 8/23/2011 so it seems you might be best to stick with the drivers dated 4/22/2011 from Videohome's web site.

71 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terriffic product great Value, May 4, 2009

By 

John F. Connallon Jr. - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: StarTech.com USB S-Video and Composite Video Capture Cable with Audio TV Tuners and Video Capture SVID2USB2 (Personal Computers)

I spend a lot of money online shopping mostly for tech type items. This video capture cable is by far THE BEST VALUE FOR MY MONEY THAT I EVER SPENT! If you buy a machine that can copy VHS to DVD you are talking $ 200 + and if you check the on line reviews they all are poorly rated.
Using this product you can copy VHS tapes to an external hard drive and make your entire collection of VHS tapes portable. Of course instead you can copy them to your internal hard drive and then burn them to a CD. This product is terrific BUT instructions included in the package are very very limited( as in almost nonexistent). Do not use the included software Cd for installation instead go to company web site and down load software from there. Tech support also rates 5 stars. No long wait and they know their stuff. I have recommended this product to all of my friends.
This is NOT a planted review. Having used this product to copy many hours of tape I can honestly say I would have paid double the price and still thought it was terrific. If you want to copy VHS tapes undoubtedly this is the way to do it

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works on Vista, April 9, 2008

By 

Quedall "yzee" - See all my reviews

This review is from: StarTech.com USB S-Video and Composite Video Capture Cable with Audio TV Tuners and Video Capture SVID2USB2 (Personal Computers)

StarTech SVID2USB2 USB 2.0 Video Capture Cable
Works great but do not load the driver & software that comes with it in Vista. It will crash your computer. Call StarTech and they will give you a direct link to download of the correct Vista driver software. You can then edit in Windows Movie Maker and record in Windows DVD Maker. Once you get it connected it is a snap to convert from analog devices.