Elgato Video Capture, USB 2.0 Analog to Digital Adapter

I just bought the Elgato Video Capture and I absolutely love it. It's dead simple and does exactly what I want. In the box: - Elgato Video Capture hardware - Elgato Video Capture software CD-ROM (for Mac 10.5.8+ and Windows 7) - Cyberlink PowerDirector 8 CD-ROM - Proof of purchase key (on the Video Capture software CD envelope, which I never had to type in anywhere for some reason) - Composite-to-SCART adaptor - Composite video/RCA stereo cable (which is only three feet long, so you may want to invest in a longer cord) Something to keep in mind if you're going to purchase this used like I did, the one I bought came with everything but the Cyberlink PowerDirector 8 CD and the composite to SCART adaptor, so I can't comment on either of those items. But I believe if you have iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, you probably won't need the PowerDirector program. Also, although I don't intend to install this on Windows (especially considering my laptop is running Vista, not 7), I'm very happy that this device works on both Mac and Windows. Setup (I'm using an Intel iMac, running Leopard 10.5.8 with 4GB RAM): Setup was quick and painless: connect the composite cables into the back of the device you want to record from (in my case, the TV 1 area on the back of my DVR). Connect the other ends into the Elgato capture hardware and then plug the USB into a USB port on your computer. Then install the application by putting the CD in and then dragging the app icon into the /Applications folder. Boom, done. The Software: The app itself is very straightforward and I haven't had any issues with it crashing or hanging. The app is in a setup format: Screen 1: Naming the video file and choosing how long the recording will be. The time length option is only for letting you know how many MB the final file will be, rather than a time restriction. Screen 2: Selecting the video input and aspect ratio. Here, you can select if the video input is S-Video or Composite and if the aspect ratio is 4:3 or 16:9. Personally, I would play around with the aspect ratio to get the best looking picture. For instance, even though my TV is a widescreen, I chose 4:3 in the app and adjusted my TV to stretch 4:3 (non-HD) video across the screen (making it 16:9) and that was the best choice for video quality (in my opinion). I used 16:9 in the app to record a 16:9 (HD) video. It really depends, so I would suggest doing a couple of tests with different settings to see what will give you the best video quality. Screen 3: Audio check. Nothing to do here except make sure you have sound. Screen 4: Recording. There are two checkboxes for automatically stopping the recording after 10 minutes and muting the sound (not of the recording but of the playback over your computer speakers) and a large red record button. There is next to no lag time when you press the record button. Also, there's a timer at the bottom of the screen that shows how long you've been recording, as well as how large the file is becoming (which is very helpful to know). A 30 second clip is about 6mb, so make sure you have plenty of space on your hardrive. Screen 5: Viewing and trimming the video. If you recorded too much, you can trim the beginning and end (no ability to trim video from the middle). You don't have to utilize this feature if you plan on editing in iMovie later but it's very helpful if you just want to trim, export and go. Screen 6: Once you make it to this page, the video will export to the location of your choice (which you can choose in the Preferences pane). This screen lists where the file was saved, as well as giving you options to play the video in Quicktime Player, add to iTunes, edit with iMovie and upload to Youtube (the app stays open if you choose any of the options). At the bottom are two buttons to exit the app or begin the process again. The Preferences are also short and sweet: Tab 1: Choose where the videos will be saved, which format the video will be (Automatic, MPEG-4 or H.264) and a checkbox for checking for updates automatically [haven't had any updates (and I probably won't since I'm on Leopard) but I feel better knowing that updates will come in the app rather than requiring me to go searching all over]. Tab 2: Video adjustments (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Hue controlled by percentage sliders, which you can adjust while watching the video, before recording) Tab 3: Audio adjustments (Volume) Video and Audio Quality: Here are some screencaps showing the video quality: Screencap of a 4:3 recording (originally 4:3 video stretched to 16:9 on the TV): [...] Screencap of a 4:3 recording (originally 4:3 video kept at 4:3 on the TV): [...] Screencap of a 16:9 recording (originally 16:9 video kept at 16:9 on the TV): [...] I was worried the video quality wouldn't be very good, based on some of the reviews, but I'm very happy with it. It's not HD quality but I didn't expect it to be (you're using composite cables... can't get much better than 480i). It's slightly fuzzy but otherwise, very acceptable for my purposes (I just wanted to archive some clips on my computer, not burn Blu-ray quality video to disc). Compared to the Dazzle DVC 80 I used to use long ago, this is much better. I'd give the video quality a 4.5 out of 5. The audio quality is superb. Negatives (nitpicks, really): - I don't like that the app always creates a new folder in the /Documents folder called EyeTV Archive. There's nothing in it... so why is it there? It's harmless enough but I just hate when programs create folders unasked. - I wish the input source and audio check screens were located in the preferences pane instead of the main app. Once it's set up, I don't need to adjust the input (it is what it is) or audio (I can hear the audio through my computer speakers when I'm on the record screen so I'll know if the audio is working or not). It's just a bit of a waste, having to run through those screens every time. Overall: I fell in love with this device after five minutes and I think you will, too. It does what it says it will and it does it well.

