ADSTech DVD Xpress Capture Card

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ADSTech DVD Xpress

Analog VideoIn
MPEG1 hardware
MPEG2 hardware

Win95? Win98 Win2K WinXP
Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux?
*based on user reports.

USB2

$100

6.9/10
35 votes

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Description (from the manufacturer site)

DVD XPress is the fastest and easiest way to get Hollywood quality video into your computer so you can burn to disk or publish on to the Internet.

Now you can capture video into MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (VCD, SVCD or DVD) at up to 720 x 480 (720 x 576 PAL) from any analog or digital source. DVD XPress is the fastest and simplest way to get movies from video tape to a high quality VCD, SVCD or DVD disk. Capture video in the Easy to use Capture Wizard application or Video Studio 7 SE DVD and then “Create Disk” to burn your movies on to CD or DVD disk.

If you want to do more than straight archiving to disk, DVD XPress includes video editing with an integrate DVD Authoring tool that allow you to get very creative. Use Video Studio 7SE to add transitions, video filters, video overlay, fast or slow motion effects, and animated titles, back ground music and then Author your DVD disk.

DVD XPress utilizes the latest in video conversion and filtering technology to reduce noise on old VHS tapes to produce the highest quality video, DVD XPress also offers exclusive “Audio-Lock” technology to provide perfect lip synch all the way through the capture, edit and disk burning process.

Features:

USB 2.0 connection to the PC, backward compatible to USB 1.1
Capture audio and video via the USB port with “Audio-Lock” technology for perfect lip synch
Use temporal and spatial video pre-processing filters to help reduce noise on old VHS tapes or TV signals.
Supports MPEG 1 Layer 2 compressed and LPCM Audio
Capture from any analog video source in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video formats including VCD, SVCD and DVD formats via RCA (Composite) or S-VHS video inputs.
Capture DVD (MPEG-2) at video bit rates from 1 Mb/sec. up to 15 Mb/sec. (up to 4 Mb/sec. for USB 1.1 connections)
Capture using Constant or Variable bit rates and other custom settings.
Features a 9 bit video digitizer with 2x oversampling and 4 line comb filter Brightness, Contrast, Chroma, Saturation and Hue controls
Use Video Studio 7 SE DVD to capture and then burn to disk in quick, simple steps.

Visit manufacturer's site

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Four channel 1080P HDMI CATURE CARD
The welconn HDMI Capture card CB-HDMI001 is an update version of HD1080p card capturing and recording High Definition video sources on your desktop PC , It provides with only HDMI interface that can connect with kinds of high definition video equipments with HDMI cable. This Video Capture Card supports digital sources as DV camera, game console, HD STB and other HDMI digital input devices. It meets high-quality picture transfer requirements, can compress real-time digital video to MPEG-2,MPEG-4,and MOV files. HD1080p HD Video Capture Card is your ideal built-in video capture device!

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Dimension 121×133×23(mm)
weight 73g
OS support Windows XP SP2
interface PCI Express x 1
Fittings: Hdmi card;CD-ROM(ArcSoft ShowBizEnglish use guide.;HDMI Cable;
Save format: MPEG2;MP4;H264 MOV;H264;
Video format 480P;720P;1080i;1080P
environment OS ;Windows XP SP2 above(32 / 64bit)
CPU ; Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53GHz above
Memory ; 1GB RAM above
VGA Card ; 128MB above DirectX 9.0 above
GPU ; NVIDIA Geforce 8XXX above
ATI Radeon HD 4XXXabove
HDD ; 1GB above
resolution 1920×1080; - 30FPS
1920×1080i - 60FPS
1280×720 - 60FPS
720×480 - 60FPS
720×480i - 60FPS
machine PS3;Xbox 360; Blu-ray Film Display;PC HDMI,SET TOP box, broadcasting,CT machine and digital camcorders;Sony v8 , HI8 , D8 interface.

other: 4 channel HDMI interface,support HDCP ;
1080p 30fps have perfect performance by player;(PS3 use 1080i;

Size: 158×158×38(mm) / 165g
guarantee:1 years
software support:ARCSOFT license software,support Direct Show, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5;Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder;Microsoft Media Encoder&;AMCap;VLC Media Player, Ulead Video Studio X4 above software.

1.Your valid phone number is very necessary for the shipping, otherwise we can't guarantee that the package would safely arrives.
2. Any Customs tax applied to this package should be covered by buyers.

