Pinnacle Systems - Dazzle Digital Video Creator Plus

I have a dual core AMD processor (that just meets the minimum for speed for Dazzle plus) and twice the RAM recommended. I have more than half my resources free and am using XP 2. Frankly, I expected better results in the finished product. I had to download the updated driver to see the video i wanted to capture from my VCR. As far as importing VHS movies, I could not use what is the easiest way: "Instant DVD capture" (comes with the software) because it only captures up to 104 minutes and that's in the mediocre quality. It looks lousy when played back. otherwise, that feature is very good and easy.. For longer VHS cassettes, one must capture into the Pinnacle software studio 12. Now, once you work with the software a while it is not that bad, but it sure could be more user-friendly. I captured a video of 117 minutes on high quality, then had to burn it to a dual layer DVD using Verbatim because it came out, in HQ, a little more than 5 gig. Boy did that take ALL NIGHT. Capturing is in real time. And burning takes FOREVER. If i had selected the setting to diminish the quality, I might have been able to get this onto a single layer DVD. But I figured the VHS tape was already deteriorating. It burned, created a DVD even with the menu I put on. I played in my DVD recorder/player. To me, on my 22" screen TV, I thought the quality was wanting. It was definitely watchable, and perhaps my expectations are too high. But it took a heck of a lot of time, tying up my only notebook all night for a DVD I am unimpressed with. But, it did work. The WORSE: There is no support. Not really. I tried emailing three questions over two days, and they blow you off with links. Nobody there answers specifics. I watched the tutorials but they are general overviews, just window dressing. Then i asked live chat -- twice. It became apparent to me the two men didn't know squat about the product; neither could explain how to use the menu at the beginning (i learned by accident) and their goal, in my opinion, is to be less than helpful because after your first phone call, you must pay for live help over the phone. I think that is how they want to keep making a buck by having people pay to get help. That really irked me. To my way of thinking, their employees need to know the product and provide support, period. Using this does take a heck of a lot of resources of your notebook or pc (i have more than half free and I keep my notebook fast and lean) I did nothing else while capturing and burning and VHS tapes more than 80 minutes will be a problem, especially if you want to back up your VHS movies to DVD. If you have short home VHS or just want to capture from your camcorder, this is probably a good buy. But, I think, you get what you pay for. BTW it is recognized by windows movie maker, and I used that to burn a DVD but it cannot be played in other DVD players. Corel Video studio x2 (the top version) also recognizes Dazzle if you like that software better, but it won't let you import "protected" media which i think is ridiculous. I i paid for my VHS movies and want to keep them in decent quality on DVD. Most reasonably savvy people can figure out the quirks in the software. But if you really get stuck,be prepare to pay for phone help. Yes, there is a lot of info videos on google about setting up the software, but they are repetitive and setting up the hardware is a snap anyway. I found no video on google to help explain specifics.

The video quality is great regardless of how you capture. Having said that, I have to say that if you capture using the DVD/MPEG setting, expect some "skipping" in the playback. It won't show any dropped frames on the software but you'll get it nevertheless. I believe the encoding process during capture stalls it just enough to create skips but not enough to drop frames. If you capture using the AVI you will get seamless and beautifull quality. But make sure you have a rather large hard drive to capture full length movies as this will run in to the 10's of gigabytes. A simple 8:46 minutes capture puts it at 1.87 gigabytes.. wow! Then you still have to render it to MPEG to get it to DVD. Expect an overnighter there. I will problaby be returning this one. I have a DVC150a and wanted something a little more compatible with Studio. It has it's headaches but still at least captures MPEG at seamless beatuful quality [once I get the thing to cooperate with me].

I had to download an updated driver from the Pinnacle website because my version of Vista (64-bit) didn't immediately recognize it. Not too big a deal for me, but like other reviewers have mentioned, I imagine that it would be a bigger inconvenience to less computer-savvy users. The software can be a little confusing to figure out at first, but once you get past the initial learning curve it's actually not too difficult to use. Performance seems just fine, no lagging or unusual problems for me (I'm using a dual-core system with 4Gb of memory). The time it takes to convert/export movies also seems perfectly acceptable. The only real problem I have with this product is the $93 price tag it normally has. However, I purchased this at Best Buy at the sale price of $59.99, a much better value considering what's included. For $93 I would expect an actual add-in card instead of a USB interface or perhaps more feature-packed software. Once you get past the setup and get the hang of the software, I think most users would find that it's an overall good product. It could use a permanent price drop, but I still recommend it.

This capture card is very good for begginers, but once you start getting into video making/editing I recommend upgrading to a internal Capture card, the quality is not HD but it gets the job done and done easy, I would recommend this to a friend that is just getting into editing/video capturing for a gaming system if they can't decide if they are going to get really into it.

The Dazzle was pretty easy to setup. I had to upgrade my graphics card to use it well though. Mind you, I did have the very first graphics card that came with the cpu which was pretty bad. I use it to record video games and so far the quality has been decent. I'm sure I could make it better if I adjusted some settings. But otherwise it works fine. One thing I wanted to touch on in this review was the customer service. I used the online chat service and the response was both fast and helpful. And the rep knew what kind of graphics card I should get. I've read other reviews and they give some really bad reviews for the customer service for over the phone. I haven't tried that but I strongly suggest you use the chat feature on their site.

I got this software to pair it up with m powerful new dual core computer (E8500 @3.16Ghz) but it fell short on my expectations. The installation was a breeze and only took a few minutes. At once I notice that the performance was a little off hoping that it would fix itself with new drivers, upadates, things like that. I was wrong. It works fine but still could have better. Overall, choppy performance but if you are lucky and get a good copy you'll like it.

I bought my dazzle last year for recording my video game matches.I have a semi-pro team on xbox and without dazzle there would be no dazzle to show of.The price of 90$ is amazing considering what you get.Just the video editing software alone is worth 90$ or more.I have editing software that i paid 200$ for that can't match this.There are other capture cards out there but the HD ones go for like 200$.And that is 200$ too much.I have never had any problems with it yet.Very easy to use and totally fun.The DAZZLE is one of those rare GREAT BUY'S!

To setup you need to know a little about computers. Once the setup disk is loaded, my new Vista 64 bit computer did not recognize the Dazzle unit. I had to go to the website and download a driver. It should come on the disk. I was able to start the conversion, but you have to tell it you want to use the Dazzle unit in the software capture setup. It did fine on the conversion. Their editing and rendering software has never change on speed since I used it one other time years ago. It is slow. My computer has 6M RAM a fast dual processor and is made for everything video. Even with this my computer did not help their software. I have Sony Vegas software which I have used for years and even upgraded 3 times. It is 4 times faster on rendering that Pinnacle. The editing part of the Sony software is much friendlier. If conversion is all you want this to do, it will be OK, but don't count their software to finish the video. If you really need to convert VHS tapes wait for a sale or look for another product, otherwise Dazzle will not be worth it.