I have an old 8 mm Sony camera that used FireWire for uploading the video to a computer. It worked great on windows XP. But when Windows 7 released it was glitchy, and I’ve never been able to get it to work on windows 10. It also has a component video audio out port. That is a small 2 1/2 mm plug that adapts to the yellow red white component video connections. It is an amazing old camera but technology moved away from fire wire. I sent the camera to a high-end camera shop that cleaned and tested it. I read a number of Internet blogs on how to make fire wire work with windows 10. I download countless drivers, tried numerous configurations, and it would not upload video. I finally gave up on the FireWire cable, and purchase the Pinnacle Dazzle component video capture device. Years ago I had pinnacle studio 14 and loved the program so I had high hopes this would work, but it did not. Driver issues and all kinds of glitchy gave me countless hours of troubleshooting to no avail . I was really frustrated! I was really getting worried since I have about 50 tapes spanning 35 years I need to digitize and preserve. Nearly 100 hours of memories. After watching an excellent YouTube video about this Elgato device I took one more chance and purchased it . It’s the best $90 I’ve ever spent. I hooked up the device to the component video on my camcorder, went to their website and download the Software for the capture device. I double clicked the software, and there’s four simple steps. 1. name the video click next. 2. Push play on the camera to make sure the video is coming through on the screen. once you see the video click next.3. Confirm you have sound. You can hear the sound when it comes through and there’s a 2 bar scale at the bottom of the page for the right and the left channel of sound. Once you have sound push the red button that says record.4. Wait for the entire video to play which most tapes can run up to two hours and once the video is finished click stop recording. No joke it’s that simple! They had some nice features like muting the sound so if you want to upload the video while you’re doing other work you’re not distracted by the sound. If you know your video on the cam corder is only a 60 minute tape you can automatically stop recording the video at 60 minutes so you can leave your computer and not have to worry about being there to stop it. There’s another simple area that will allow you to adjust the contrast brightness and other settings of the video to try to improve it. I played with this for a little while but found the default setting is the best for my videos. Depending on your computer it takes a short while to render for finalize the video and store it on your hard drive or which ever device you are saving it to. I have a New computer with the Intel I9 processor and and Nvidia 3070 graphics card and a 2 hour video takes about three minutes to process which is incredible! Each hour of 8mm video takes about 1 GB of memory. In the past two weeks I’ve uploaded nearly 25 of these two hour videos directly onto my NAS! I highly recommend anybody with a component video VHS or 8 mm camcorder or anything with the yellow red white cable that wants to save their memories to buy this device! Spend the $90 for this particular one since Elgato’s capture software is the secret sauce! There are hundreds of these devices for sale that look pretty much the same and there only $15. Don’t get fooled by a cheap price! If pinnacle studio can’t get the dazzle device correct I can’t imagine a $15 cheap knock off will get the software correct. Thank you El Gato! You have a very reliable very easy and excellent product! My children in their 30s and my grandchildren are enjoying watching all of these videos through my Apple TV!