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WELCONN ENTERPRISE CO., LIMITED

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Comments posted by rehatman2011 from China, September 03, 2011:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

Hi. I am new to this forum. I am writing to offer my experience with a problem I believe that many have had with their ADS Tech DVD Xpress capture device. I, too, had serious problems with the device freezing and locking up my computer. What I found is that when I upgraded my CapWiz drivers from the original, (as ADS suggested), my problems would increase. I tried running a fan on my device, I tried lowering my color quality from 32 bit to 16 bit, I supplied power from my wall outlet to the device through a UPS to avoid current fluctuations. Nothing worked, until I recalled that I had no problems with my original drivers which came on the installation CD with my unit. So I un-installed the device, removed the newer CapWiz software, and went back to using CapWiz version 3.1. Voila! No more freezing, instead of recording only a few minutes to an hour of video I can record 24 hours or more. (I can't afford Tivo, so I record on my PC and watch it when I can.)
I love my DVD Xpress, I get a high quality picture and nearly perfect sound synchronization, and I only paid $49.00 for it! I hope this helps someone.

Comments posted by wally2914 from United States, March 29, 2008:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

I bought my first one, rev. 2, back in 2004. I had Win98se back then. It worked fine sometimes, and other times, it had problems. I figured out, by reading some good tips on video capture on a few websites, that the unit, like a lot of other video capturing units out there, just doesn't like the VIA chipset. There was a patch called the PCI Latency patch for the VIA chipset that solved the problems i was having SOME of the time. Other times, either the patch got written over, or another problem occured. Anyway, the color of the captured video would go in and out a lot of the time. What i mean by in and out is, it would go light red, dark red, light blue, dark blue, etc during certain scenes. I don't know why it would sometimes occur and sometimes not. I noticed that defragging the C: drive, as well as the drive I am capturing to, alleviates the color variation problem. Checking for viruses and spyware also helps out a lot. You don't want ANYTHING else going on in Windows other than the capturing you are doing. Turning off your virus/spyware checker, after you know that your system is free from viruses/spyware, is recommended, too. Lately, i've been using my DVD Xpress with a machine that has the NVidia chipset, and the video problems have not been present. I've gotten Perfect captures, with the tapes i am using, which are very old. I don't know if anyone has ever figured out the Spatial and Temporal video settings. I have some very old movies i wanna convert to DVD. Sometimes, the unit goes wacko if it experiences synch problems while playing the tapes, and it locks up Capwiz. Then i have to close capwiz, and restart. I am hopeful that the Temporal and Spatial settings can alleviate the lockups, but i don't have the slightest idea which numbers to mess around with. The Spatial setting goes from 0-7, while the Temporal goes from 0-255. If i can figure out a good number to start at, maybe i can convert those old tapes to DVD before i can't watch the tapes anymore.

Anyway, of all those people out there that commented that the unit wasn't any good, my guess is they were using the VIA chipset. I am telling you, that this is a great little unit! I am sure that the unit, coupled with SiS, NVidia or other chipsets besides VIA out there, probably produce some great captures. I even tested the thing about the VIA chipset not capturing well, and it's true. I used my 1.4 gig system, which has VIA, and the videos have the color problems. VERY tacky looking captures. Then, with the same DVD Xpress unit, i hook it to my 1.8 gig system with the NVidia chipset. I install Capwiz, and set it up exactly like it was on the VIA machine. Then i test the same video tape, with the same vcr, and VOILA! Some seriously beautiful capturing. It's consistant color. There is no color problem. The colors aren't changing from dark to light and back to dark again.

So if anyone out there has problems with their DVD Xpress unit, or any other video capture unit, and uses the VIA chipset, just go online, and look for the VIA chipset latency patch, and install it. It may help things dramatically. Then again, the patch, like i said above, was a bit flakey.

Comments posted by snafubaby from United States, September 03, 2007:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98 Win2K WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

The most recent driver and capture software 3.8.0.10 now can capture in MPEG4 or Dvix format and allow one scheduled recording by entering the date and time. ADS did listen to its customers! I was one of the many (I am sure) who emailed ADS to add the scheduled recording feature in its capture software. Although scheduling multiple recordings would have been even better!

I have used both Rev.1 and Rev.2. Both never have a/v out of sync or freezing issue. Rev.1 is known for the over-heat issue, and many including me worked around it by having a fan blow at it. Rev.2 does not have over-heat issue, but you can still set the fan at a lower speed blowing if the heat bothers you.

I used one of them for one whole year on a daily basis, and capturing many hours a day. I used VBR at 2Mbps MPEG2 352x480 to squeeze 4 hours on a DVD. The video processing filters are great to have. In my case, the capture bitrate is low, but these filters help smoothen pixelation and the trade-off is a less-sharp video. I have seen a Panasonic DVD recorder's LP (4 hours on a DVD) quality which suffers big time whenever there is a motion, you get ugly blocks!

