Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased the VC600 for my Windows 7 64-bit computer despite reading through the bad reviews of this product and I'm glad I did. My VHS transfers come out terrific and yours will too but you need to know how I'm doing it to get these results.
1. Install the drivers only. You don't need or even want the video capture software packaged with this unit!
2. After you restart your computer, you need to click Start then right click on Computer (or My Computer if you have XP) and then get into the Device Manager to ensure there are no exclamation marks (missing drivers) for the newly added VC600 device. If you find one, right click on it and choose to update the driver. You'll need to point the update to the correct driver directory embedded in the CD. Make sure you're using the right driver for your operating system. The folders that hold the drivers on the CD are labeled with the various versions (and bit type of 32 or 64) so you know which one to use. If you're not sure which Windows version you have, click Start then right click on Computer and take note.
3. Now that the drivers are installed, you need to install some decent video capture software. [...] offers Windows Media Encoder for free! It's quite usable once setup. Get it here: [...].
4. After Windows Media Encoder is installed, I usually blow right past the wizard start page and get right into the menus. You need to change the source of video and audio to be your VC600 device. You then need to decide what level of video and audio compression you want (better quality means bigger files). I have mine set to CD audio quality with video at its best settings. The resulting WMV file output is roughly 5GB for every 30 minutes of video using these settings. The picture is 640x480 (standard since I'm using old VHS tapes from 15 years ago!) and clarity is just right. Be sure you've plugged everything into the back of the VHS machine correctly (hint: yellow is not white!) then play a tape to test the configuration.
One word of caution: Once you start encoding using Windows Media Encoder, you must either allow the entire tape to complete or stop then create a new WMW file. I tried pausing in WME but found the sound fell out of sync with video. I've found the best solution is to stop and start encoding so that you don't go past about 30 minutes in time. The results come out fine if you decide to go all the way to 2 hours (a full VHS tape) but I found it more difficult to edit the resulting WMV file (using either Windows Live Movie Maker or Pinnacle 12). For some reason, neither of my editing programs can see the sections of the video when displaying the storyboard. Stick with 30 minute files and I think you'll be happier if you choose to edit these videos before burning to DVD.
Again, this is a great, little product for the money. It does what it claims to do but does require better encoding/capturing software than what comes in the box. Be sure you're not doing anything else during encoding as the process if very resource hungry! I hope this helps future shoppers and home video enthusiasts!
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