motherboards

Avoid this ADS Instant DVD (?) at all cost. Have tried on two computers, and the USB2 cannot be detected on either. Sorry I bought it.

I can't really add too much to what's already been said. The product doesn't work, tech support is non-existent. I bought it online, received it on a Friday, returned it the following Tuesday after reading about the tech support problems everyone else has been having. When I was installing it, as I plugged in the USB connection, I got the Blue Screen of Death and my computer crashed. When it rebooted, Windows told me the hardware was not designed for XP and that I should not install it. Hmmm, why then does the box for Instant DVD have the "Designed for Windows XP" logo on it? I went ahead with installing the updated software and drivers anyways. When I tried to preview captured video, I got nothing. A black screen. Could not get it to work or do anything. Tried capturing even without seeing anything in the preview in 2 different programs. After 20 seconds it stopped and told me the file was corrupted. And despite the fact that the unit was doing nothing, every time I had the device plugged in, my computer slowed down, my mouse wouldn't respond, and the programs would crash. So I had even less success with this product than the other reviewers here. I have a month-old computer with all the latest gadgets and gizmos. If this doesn't work with my computer, whose computer does it work with?

Having read the positive review here and hundreds others on another website, I will be trying out the Canopus ADVC-100 (do a search for "Canopus" only if looking on Amazon). If after reading this, you are still considering buying this product, do yourself a favor and shoot yourself in the foot instead. It will more fun and less painful.

I bought the ADS Tech Instant DVD +DV after reading some great professional reviews in some of the online magazines. I was really excited to get this product. I now wish I'd paid more attention to the actual user reviews, as near as I can tell the people writing the magazine reviews must have never actually tried to use this product. Put simply... it doesn't work. Believe the user reviews, this is a bad product.

I wanted to transfer some old VHS videotapes to DVD, and I also got the +DV option thinking that it would be a nice way to add Firewire capabilities to my USB 2.0 based system for use with my new Digital camcorder. The Instant DVD box failed miserably to deliver on either of these goals.

Using the DV input with my digital camera I had strange artifacts start to appear on the screen. There were weird blotchy sections that started out small, but then grew as the capture progressed until half the screen was covered. While transferring my old analog VHS tapes, certain sections of the tapes would cause the box to completely lock up. When I could get a capture that didn't freeze, I couldn't get a capture where the audio and video would stay in sync. I tried multiple tapes, multiple DVD mastering programs, even multiple computer systems, nothing worked. This was simply making DVD's straight from the captured footage, I wasn't transcoding anything. The only thing that worked for me was taking a nice clean analog signal from my digital camera (since the digital DV capture didn't work.) That was the only thing that stayed in sync, any input that was less than perfect, like 10 or 15 year old VHS tapes, forget about it.

I sent several email queries to the ADS Tech support, after giving up on their telephone support after waiting forever on hold. Other than the automated "Well get right back to you as soon as possible" responses, I've heard nothing else from them. That was six weeks ago... and I'm not holding my breath. If you buy this product, you're definitely on your own.

I've long since returned my box, and chalked it up to a learning experience. Here are a few things to think about, first of all, do you really want a box that converts straight to MPEG2 format? If you want to change *anything*... clip out a few scenes, add a title screen, join several clips together... you have to reencode the file anyway. By uncompressing then recompressing you're sacrificing quality, and not gaining anything from the built in compression. Also, I didn't realize at the time, but you can get a Firewire card with a cable for almost the same price as just a cable... it's cheap, and much better than spending all the extra money for the +DV option.

I now own a Canopus ADVC-100, it's more expensive but worth every penny. More importantly... it actually works! That's much more than I can say about the ADS Tech Instant DVD.