Comments posted by ADS DVD Xpress Fan from United States, April 02, 2007:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

When I received the unit a year ago (after grabbing it for £20 on eBay - I must have been lucky!) I was very pleased. I had Instant DVD 1 and was looking forward to many improvements:
- audio and video are sent via USB rather than just video
- perfect lip synch (Instant DVD 1 was mainly ok but sometimes synch problems occurred)
- higher quality MPeg files (IDVD 1 only went up to 6Mbps)
I was even more delighted to see that ADS had a new version of CapWiz which could capture to DivX.
Initially my impressions were good and all of the things I expected were delivered. The first issue I noticed was the saturation problem whereby bright reds can cause the colour tone to "flicker". This only seems to happen on consumer Video tapes but it is quite annoying. I mainly bought the unit to capture from Hi8 camcorder tapes and the problem doesn't seem to arise here.

The second issue I noticed only cropped up six months or so later: the problem of the capture freezing at some unspecified time into the session (usually around the 45 min mark). ADS Tech responded to all my queries in this regard very promptly (within minutes in some cases) and finally suggested it might be overheating. I decided I could live with this problem and just capture movies in two sittings and patch together with VideoStudio.

Recently ADS released version 3.7 of CapWiz and after I installed this the freeze problem went away. So I am happy again. However, a new problem has started to occur whereby capturing from a VHS tape starts with blue patches over black and white. Thankfully the fix for this is easy: press stop on VCR while still capturing and let it lock on to the blue standby screen and then press Play again. I have never had any problem with lip synch.

Its a nice compact unit and offers a great deal of flexibility in capture quality. The saturation flicker and freeze problems do detract from what could have been a fantastic product.

Comments posted by Ashley Emery from United Kingdom, April 02, 2006:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 7 of 10.

I Have had the freezing up problem but have had it rectified by calling the tech at ADS. This was his advice and it has worked with no more freezing ever since. He had me go into the Display settings quality and change it from 32 bit to 16 bit and he also told me to run defrag. My second harddrive needed defragging real bad so now it captures real good. I have captured 3 movies in a row and what I thought was a heat problem was not! Now I have to get rid of some Capwiz bugs that keep me from burning. Up to now I have had to use nero to burn'em.

Comments posted by wag220 from United States, February 06, 2006:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 5 of 10.

I'm an absolute novice with capture cards - so I got this as I figured it would easily get some VHS tapes onto DVD.
I liked the manual - seemed very clear what to do - which is pretty easy - plug it in is about as hard as it gets.
However - the capture software (capwiz) didn't recognise the DVD Xpress was attached. Windows did, just not the capture software itself.
I installed/reinstalled drivers. Rebooted. Unplugged and switched back on - nothing.
So I contacted ADSTech support ("we answer within 72 hours").
3 weeks later - nothing. And all this time I had tried the box over and over again. Every now and then it would work - for (at most) 5 minutes of capturing, before a complete freeze, and then back to the old 'not recognised'
So I just ordered something by plextor to see if I have any luck.
But interestingly - and I'd pay attention to this if you intend buying this device - today, after 3 weeks, I got my reply from tech support. It's brilliant:

" CapWiz probably froze because you are using an old or damaged video tape. Try a commercial one. Kind regards"

So I guess they think you have commercial broadcast tapes and want them on DVD. For the real world - you're screwed, apparently.
Insane.

Comments posted by Mike from United Kingdom, November 22, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? ~~WinXP~~ Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 2 of 10.

when i first got this (Rev B by the way) it would only capture for about 1/2 hour and then would freeze up in CapWiz and get very hot. after a computer guru i know put a little heat sink on the main chip, i can capture for more than 3 hours straight and havent had anymore freezeups.

Comments posted by bartonhall from Canada, October 06, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: No rating.

I was suprisied at the quality of the finished product.
So far I have used it for about 4 hours.
No problems.
Use bitrate of 8mbs for great quality.
Avoid variable bitrate.
DVD quality is as good and in some cases better as the original tape.
Can't ask for more than that.
I use Athlon XP 2000+, 1.68Ghz. 512mb RAM. Windows XP.
By the way, I am not easy to please. I am not satisfied with junk.
This is just a great product when configured properly.
I have talked to a couple of people who had problems with freeze-ups and when I asked if they had checked DMA settings they said "What?".
When they enabled DMA the problems were solved.
I have Rev.2 which prevents the heat issue which I have heard about with Rev.1
It does get warm but not hot. I still plan to use a fan anyway.
Best wishes to all.

Comments posted by Rob Lopps from United States, September 08, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

ADS Tech DVDXpress Rev.2 is a great box.
In 2 weeks I converted 5 MiniDV (PAL) tapes and 2 Compact VHS
(NTSC) tapes.
All burned perfectly.

