digital video

Dazzle has the Hollywood DV bridge. It costs a whopping $300, but it has firewire in and outs, svideo, and composite ins and outs. Runs off firewire.

Nice unit.

-pete

 

Although not nearly as good as it used to be, www.2-pop.com is still a resource for DV questions. Someone there will have already used all the bridges. I'd chime in but I've always had a deck or camera connected...ya know there are DV cameras with analog in that will act as a bridge.

 

Formac makes the Studio converter. I use it at my work, and it's a pretty good machine.

 

I am pretty sure Steve Jobs has a wire about the size of a cable cord

yeah and it is the converter in the wire and itt is faster than fire wire two but it aint being revealed till MAc world comes to chicago



Hey how is that for starting a rumor!!!

 

Sony DVMC-DA2

http://www.profeel.com/sonyconverter.htm

 

To my knowledge Sony discontinued the converter. I've used a dazzle with a mac at school. The only thing is there are about 3 different dazzles make sure you get the Hollywood Bridge i think there might be 2 firewire versions 1 is lower quality then the others. I've used the sony and it's great but unfortunately they are hard to find now. E-bay maybe. The Dazzle gets stuck every now and then and sometimes its a headache but it works and does it's job. I'd like to get my hands on a formac just because it has a built in TV tuner and i think it's got some better converters or something not sure. There is even one that doubles as a firewire disk

 

Formac Studio

Formac Studio (http://www.formac.com/html/shopformac.html?cid=shop_products_studio) connects to your Mac via Firewire and has AV (composite), s-video, coaxial, etc. ports. Though the OS X software isn't yet up to par with its OS 9 software, I've been able to go both ways: analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog ...

 

Go to canopus.com the advc 100 (if I'm right) is the competitor of the Hollywood Bridge, it cost the same and correct some sync problems the Hollywood Bridge has when capturing from VHS.

The pros of the Canopus:
1. It sync better.
2. Doesn't fall of your desk top.
3. Better than the sony device (I haven't try them).
Cons:
1. External power suply
2. No as fancy.

Hollywood bridge pros:
1. It is fancy.
2. I guess powered by the firewire.
Cons:
1. Not reliable, there should be a revision these months.
2. If fall on one side with the cables (that is what I have heard).

In my case, I like the hollywood Bridge better but I have learn to buy usefull things better than pretty looking.

 

Directors cut

www.Xlr8.com sells the Migilia Directors cut analouge to firewire adapter

 

Please DO NOT BUY the Dazzle Hollywood Bridge! I made the unfortunate mistake of doing so and it is the worst purchase I ever made. The thing often loses vertical sync, sound distortions occur frequently and unexpectedly - in other words, a complete piece of unreliable garbage.

And, no, it wasn't a dud model either. I casn't tell you how many forums I've been to where all of the poor Dazzle dupes like me gathered to lick our wounds.

If you want the worst customer service and support you'll ever see, deal with Dazzle. They took no phone calls, actively discouraged any email inquiries and offered only a message board (in which no Dazzle representative even responded to). Now get this - once the message board was packed full of endless complaints, Dazzle simply deleted the thing and stopped hosting it.

I finally stopped using this thing but still have it stuck in a drawer. I thought of selling it on eBay, but would feel horrible sticking someone with it, even if they only paid $10 for it.

The Formac (which I use now) is a great choice. It actually works, for one thing ...

 

I agree with Pepzhez (amazing, eh, Pep' ).

We have a unit at work since some of our staff wanted something cheap and easy that works with PCs.

The units feel cheap (lightweight, hollow feeling).

The bundled software is pretty worthless. Configuration and editing is difficult, if not impossible.

That said, it does give you quick compressed digital video captures...but you have almost no control over the process.

 

dazzle sucks, that's it, case closed, i used the dazzle on my old computer, i made the mistake of trying to import a long DVD, the thing fried my computer (sort of) it just never worked right agan, that's why i have my new powermac