That almost sums it up, need only to add “Impressive little piece of equipment!” My review is not taking into consideration the major differences there are between A/V output sources and the many different types of PC's/software/hardware & setups that other people have.. this is based ONLY on my experience.. My A/V output source is coming from a S-VHS video recorder, yes an antique, with a Satellite dish as the input source to the S-VHS and running over (2) 8-Ft HQ RCA composite cables spliced together.. yes, that's 16 Ft due to the distance from source to PC – which is a 2 yr. old Dell XPS running Win 10 Pro, latest update, 16 GB RAM, 2 TB HD, 64 Bit OS, Intel Core i7 3.60 Ghz. The ElGato (“The Cat” in Spanish.. WTH came up with that name..? lol) PRO's: 1. I'm not a Prime subscriber, but this arrived within 2 days of my order.. WOW! 2. Small size. Came with the install CD, instructions & a bunch of other I/O accessories I didn't even know came with it, like a SCART adapter – ok so maybe I didn't read the whole 'what's included' part, lol. 3. Downloaded/installed the software & drivers from their website, plugged this little bad boy in, opened the app, and.... IMPRESSIVE! There it was. Easy to understand GUI, simple settings, audio & picture quality options, loved the 4:3 or 16:9 choice when recording! 4. I would have used an S-VHS cable instead of splicing the RCA's together, but couldn't find one long enough. At first I noticed some 'interference' lines in the video & discovered it was due to an electronic RCA signal booster I was using. By-passed it and got a clean, HQ video stream. 5. I had looked at some other capture boxes even into the $250+ range but the reviews left a lot to be desired, this one had the best reviews – and price. I tried other capture software but most record in the MPEG-2 format which yields HUGE file sizes and although there's heated debate over it, in the end it seems MP4 is the format of choice, that's what this device uses. The size/rez output of the ElGato is 640x480, but when using the 16:9 Widescreen option it provides an exceptionally decent video & small file size. I use a Pro-sumer AV editing suite to edit so I can easily convert these to higher/lower resolutions as needed. 6. Features a convenient option for selecting the length of recording time, either pre-defined or custom. 7. Tried my first 30 min continuous recording on one of the most CGI/Graphics intensive piece of video I had on hand: “THOR: The Dark World”. The results were absolutely exceptional. The video was exactly as clear & HQ as I saw in the stream feed window before recording. NO 'artifacts', distortions or skips whatsoever & NO audio lag in the entire video, that's just awesome! 8. Just for giggles n' grins I also installed & tried it out on my 5 yr old Asus laptop.. same exceptional results! Footnote: On both PC's I closed ALL windows & Apps (via Task Manager) so the PC's would run lean & clean BEFORE starting any recording so the CPU wouldn't get distracted or bogged down by other background process that might cause 'data skipping' and affect the recording process. CONS: Only one I've found so far. The GUI does not have a “PAUSE” recording option. You have to record the entire length of time chosen & start all over again. To me at least, that's rather inconvenient & frustrating because I might have a 30 minute clip that I'm working with, but only need several 1-3 minute or numerous seconds long pieces of it and with no Pause option I have to record each piece individually & start all over going thru each of the 4 steps of the interface for the next piece. Conclusion: I've been using it daily since purchase & haven't encountered even a single problem. I'm completely satisfied with the consistent, reliable video/audio quality, ease of use, small size & affordable price! (Hint-Hint) Could you guys at El Gato PLEASE add a Pause button to the GUI software..?

My apologies for this long review. Hopefully, though, it will be useful to someone. I've spent some time the past 2 weeks comparing competing products for transferring home videos into digital format on my Windows 7 PC for long-term preservation and so that I can edit the videos on my PC. I tried or considered three different products including this Elgato Video Capture, and one high-end video transfer company, all on the same Hi8 analog video cassette with a family video that is 15 years old. Along the way, I have gotten some familiarity with the various technologies available today for transferring magnetic tapes into digital form. I found out some interesting things, and thought I would share them, in the hope that it might help others. First, and you probably already know this, if you have any video memories on magnetic video tape, you want to get them transferred into digital form onto your PC or DVD or Blu-ray as soon as possible, before the video badly deteriorates. This especially includes regular VHS tapes, Video8 tapes, and normal Hi8 tapes, all of which are analog formats and are particularly susceptible to deterioration starting after about 10 years. Somewhat less susceptible to deterioration are Digital8 (which is also recorded on Hi8 tapes) and MiniDV tapes, because those are digital formats. But even for digital tapes, it is still magnetic tape which deteriorates over time, and you need to get those videos off of there. Seriously, at the risk of sounding like a doomsayer, if you have precious memories on magnetic video tape, you need to transfer that video off of those tapes and into digital form as soon as possible, or risk losing them forever. It's not hard to do, and you'll sleep better at night when you get it done! In my case, I have a bunch of precious Hi8 family video tapes recorded on a high-end Sony consumer camcorder between 10 and 19 years ago, and I am rescuing these Hi8 videos a little on the late side. I wish I had started