Used Cheapo CyberHome DVD player ($30) to (test) play PAL and
NTSC DVDs connected to NTSC TV.

It was 85 degrees in my computer room and the DVDXpress box
did not blow up or freeze due to heat.

Rating = 8 since the Capwiz and Ulead software are so so.

Comments posted by Frank Spencer from United States, July 19, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

Just a few tips for best results:
1 Download the last version of CapWiz (ADS website)
2 Capture using 8MB/sec - NOT variable rate (USB 2.0)
3 Create a DVD with whatever software you are using – save to a folder
3 Shrink the result if is bigger than a blank DVD

Comments posted by Mr. B. from Canada, July 14, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 7 of 10.

After spending two much time trying to get useful results from the DVD Xpress, I am returning it and waiting for something else. I did a bunch of research on these two products (IDVD2 and Xpress) and on the new IDVD3 coming out in April. What I write are my beliefs on what the average user would experience and what they should be getting for their money. Buyer beware here with ANY video capture product because the quality of the video signal input into these capture devices can vary greatly! Devices can and should be designed to be robust enough to handle these signals.
First, I write about my experience with the hardware I bought:
1) The DVD Xpress is the Cirrus Logic USB-DVR 8.0 reference design, complete with PCB, put into a ADS plastic case. The design is based on the CS92199 MPEG encoder chip. It uses a cheapo TI TVP5150A video decoder that has problems tracking the nasty output from a consumer grade VCR and the normal kind of nasty tapes a typical user would attempt to convert to a DVD. This shows up as "saturation flicker" and other problems. Apparently, with this marginal video decoder, the CS92199 and/or the PC drivers provided from Cirrus has a very hard time correctly encoding a good MPEG 2 stream without dropping frames and creating audio lip sync errors. Another artifact of this marginal tracking ablity is when a user puts his VCR into "FF" or "REW" modes while previewing the video to get to the right section of the tape the Xpress preview will hang and the user must stop and restart the preview! This is VERY annoying and a poor design! Even though the chip and the design are marketed as having "Audio-Lock" technology for perfect lip sync, I and other users (as seen on these forums) are still having significant audio/video sync issues which I believe relate to how poorly the hardware design and/or driver software handles normally crappy video tape played back on these consumer grade VCRs. If the average user mostly has his family memories on VHS, the design should have been robust enough to handle it!! One solution to these problems would have been to time-base-correct this video signal. I believe that doing so would correct the vast majority of problems (software hangs, bad video streams, audio lip sync errors, color flicker, "saturation flicker", no previewing a tape in FF or REW trick playing modes, and other problems). But, buying an external TBC to correct average (poor) video sources can set you back several hundred dollars! There is a better solution which I will detail later and should only cost about $15 more.
2) The IDVD2 product is the Cirrus Logic USB-DVR 2.0 reference design based on the CS92288 MPEG CODEC chip. With the right stuffing options and/or daughter card, the design can become the IDVD DV product which allows a user to output video and also input DV. It uses the much better video decoder chip from Philips, the SAA7114. This video decoder can track well the nasty video signals output from consumer grade VCRs, even in VCR trick play modes like FF or REW. However, from what I still am reading about audio lip sync problems, software hangs, etc. present on this design, it still appears that the CS92288 chip itself and/or the drivers can't handle crappy video signals unless it has been TBC'ed.
3) The IDVD3 product that ADS will ship in April (see their press release) is really the Cirrus Logic USB-DVR 3.0 reference design based on the CS92688 MPEG CODEC chip. This design eliminates the DV daughterbaord required cause it is built into the chip itself. This reference design uses an enhanced Philips video decoder chip, the SAA7115 which is pin compatiable with the SAA7114. Cirrus and ADS will license the Dolby AC3 coder for the CS92688 such that users can encode into AC3 in real-time, just like MPEG audio. Other enhancements include MP3 audio encoding in real-time and some type of Divx support (I assume it is real-time encoding with Divx certification but I am not sure yet). Since this is a newer design with newer drivers, I am holding out hope that they have made the design much more robust with crappy video sources!! I might wait and buy this version and give ADS and Cirrus another chance. Note that ANY MPEG encoder design can greatly benefit from video being TBC'ed and cleaned up (3D noise filtering, etc.) prior to the encoding process. Attempts to use "spatial" and "temporal" pre-processing are only band-aids in my opinion but can help some.
BTW: Crappy video signals are common. It comes from tape head switchs (even when the camcorder had "flying erase heads"), gaps in the recorded video on a tape, normal tape dropouts, degraded video signals on the tape itself, copies of copies, poor mechanical alignment and wobble of the typical VCR itself, crushed sync, bad termination of the video signal, poor cables, etc. I hope you can see that a VCR mostly puts out crap! A typical TV has been designed to handle such crappy video (even copyprotection schemes that mess with the video signal itself) and will happily play such signals often without the user noticing much picture degradation.
IF, you the user, expect to mostly or only feed these video capture devices with near broadcast quality video, then you should not experience the problems I detail above! Just know what you are getting into! A highly stable video source would be one output from a Satellite receiver (make sure you connect using S-Video cables!), output from a laser-disc player, output from a DVD player, output from a game machine like an Xbox or Playstation 2, output from a cable box (analog or digital type), a live feed output from a cable TV tuner built into the typical VCR tuned to a good channel, and finally, a live camcorder feed. These signal sources are much cleaner and very stable given todays technology.

