Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

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

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: 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.

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.

StarTech SVID2USB2 USB 2.0 Video Capture Cable is just what I was looking for. I was interested in being able to watch old but very good quality VHS tapes from my video collection on my home computer. This video capture cable is top notch quality without having to spend a fortune on software and hardware. You can save images on your computer with the GrabBee software that comes included and you can record video to your computer through the software if desired. This is an excellent software application. Please don't hesitate to buy! I'm glad that I did! Works best with Windows XP but can run on Windows 2000. Check out the technical details.

I offer one suggestion to end users. For best audio quality, open up the volume controls on your computer, select the recording option (not playback!) This should show a drop down box that will show the USB Capture software installation on the computer. Click on this and a separate singular audio volume window will appear. The volume will probably be pre-set at maximum. This will cause some audio distortion with human voice as you record (or just by viewing the VHS tape without recording)through the GrabBee Video Window. Just lower the audio control through the AUDIO VOLUME WINDOW(not the volume control on the GrabBee) and the problem is solved.

I hope you enjoy this product!

I recommend the Sylvania 6260VF 4 Head VCRas a compatible unit to hook up to the video capture cable.

It is inexpensive and it is a Hi-Fi Stereo VCR. This is what you want.

For several months I have been looking for a simple, yet effective way to copy my old analog VHS tapes to my computer. After reviewing many products, from a number of companies and dozens of reviews by other users, I decided on the StarTech SVID2USB2 USB2.0 video capture cable. Amazon, as almost always, has the product readily available and at the most competitive price. The product arrived within a couple of days of ordering, because it was shipped from our local Phoenix warehouse. Installing the software was a breeze, with no problems at all. I hooked up to the video capture t cable to a Sony VHS machine and literally within a matter of minutes, I was downloading the old analog VHS tapes to my computer. I also have a Sony Digital 8 handycam camcorder with a composite video out and a composite video cord that splits to white, red, and yellow RCA jacks. I hooked up the camcorder's composite cable to the StarTech capture cable, inserted an analog camcorder tape taken during a family vacation in 1992 and began capturing the video. The colors were a little washed out and not quite as bright as on the original tape, however, not a single frame has been dropped. This is a great product and I would strongly recommend it. It is nice to find something that works well, easy to use, and relatively inexpensive. No complaints. Definitely worth a 5 star rating

Don't waste your money on Dazzle Pinnacle, if you want to convert your old home VHS's into computer files and DVDs, get StarTech! Remember to install your software BEFORE you plug in your hardware.

I'm running Vista 32 bit Premium Home Edition, and I downloaded the latest drivers from the [...] website. (Apparently, the drivers on the included CD do not work with Vista, so I did not try them.) I installed the drivers and the "GrabBee" recording program that I downloaded, plugged in the Video Capture Cable to the computer and video player, and immediately began recording my old analog video tapes. It may be self-evident, but the device does need a set of male RCA cables to connect to the video player. The device, itself, has female connectors, so they they cannot be connected directly to a video player.

The only thing that took any appreciable time was experimenting with the recording settings. I experimented with a commercial video tape (a move, which is about the highest quality tape that will be converted). I began recording with the lowest bit rate, which is fairly high - 4,500 kbps. However, I found that when the recorded digital video was played at full screen, there was noticeable pixilation. After gradually increasing the bit rate, I decided to use the highest rate - 9,000 kbps. This produces a larger file size, but when I edit and re-code the file, the size is reduced tremendously without any noticeable increase in pixilation.

This product does exactly what it is supposed to do. I did not want a conversion device that records directly to a DVD, because I wanted to be able to edit the converted digital files. If you only want to convert/copy video tapes and put the entire content on a DVD, you may want to buy a different product - if you can find one that will work.

1) Don't use the GrabBee software. It automatically turned off Windows 7's User Account Control (a safety feature). The reviews that call GrabBee spyware may be right. I used Microsoft's free Windows Media Encoder.

2) Download the driver from StarTech's website. It's newer and better than the one on the disk.

3) Buffer the video to a temp file if the software lets you. Even though my laptop was new, it dropped frames like raindrops without it. That may be why so many reviews complained about getting out of sync.

The physical box is fine, and now that I've figured out the software, using it is routine. Best of success.

We are thrilled with this device. We were looking for a way to transfer/capture recordings from our satellite DVR to DVD for our daughter. I have a HP laptop with Windows 7 that we purchased just before Christmas. The video capture cable works great - I have had no problems and have captured probably 10 events and burned two to DVD. You do have to play the program while recording it in real time. Thanks to several people for recommmending updating the drivers from the StarTech website before loading the software sent on CD with the product.

I do agree that the instructions sent with the device need improvements. I have not used the software included with the product to burn to DVD - I used CyberLink DVD Suite included with my laptop. Here are the settings I have used for capturing that work for me:

1. Plug S-video cable into DVR and white and red component cables (do not need yellow video). Tip: You will need an additional S-video and Component Cable (Yellow/Red/White).

Recording using Grabee program:
2. Set Grabee volume at 50% & laptop audio/speaker volume at 70%.
3. Video Input: S-Video. Change color saturation to 48.
4. Option - General Tab, Video Format: NTSC-M; Encoder Property Tab, File Type: DVD-NTSC, Video Quality: High, Video Bitrate: 9000.

Tip: I knew and researched to confirm, but NTSC needs to be used in North America. Most DVD players in the US use this, not PAL which is usually for European electronics.

I've got 20 or so tapes from an old Olympus video 8 camera of the kids growing up. I wanted them transferred to DVD but having them done professionally was going to be very expensive ($400+). I found the Startech Video Capture Cable to be easy to set up and install as well as easy to use. The only con that I found is the lack of detailed information on the settings. I worked in computers for over 30 years so this wasn't a real problem. I just tried various settings till I found what was optimim for my setup. I got one tape burned professionally and did the same on using the StatTech and found I couldn't tell the difference. IT SURE SAVED ME A BOATLOAD OF MONEY.