this project 5 years ago instead. These tapes are still watchable, but they have developed some lines and drop-outs and "hiccups" and digital artifacts. With multiple playback retries, I can fortunately still coax out fairly high quality from these tapes. A quick note: Digital8 and MiniDV video tape camcorders have USB ports on them for digitally transferring your videos to your PC or Mac. If this is your situation, there is NO need to purchase one of these video transfer products (like Elgato Video Capture). You will get the best quality, by far, by using a USB cable to connect your camcorder to your PC or Mac, playing back your video in the camcorder, and using any of a whole bunch of different inexpensive software products on the market that will allow you to capture video from the USB port on your computer. This way, you are getting the digital video in its original form, which is great. You will get worse quality if you use a video transfer product that captures the video off of the video ports on the camcorder, because the camcorder is converting the digital video into analog, then the video transfer product converts the analog back to digital (not ideal, for sure). So, for the rest of this review, I will assume you have analog magnetic video tape (like VHS, Video8, or normal Hi8), in which case you need a video transfer product like this Elgato Video Capture or something similar. A note about video resolution: The analog video tape formats (VHS, Video8, and normal Hi8) all have native video resolutions less than 640x480. All of the video transfer products on the market record the video from these formats at either 640x480 or 720x480. It doesn't really matter which of these two resolutions the product records at. The point is, all of the video transfer products record at higher resolution than the original video, so you are capturing all of the resolution of the original video when you do the video transfer, which is good. A note about overscan lines at the bottom of captured video: As documented all over the Internet, when capturing digital video from an analog video source like an analog magnetic video tape, you will end up with some additional fuzzy lines at the bottom of the captured video. This is totally normal. When played back on a regular TV, these overscan lines are usually chopped off because they appear "below the bottom of the screen," but the digital capture grabs them. To get rid of those lines, you can crop or zoom in slightly when you do your video editing. Interestingly, this Elgato Video Capture device automatically does a minor zoom on all captured video to remove those fuzzy lines. A remark about video editing: Two of the products below (Elgato and Hauppauge) produce video files that use H.264 compression. This is an excellent video compression standard for viewing, and is supported by just about all video editing software. However, if you are going to do significant video editing, you may want to use some video conversion software to convert these video files to uncompressed or MJPEG-compressed AVI or MOV files for editing. (There are many inexpensive or perhaps even free software packages that will do this conversion.) The problem with editing H.264 compressed video files directly is that the extreme compression, which crosses video frame boundaries, can cause problems for video editing software, resulting sometimes in digital artifacts or out-of-sync audio in the final edited video output. An uncompressed or MJPEG-compressed AVI or MOV video source file avoids these problems. A word about using an outside company to make a high-quality transfer of your analog video tape: A search of the Internet reveals many companies that will transfer your video tape into digital form, and send the digital files back to you on a fairly inexpensive USB hard drive that you can supply yourself or that they will sell you. Some of these companies are better than others. A few of these companies are very high-end, using expensive video transfer equipment. I used one of these very high-end video transfer companies, using their most expensive Premium service, to transfer the very same 15-year-old Hi8 tape that I also tried at home with the video transfer products below. I discovered that the transfer done by the outside company was significantly WORSE (lots of lines through the video and tracking problems) than what I was able to do at home with the products below. I don't necessarily think this is the fault of the video transfer company. At home, I was able to use the very same Sony Hi8 camcorder to do the transfer that I originally used to shoot the original video tape. My suspicion is that, especially for older analog video tapes, it helps to use the same camcorder for transfer as you used to shoot the video originally, so that any idiosyncracies in tracking or video head alignment won't be as much of an issue. Just food for thought. Anyway, as noted above, I have done an experiment over the past 2 weeks, transferring the exact same 15-year-old Hi8 tape to my PC using the high-end video transfer company (above), plus two different video transfer products at home (Elgato and Hauppauge, below), and I also considered a third video transfer product (Blackmagic, below), to compare the pros and cons of each of each approach. Here's what I found out: Elgato Video Capture (this product): Gets the best reviews on Amazon for a relatively inexpensive product for video transfer on both Windows and Mac. It captures video at 640x480 resolution, which means it grabs the full resolution and more of VHS, Video8, and normal Hi8 tapes. This worked great on my 64-bit Windows 7 computer. I just downloaded the latest driver and software from the Elgato web site, installed them both, and I was ready to go. It's incredibly easy to use. It connects to any USB 2.0 port on your computer. There are really no settings; the