[Technical Stuff: What would I request ADS and Cirrus to do that would REALLY correct once and for all almost all the problems I have seen and heard about?? Add a simple full video frame buffer memory design (OKI frame memory) between the better video decoder (Philips SAA7114 at a minimum - flush the TI piece of crap) and the Cirrus encoder chip (all versions). Add an EPLD for simple control logic and a 27Mhz osc. Run the input from the video decoder with it's line locked clock into the frame buffer. Use the stable 27Mhz osc to clock out this time-base-corrected video from the frame buffer into the Cirrus encoder chip. Run the Cirrus audio clocks from the SAA7114's audio clock generator which is line-locked with the crappy video. Do robust audio buffer and PTS driver work so that you don't glitch the audio. You could do this as a stuffing option and make another group of products (say the DVDEXpressPlus and the IDVD3Plus) that uses as a marketing bullet the fact that you have a built-in TBC! Users would flock to this level of devices and your tech support crew would love you!! The BOM cost adder for doing such a thing should be less than $15 likely less in volume. Next, spend a bunch of time on really TESTING the snot out of the design (hardware and software) with all types and kinds of video sources and conditions!! Don't make your customer a ginny-pig! Hey, I spent several years designing consumer grade video products. I even worked for Philips at one time and spent a lot of time working with real users on such products. Great video products can and should live up to marketing hipe! Consumers will reward companies that fix their problems with real, quality solutions and a company CAN charge good money for it.]

Comments posted by SHood from United States, March 27, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 2 of 10.

very good deal for the money, great software included, get a USB 2 card if you don't have one, USB 1.1 works with this device , but is slowww, i use the movie factory SW the most, the capture wizard SW has audio sync problems, even with USB 2, overall, easy to use solution for capture and digital conversions

Comments posted by todd from United States, February 07, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

Bought DVD Express at Wal-Mart for $79. Could not get it to work on Win98 USB1 or USB2. CapWiz and ALL software would just crash and never run. Went ahead and re-installed Win2K. Still no luck although no crashes; just had NO preview using VHS or external DVD player. D/L'ed and installed the Win2K Rev. B driver from ADS Tech; works like a charm! Finally getting my moneys worth out of it; converting all my old VHS tapes to DVD.

Comments posted by Terry Broullette from United States, January 29, 2005:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

Pros:
- pretty good quality compared to other products in the same price range that I tried.
- fast hardware MPEG-2 converter, so it won't overburden your computer. All of the software based MPEG cards and USB devices I tried produced far worse video, with significant frame drops, even when running on dual AMD2600+ with 1GB or RAM. This box runs well even on medium range laptop.
- USB2 interface is very convenient.
Cons:
- software is very poor. CapWiz is a crude program and has a number of bugs. It can be reasonably used to write directly to disk, but my success rate was about 2/3-3/4. You have a better luck saving captured video on hard drive and then using another program to burn DVDs.
- CapWiz does freeze from time to time. I didn't notice any heat related issues though. But when recording from VCR I did notice when the tracking started flashing, or I switched channels on VCR, the chances of CapWiz freezing is very high. You need to kill the program and restart it.
- ULEAD software is a total piece of junk. It crashed, it hanged, it showed wrong video sizes, it gave me device busy errors, it told me no capture device was available, etc. I downloaded a trial version of the latest release from ulead.com - it's also a piece of junk. It does have a better success rate, I even created a dozen of DVDs with it, but it's even slower than the previous version. Finally, I yanked all the ulead stuff from my pc and installed Nero suite. It's far better, but still a piece of junk. I've tried many other applications and so far I haven't found anything stable, fast and convenient in a reasonable price range. I guess we have to wait until Microsoft writes a video suite to get a decent software for under $100.

Comments posted by Homer J from United States, October 23, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 7 of 10.

I tried unsuccessfully for almost a year trying to capture any thing larger than a SVCD without dropped frames and horizontal distortion lines with an A.T.I. All in Wonder VE. I got all the software up grades, installed and them exactly as the guide in DVD help said to and still had crappy results. The software ( any and all versions of MMC ) said I had not installed DirectX on my system and I darned well know it is there and working.
I was in Wal-Mart the other day and saw the ADS DVD Express and thought I’d give it a try. It works flawlessly on my system. The picture looks great and the Ulead software that came with it is easy to use, unlike anything ATI has produced.
I’m running XP Pro, an AMD2800+ processor and 1 gig PC 2700 DDR memoryand an Asylum GeForce 5800 video card. ( I threw the Radeon 9200 in the trash with the All in Wonder VE.) The motherboard is an Asrock with a VIA chipset. I'll never buy another ATI product again.I bought the DVD Xpress for $78.99 at Wal-mart.

Comments posted by Ted from United States, October 02, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 10 of 10.

Sux - Continual total lockup during recording. My machine is very stable. I am currently running a Pinnacle PCI PCTV without incident (after the usual driver tweaking) Tried different drivers(motherboard, USB, video card, Xpress ect.) uninstall - reinstall, different USB cables, saving to different harddrives, remved the RAID, reconfigured the machine, opened the Xpress case and cooled the chips with a fan... Before I threw this piece of crap away I hit it with a hammer to prevent anyone that may find it in the dump from being caught in the ADS aggravation torture tool called the DVD Xpress.

Comments posted by Bob from United States, September 16, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 1 of 10.

Long story short: Great box!

I have been burning over 100 DVDs using this box. Having a fan blow to the box solves the heat issue.

My process is:
Capture to MPEG2, edit with Womble, and burn with TMPGEnc.

The only down side is the the quality of lower bitrate like 2Mbps introduces more pixelation.

Wish list:
1. to customize average and max. bitrates for VBR
2. to schedule multiple recordings

Comments posted by ADS DVD Xpress Fan from United States, August 12, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

Bought this unit (Rev.2) from Circuit City for $99 with a $20 rebate. Initially I had some freeze up issues during captures due to heat build up (yes, even the rev.2 units still have the problem). I removed the rubber feat, opened the case and inserted some heat sinks on the (3) chips that were generating the most heat. I used my Dremmel tool and a cutoff disk to custom make the heatsinks from an old spare motherboard chipset heatsink I had laying around. After installation of the heatsinks I reassembled the unit, hooked it up, and captured 2 hrs of video with no lock-ups. MUCH cooler after adding the heatsinks:)

Video quality is very good.
Capwiz was easy to use.
Ulead Videostudio 7SE is easy to understand and does all I need it to do (download the tutorial from Ulead's site).
Overall I feel good very good about the purchase.
If you don't mind opening it up and modding it to cool it down, then its a steal for $79 (after rebate). If you expect to get great results on long captures straight out of the box look elsewhere.

Be sure to download the latest Capwiz 3.1 from ADS site. Most likely the installation CD won't have the latest Capwiz version. Don't get the Master Installer, get Capwiz 3.1 seperate and install. The Master Installer simply has Capwiz and DirectX 9.0 in the same download, but for some reason it was Fubar for me. Make sure you download the Ulead Videostudio 7SE patch while at the ADS site.

Had I spent $300 on this unit and still had to mod it to get it working right I'd be pissed, but $79 and a bit of time spent fixing the heat issue and I feel golden:)

Comments posted by Mike from United States, July 26, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

I bought this unit last week at Costco, and I'm pleased with the results. So far I have captured about 17 hours of video from my old 8mm video tapes.

The software installed without a glitch, but did crash a couple of times right after I installed it. Its stable now, and hasn't crashed since the first couple of times - it might have been my hardware - I did a cold boot...

I found that the editting software wasn't very intuitive, but it does work once you figure it out. Being able to add my own background and music to the DVD menu is a nice touch - I used a faded image capture from the video as a background.

Atleast one of the transitions caused a loud sound blip in the final result, but i'm sure you could edit it out, if you wanted. Except for some initial testing, I'm not using many of the transitions.

A two hour video takes 2 hours to capture (of course) and about 1 hour to burn to DVD (4x drive). I have a 3.4 ghz p4, 1gb memory and a 60 gb 7200 rpm drive. You will need lots of disk space for mpg files and temporary files - 60 gb is too small, especially if you have a number of tapes to do, and you want to keep the mpg files.

When the software got to the DVD burning, it said it was burning at 1x (not 4x), and ejected the DVD at 27% complete! I think there is a math problem, because the DVD was complete, start to finish, without any glitches (I went through it, just to be sure).

I haven't had any problems with overheating - the hardware is revision 2. I run the unit for four hours at a time, capturing 2 tapes.