software guides you through the very simple process, and it transfers your video to your computer as an MP4 file. In case you are curious, the MP4 file it writes uses H.264 compression at 640x480 resolution and (basically) 29.97 frames/sec (standard NTSC) and a video data rate of between about 1100 kbps and 1500 kbps, depending on the complexity of the particular video you transferred. The audio in the MP4 file is AAC format at 48 kHz 16-bit stereo with an audio data rate of 128 kbps. When capturing a 2-hour video, I ended up with an MP4 file that was 1.5 GB in size. This Elgato product scores big points for ease-of-use. However, the video quality, while quite good, is not as high as the Hauppauge HD PVR (see below), because of the heavy video compression the Elgato uses to make a relatively small MP4 file with fairly low data rates. If you look closely at the captured video from the Elgato product, you will notice some minor squares of slightly distorted color at times, where the video has been over-compressed. Also, as noted above, the Elgato Video Capture automatically does a minor zoom on all captured video to avoid the fuzzy lines at the bottom of the captured video. On the plus side, this saves you the step of doing that zoom yourself in video editing. On the minus side, it is cropping all 4 sides of the video slightly, which might not be what you want. Hauppauge HD PVR : This product exists in two very similar versions, the Model 1212 and the Model 1445 Gaming Edition , but the functionality of the two models is identical when capturing video from analog video magnetic tape. Although designed for high-def video capture, it's by far the best product I tried for standard-def video capture as well. This product gets excellent reviews on Amazon, and rightfully so. It works out of the box on Windows (including 64-bit Windows 7, which I use), and also supports the Mac with separately downloadable software. The Hauppauge product captures video at 720x480 resolution, which means it grabs the full resolution and more of VHS, Video8, and normal Hi8 tapes. Like the Elgato product, the Hauppague is very easy to use, though the software give you a few recording options, unlike the Elgato. The Hauppauge connects to any USB 2.0 port on your computer. It gives you a choice of recording video in three different formats: .TS, .M2TS, or .MP4. It doesn't matter much, choose whatever format is most convenient for you; most digital video editing applications can handle any of these formats with no problem. In all three cases, the output file uses H.264 compression, is 720x480 resolution, 29.97 frames/sec (standard NTSC) and a user-selectable video rate between 1 Mbit/sec and 13.5 Mbit/sec. I chose 5 Mbit/sec, and ended up with a crystal-clear video capture with a variable video data rate of 20 kbps (MUCH higher data rate and much lower compression than the Elgato, which means a clearer picture). The audio is AC-3 format at 48 kHz and a data rate of 384 kbps (again, much less compression than the Elgato, which means the Hauppauge perhaps yields slightly higher audio quality). If these technical details sound confusing, it's not important. The point is, the video capture from the Hauppauge product is significantly higher quality than from the Elgato, at the expense of significantly larger output files, and like the Elgato, can be edited with most video editing software. (A 2-hour video capture on the Hauppauge gave me a 5 GB file, as opposed to the 1.5 GB file from the Elgato for the same video tape.) Note that, like most video capture devices, the Hauppauge gives you the full captured video frame, which means you end up with some fuzzy lines at the bottom, as explained above. You can eliminate those fuzzy lines during editing with a crop or minor zoom. Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle : This is the cream-of-the-crop for video capture. It comes in either a USB 3.0 model for Windows or a Thunderbolt model for the Mac. It captures both high-def and standard-def video in full, uncompressed format, so there is no loss of video quality for compression. For true archival quality of your video memories, this is the Rolls Royce option. However, there are two trade-offs to obtain this quality. The first is that your uncompressed video takes a LOT of disk space. The second, and more important, consideration is that you need a computer that can handle the extremely high data rate coming from the Blackmagic device (since the video is uncompressed). If you run Windows, you need a high-speed computer using an Intel x58 based motherboard, a true USB 3.0 port, and the latest USB 3.0 drivers. Most computers don't meet this requirement, even when they have a USB 3.0 port. There is a list of officially tested motherboards on the Blackmagic web site. My 1st-generation Dell XPS 17 laptop (which has two USB 3.0 ports) does not meet this requirement, so I can't use the Intensity Shuttle, and thus I haven't tried it. Though not officially listed as a supported system, there is a YouTube video called "Intensity Shuttle and Dell XPS Laptop From Scratch - Tutorial" that explains how use a SECOND-generation Dell XPS 17 laptop with the Intensity Shuttle if you re-install Windows 7 and strip down the software running in the background to the bare minimum. Many people who want to use the Intensity Shuttle will buy or build a computer specifically for this purpose. If you don't already have a computer that is compatible with the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle, and you aren't willing to invest to purchase or build one, or you don't need the full uncompressed archival quality video that is captured by the Intensity Shuttle, go with the Hauppauge or Elgato products, above. I hope this comparative review is helpful to someone. Good luck, and good for you for transferring your precious older analog video tapes!