For a basic entry level unit, that has software with some basic capabilities, this is a great unit. Make sure the hardware is rev 2 - the bottom of the capture unit shows "Part Number: USBAV-701 Rev.2"

Comments posted by L from Canada, June 26, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

I've read the comments in this forum, and held off buying this unit, until they went on sell for $59 at a local compusmart chain store.The unit is revision 2 , so there are no heat problems.It installed without a problem on my system.(however , I downloaded and installed the latest version of capwiz as the one on the install CD wasn't the latest version).Ulead video studio installed and is also running great.All of my captures from my HI8 tapes were made without any problems.(2 hours at a time) and the capwiz program gives good flexability as far as bitrate settings and capture resolutions(to match your source).I have made several DVD's now, with minor edits and chapter point insertions, and the quality is very good.Capwiz for capturing and Ulead VS7 ,included on the install CD were the only programs I used to complete my projects.Iwas hesitant to try this product because of some of the negative comments, but am pleased that I gave it a chance.By the way, the following is a good site from actual users, http://p211.ezboard.com/fpyro1394frm8

Comments posted by fred from Canada, June 21, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

Great little thing. It really captures MPEG-2 in decent quality with not audio sync problems. The software bundle is of an amazing value and usefulness considering the price specially if you a just starting. I like that you can install just the capture application which is simple, elegant intuitive, no invasive and have plenty of features, including VBR so you can use bitrates as low as 2.4 Mb/s and still get decent quality, this will give you about 4 hours per DVD disc!. Also there is the option to capture in separate streams Video and audio.
I got mine from a special deal in Compusa for $50 after rebate.
I have it hook in to the S-Video connection of my S-VHS VCR to record live TV and kinky Tapes ;-O.
Make sure that you have get latest hardware (revision 2). But have not idea what they have change.
DVDXpress use the Cirrus Logic CS92199 encoder which seems to be an update to the CS92288 that others are using like the Compro Live TV.
What separate this product from perfection is the following.
No option to encode audio as AC-3 in hardware, despite that the chip seems to support it. Why this is important?
Because the specs for DVD in NTSC format requires AC-3 (Dolby Digital) to be 100% compliant. DVDXpress can capture in MPEG1 Layer2 audio which is good but not compliant with the DVD specs. This creates some compatiblities issues in some DVD settop players and authoring applications, but chances are that many support loose DVD specs and will play fine. Anyways I think the only Video converter at this class that capture AC-3 is Plextor convertX, but it does it in software, which is an invitation to audio sync problems.

Some minor details are that there is no power switch. Just imagine to unplug your TV every time you wanted to turn it off!!
Also there is no timer for VCR style recording, altough you can set a delay time to start recording.
Other than that you can't go wrong with this little thing, specially if you can find it for $50.
So if you are looking a great value Analog to Digital video coverter, this is the one, I recommend it.

Comments posted by Lucem from United States, May 31, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 8 of 10.

DONT EVEN TRY THIS THING !!!.

i have been capturing video for for a long time now,
using an aver dvd eazy maker capture card, and was very happy with it.

i wanted to cut the encoding time, so i decided to get the
ads dvd express.

BIG MISTAKE, its mpeg 2 captures are very low level.
and i can get twice the qulity with my aver dvd eazy maker
and than convert to mpeg using mainconcept encoder.

in my opinion the dvd express is for people who just dont
know any better.
you can get much more qulity with a standart tv capture card.

and i have tested it too !!!

i made two clips of video,
one with the dvd express (directly to mpeg 2)
and one with the aver dvd eazymaker (avi + encoding)
and even my mother could tell which one was better !

if you intended to back up your old VHS tapes - think again.
you want it backed up with qulity, dont you?

dont waste you money - buy something ealse.

Comments posted by yogev from Israel, May 27, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP? Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: No rating.

I picked up a DVD Xpress at CompUSA for $49AR a few weeks ago. I wasn't enthused about capturing with a TV tuner and doing the whole software filter/encode thing overnight, so I figured I'd give the DVD Xpress a shot for $49AR since it would theoretically be much quicker.

After capturing about 80 hours of video I'd have to say I'm very pleased with the DVD Xpress. I've gotten very good results capturing from a DirecTivo, which isn't a great source since it means re-encoding MPEG2 video. Since a lot of my saved stuff was on local channels it's worse because DirecTV uses higher compression rates (= more artifacts) on local channels. I'll address a couple of points from previous posters and things I noticed myself (BTW I'm using the latest CapWiz version and device drivers downloaded from ADS' site):

1) Heat - the unit I have doesn't get hot at all. I've now done 6 hour captures straight without any problems and it gets warm, but not hot. The unit I have is the rev 2; not sure exactly what the rev 2 changes are, but from what I've read the older units have a higher voltage/amp power supply.

2) Stopping during capture - I had ZERO problems with CapWiz under Win98SE. The only issue I had with Win98SE was the 4GB FAT32 limit, which limited my captures to ~3 to 3½ hours. XP was another story. I had stopped captures all the time. I installed DirecX 9.0b and it helped a little. What fixed the problem under XP was going to Windows Update and downloading all the updates. I don't know exactly which update fixed the problems but I suspect it was the post-SP1 USB update that might have done it. The only problem I have now with the DVD Xpress is that it disappears occasionally from Device Manager and has to be powered off and back on.

3) I used half D1 for captures. Higher bitrates gave great results, but I wanted eight 1/2 hour commercial-free episodes on a disc. I found that capturing at 2.7Mb/sec was ideal and gave results pretty close to the original (considering the quality of the original). Also, by adjusting the filters in the Custom Settings you can soften the artifacts without making the overall video image too soft. Authoring half D1 was a bit of an issue. Some authoring programs' output didn't play in my Pioneer DV333. TMPGEnc Author works just fine.

5) The MPEG2 files from the DVD Xpress are, for the lack of a better term, more "DVD friendly" than my software MPEG2 test encodes. I'd found that when I encoded using the TMPGEnc encoder my player didn't like the outputted files a whole lot. They'd play, but stuff like FF/REW and scanning didn't work well - they start scanning and wouldn't stop. With the DVD Xpress files, the scanning stops shortly after releasing the button or immediately by pressing the Play button.

The only software complaint I have is that the Custom Settings in CapWiz doesn't allow you to select any bitrate - they only allow the standard VCD/SVCD/DVD bitrates plus specific bitrates like 3.0, 3.5, 4.0Mb/sec, etc up to 15Mb/sec. In order to get my ideal 2.7Mb/s bitrate I had to edit the registry.

In short, I've been pretty pleased with the DVD Xpress. For $49AR it's portable, VERY easy to use, easier to install than PCI-based solutions, and has good quality output.

Comments posted by WetWilly from United States, May 19, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98 Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

I have read all the comments in this site, and surprised to see none of them talked about the simplest and cheapest solution to HEAT-UP problem of the box. Don't you have a small table fan or something - just blow cold air on the box and all your problem is solved.
In fact I am now so happy that I decided to write this comment which is really my first comment on any product. Initially I bought the DVD Xpress from Circuit City paying $99.99. Then found out the ways to resolve heat problem, while capturing video from my camcorder DV and old VHS. It is true Ulead's software is jammy, I must have done something wrong while playing with settings. Since then sound that appears captured and do good playback, but when DVD is burned, I get no sound. That too, for portion of splitted video files that I merged into one project. Saying that, I should not have been happy, right? I know solution of "no sound" will come soon - I only need to study a bit on audio subject.
I am happy because today I could order another box from CompuUSA for $49.99 after mail-in rebate. Now, I am going to return the older one to Circuit City. It's a fantastic deal now. A beautiful machine in less than $50 bucks. Wah!

Comments posted by Syamal from United States, April 22, 2004:
Compatibility: Win95? Win98? Win2K? WinXP Vista? NT4? MAC? Linux? - Rated: 9 of 10.

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Feature
What kind of main capture features it supports
Analog VideoIn = Analog composite or/and SVHS video input
Video Card = If it is a Video Card/Graphic Card
Tv Tuner = Built-In TV-Tuner
Digital TV = Built-In Digital TV-Tuner
DV/Firewire = DV/Firewire/i.Link input
DV Converter = Analog composite or/and SVHS video input and converts to DV video
MPEG1 hardware = Capture directly MPEG1(VCD) video using hardware*
MPEG2 hardware = Capture directly MPEG2(SVCD and DVD) video using hardware*
MJPEG hardware = Capture directly to MJPEG using hardware*
MPEG4 hardware = Capture directly to MPEG4(DivX,Xvid) video using hardware*
* = Most capture cards can capture to this format using software but it usually requires a very fast computer, if it supports realtime capturing it uses the capture cards hardware and it doesn't require a very fast computer and you may get better quality but less options/settings than software capturing.

Compatibility
What Operating System our users have reported that it works on, Win95=Works ~~Win95~~=Does not work Win95?=Not tested This is user based.

Cnx = Connection
What type of connection the capture device has to the computer, PCI, AGP, USB1/1.1/2, DV or PCMCIA.

Price
The price in US dollar.

Rating
The first rating is based on a weighted rank (the true Bayesian), it requires at least 5 votes to get a weighted rating.
The second rating between the ( ) is a normal average rating.

Comment
User comments, click on view to view them or add to post a own comment.

We can not gurantee that this list is 100% correct. Don't forget to read the User Comments for more Info about each Capture card. If you find any features that are not correct contact us instead of posting a comment about it.