WOW! I have, as I'm sure many of you have had, all these old family videos or just funny things you have recorded off of TV or whatever your case may be. So I had this bright idea to look up such a product to convert my old VHS tapes to digital versions on my Mac and/or PC. My VHS tapes are obviously old and take up lots of space and are getting to the point where I'm afraid this old VHS player will eat the tape and my memories will be gone forever! So I came across this product. First I'd like to say that I kept reading reviews on it as well as a few other products and people would say how easy it was. "My mom could use this", "anyone can use this", "easy as 1, 2, 3" and more similar sayings. Well I had my doubts as I'm sure you've read that before then had a major let down and an epic fail on the product. Well let me clear things up, THIS product is so easy to use! It's unbelievable! I literally opened the packaging, pulled the cd out, inserted it into my MacBook Pro, the installer openned. It instructed me to grab the icon and drag it to my "Applications" folder, then it installed. The next thing was to connect the USB device. After that it walked me through, connecting the audio and video to the VCR or DVR. Simple enough right? Then it says "start recording" then when you're through, press "stop recording" from there it lets you edit the beginning and the end of your clip. After you "Trim" your clip the applications gives you a few options, upload to youtube, edit in iMovie, and a few others I can't recall. You can simply click on the file path click the file name and it brings a new folder window open so you can move the file to your desired location. Then the thing that I love the most, is that in iMovie it's so simple to edit your clips. You can (from the original VHS rip) just rip the full tape then edit it in iMovie, OR you can "start" and "stop" recording and edit as you go with the clips. If you do this option make sure that you pause your VCR because the tape will continute to play even after you say "stop recording" on your computer, which is fine of course. After you edit your videos either in iMovie or in the Video Capture Device application itself. You can directly upload to YouTube, Facebook, sync with your Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, and the Windows editings applications. (I use my Mac so I haven't used it on a PC yet.) It's so simple to use and so practical. Like my title says, it's the best $90 i've ever spent! For $90 you can save all of your home videos and family videos of you as a kid or of your kids or your old family or whatever! It's the coolest thing I've purchased in a long time and the most practical by far. Whoever invented this product deserves some huge award! The ONLY negative thing I can say about this product is this. When you are watching your VHS tape in the Video Capture Device software application, it shows you what you are recording as it's playing of course. So with that said you have to sit there and watch the tape to know when you want to stop. Unless you want to just edit it later in iMovie. But that's not the negative, the negative is when you try and fast forward or rewind your VCR, the computer will show it fast forwarding but after about 10 seconds tape time. The screen will show "no signal" I guess because the tape is moving so fast or something, I don't know. So with that said if you are unaware of what is on your VHS tape, you should watch it on the VCR first and take notes or fast forward throught he tape skimming for the part you want to record, then start from there. Not the biggest deal in the world I know and given all the Pro's of this product, it's one Con is NOT enough to burst my bubble. I hope this review helps you and I promise, if you purchase this product you will NOT be disapointed, I can't stop talking about how great it is! Sincerely, Philip

Let’s start with the technical part ... I first tried it on my Windows 11 laptop, but it just would not recognize the VCR hooked up via USB. Since my laptop is new, I think the USB port was a 3.1 port. So, I picked up my VCR and moved it next to my gaming PC that had both 3.1 and 2.0 USB ports and was running Windows 10. The USB 3.1 port did not recognize it just like my laptop but when I plugged it into the USB 2.0 port it did. Not sure if it was a software or hardware thing but the software does say PLUG IN TO YOUR USB 2.0 port. I hope Elgato either releases updated software/hardware to work with more modern USB ports like 3.2 on Windows 11 but for now you must use USB 2.0. I work in IT so getting it to work was easier for me because I know all this stuff, but the everyday person that just wants to plug it into a USB port on a laptop will be frustrated quickly. Now to the video capture ... I have tried two videos so far; both were recorded on VHS tapes. The first one was me skydiving in 1993. The tape had both video and sound and was about 6 minutes long. The Elgato captured it to an mp4 file in 4:3 ratio pretty darn well. The final file size was about 117 MB. Not bad. The sound and video recorded came out quite nice. If you do not change the location but default it puts it under the VIDEOS folder on Windows. The second video was much larger and was just under two hours of very old 8mm videos that had already been recorded to a VHS tape back in 2001. There was no original sound in the videos but when they were transferred to VHS the company that did it put music to the videos which this device transferred perfectly to the file. Again, it recorded it to an mp4 file in 4:3 ratio. The file size was 1.9 GB. The file size was quite large but a nice starting point to use. I can now take this video and put it into a program like Power Director, remove the original music, replace it with my own, add a little more compression to the file to get it a little smaller and add cool features like intros. Conclusion ... This thing did what it advertised. It took very old videos and captured them to digital format (mp4) which made them very workable on my computer. How is the sound video quality? Great considering the source they were extracted from, especially for the price. You must ask yourself are your old memories worth $85? Absolutely! Don't buy the cheap no-name brands for less, the software of those is buggy and not worth your time. I saw a guy on YouTube that said he did just that. He bought a $15 unit, and it didn't work. He returned it and bought a $30 dollar unit and same thing and finally just got this one. Just get it, it works.

The short of it is to say that I've been unable to use this device no matter what I try (I'm tech savvy, and have tried LOTS of things). The software continues to insist it cannot be recognized. I've followed Elgato's help page regarding camera privacy settings in Windows 10 to no avail, in addition to uninstalls, restarts, deleting drivers and letting Windows find them (goes to a page which won't even open). I've reached out to Elgato via email, because their CS lines aren't open when I need them to be. Based on the other 1-star reviews here, I'm going to guess that there's no work-around, and I'll be offered a warranty refund; you know, because that makes this giant waste of my time okay. WHERE are all the 5-star reviews coming from? WHO are these Windows 10 users who use this successfully and daily? A few minutes online hasn't turned up any for me, and there's usually one supporter in the fold who likes to scream about how dumb the rest of us are for not getting this to work. This is not the first time for me with Elgato either. I bought a game capture device on my old laptop, and it tried to kill my machine ON TOP of not working at all as well. I should have known better than to trust this high Amazon rating, as the other product was rated as phenomenal as well. Apparently I really needed to learn this lesson twice. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: This company does a great job of hiding the negatives and troubles users encounter. Their marketing is top notch, so you'll want to buy this. If you're on Windows 10, please don't; at least not until you can find an article somewhere they've written which assures Windows users that the latest troubleshoot works. They post help articles which they're fully aware don't fix the problem, and they bug people who write poor reviews (based on my previous purchase & review experience) to no end; clearly hoping they'll remove the review once they have their money back. Run. Run very, very far from this company. Am I upset as I write this? Yes. Is it making me blow things out of proportion? No. It's extremely rare that a serious company will fail you twice over the course of only two product encounters separated by YEARS. But this company has offered me exactly that. I'll be sure to post a comment or update to the review if I actually get help; by which I mean a product which functions as advertised, not a refund.

I have had it on my To Do list for years to convert my old home movies from VHS & DVC to digital. I went around and around about doing it myself or paying someone to do it professionally. I can be a bit if a perfectionist and I was worried if I tried doing it myself I would be unhappy with the at-home quality compared to a professional service. I had such a large library of home videos that paying someone to do it was expensive. I was also concerned of how much of my time would be required to convert the videos myself. I decided to research one more time doing it myself and make a decision. I wanted to purchase whatever I selected from Amazon, so if I was unhappy with the quality/process I could return what I purchased with no hassle and spend the money to have a professional service address. I spent some significant time online researching and the Elgato Video Capture was my final selection. The Elgato Video Capture immediately exceeded my expectations. It was easy to use, the quality of video was impressive and it had some features I did not know I needed/wanted, but used frequently. I used it on a VHS player I had sitting in a closet in case I ever did convert these videos. And I used it with my old handheld DVC video camera. With both devices I connected the Elgato Video Capture between my PC and the device and it just worked. I should state that I am in IT, so I did create a profile on my PC with minimal services running in the background to not impact this software or the process. I disabled virus software, networking, etc. making sure all the computer's resources (memory, processor, etc.) were available for the software and virus software or the network did not negatively impact it. In hindsight, I do not think this was necessary. After I converted my videos to digital using my special profile I did go back and make a few small clips of things without leveraging my special profile. I did not do long videos, but the short clips I did do were not impacted by the background services, virus software or network at all. The software was so easy that I would convert a full video and then go back and make little clips from the video to quickly and easily share with people. I made clips of friend's kids on my son's t-ball team or at birthday parties, etc. and sent it to the parents and the now grown kids. I made clips of funny pieces of a video like my baby sister complaining at age 16ish about videoing her before she had a chance to get ready for the day and sent it to her and her husband. I could have edited the newly created digital video to make these short clips, but the Elgato Video Capture was so easy to use I felt it was quicker and easier to use it then my video editing software. I watched all the videos prior to converting them so I knew the start/end marks and could determine if I was recording everything or cutting into smaller pieces. I had a long video of my brother's wedding which I quickly and easily separated into Ceremony, Speeches, Bouquet, Garter, Cake Cutting, etc. for the final digital files. The software was so easy to use that this was not a hassle at all. While watching the videos there were some private/adult conversations going on in the background where people were not conscious that there was a video camera recording not only video but audio. The Elgato Video Capture has a mute feature allowing me to edit the private/adult conversations out of the final digital format to not take away from the event on video or embarrass anyone. And the software was so easy to use I could go back and make clips of those private/adult conversations to share with others for a good laugh. The Elgato Video Capture was so easy to use that I have converted a few things for friends quickly and easily to digital for them to have and share. I have had a few friends buy the Elgato Video Capture after seeing/sharing what I did and all of them have been extremely happy. I am confident in saying these friends are not in IT and did not do the special profile I previously mentioned. I would highly recommend the Elgato Video Capture for anyone looking to convert home videos into digital format. I am glad I made this purchase.

je suis très satisfait du produit que j'ai reçu fidèle en tous points à ma commande et livré dans les délais indiqués et respecter, avec la possibilité de la modification du lieu de livraison par la proposition d'un point relais proche de mon domicile. Je recommande vivement l'utilisation de votre plateforme pour la commande de produits et de mon côté je conserve le site en cas peut-être de nouvelles commandes à venir .......

VHSテープのデジタル化を考え購入。 Macで問題なく使えます。 アプリも簡単。映像を取り込んだ時点で切り取りもできます。

El dispositivo es robusto y con una buena longitud de los cables. diferentes elementos para adaptarlo a los distintos posibles aparatos, cámaras, vídeo cámaras o dispositivos con cables RCA. El que sea USB 2.0 no tiene importancia, ya que la conversión se realiza en tiempo real, Incluye software de Cyberlink (Este software se ha de bajar de su página web con el dispositivo conectado al ordenador) que nos servirá para realizar el traspaso y optando por diferentes formatos de salida. Buen producto, totalmente recomendable.

L'ho acquistato reduce da esperienza negativa con un prodotto analogo più economico. Ero quindi discretamente prevenuto, ma presto mi sono dovuto ricredere. Il software è essenziale, non aspettatevi di poter intervenire a livello avanzato sui vari settaggi. Badate bene, non lo reputo un difetto. Volevo un prodotto in grado di assicurare una buona qualità di acquisizione con pochi fronzoli, e utilizzabile da chi, come me ha poche conoscenza tecniche in materia di audio video. E così, filmati formato 8mm sono tornati a nuova vita, acquisiti e convertiti in formato mp4. La qualità è buona, per le mie esigenze e considerata l'età avanzata dei video (>20 anni) direi quasi ottima. Il prezzo non è dei più economici, ma ne vale la pena. Per abitudine leggo sempre le opinioni negative, ho deciso di provare, ed ho avuto ragione, non riscontrando nel mio caso i pochi difetti lamentati da altri. Ripeterei l'acquisto al 100%

With its easy steps to convert to better quality provided by outcome video and audio settings this is the best product I have found.