Very Pleased!, December 3, 2010

By David Pangburn Jr. “Sound Guy” (Brookhaven, Pennsylvania) –
  

Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

This review is from: Honestech VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe (Software)

I tried other software and had great difficulty getting it to work. When I purchased this product I had my fingers crossed because most of the other copy software I used created a lot of work and I never did get decent copies. VHS to DVD 5.0 worked right out of the box. No problems with computer (Vista OS) no problem with audio or video. I was thrilled to be able to view old vhs tapes for the first time in years and convert them to DVD! The video looks fine on my HD television set… considering the source of the video… plays on my regular DVD player and my Blu-ray player. Set up was simple…just install the software and you’re ready to roll. If you have old VHS tapes with irreplaceable programs and you want to save them to disc, this will do the trick!

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Welcome back, memories!, January 7, 2011

By Frogleggy (California, USA) –

This review is from: Honestech VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe (Software)

This software does what it says: it helped me convert my old VHS home movies to DVD. Yay! The software has two settings: 1) The basic mode works smoothly and simply. 2) The advanced mode was incredibly S-L-O-W on my computer, but it works if you’re patient.Basically, you install the software on your computer, then hook up your VCR (or camcorder) to the conversion box, which you then connect to your computer via USB. The box includes all the cords you need. The software has a preview screen so you can see what’s playing/recording right on your computer screen.Basic Mode: You record directly from the VHS to a blank DVD in your computer’s DVD burner. As the movie plays, it burns. It saves the digital file in a temp folder, so you can immediately create more than one DVD of the same movie without having to run through it all over again. (But once you say you’re done, it deletes the temp file.) The finished product doesn’t have a menu or chapter points. It records exactly what’s on the VHS from beginning to end. Simple and easy.Advanced Mode: This converts your VHS into a digital .mpg file and saves it on your computer. You can then assemble clips, add music, add menus and chapter points (for navigation), etc. Then once you’ve assembled everything, you burn it to a DVD. This mode is super-duper slow on my computer, and it froze up a couple of times. But it works if you’re patient.(There’s a third setting that you can use to transfer audio from LP or cassette to a CD. But I haven’t tried this.)One note about transferring video to DVD: While watching the preview screen, it will seem like the audio is out of sync with the video. But when we play the DVDs back on our TV, it matches up fine.I’ve transferred 7 tapes so far. Overall, it does what it says. I do wish the advanced mode worked more smoothly, but for now I’m just thrilled it works, and that I can finally watch — and share — my old home movies!

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Finally a product that works as advertised, audio recording needs 3.5 mm to RCA audio cable, read below., December 31, 2010

By H. Nagarajarao –
  

Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

This review is from: Honestech VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe (Software)

So bought this item in a gold box deal and had not used it till couple of days ago when i had some off time so I decided to give it a try.First of all the kit comes with all cables that u need to connect, a small box called vidbox and instruction manual. You insert the CD into your laptop and off you go.You will of course need a separate VHS player to play your VHS tapes.Run the CD, register the product online which is easy and remember to re-start the computer, the software should prompt you to restart the computer once fully installed, once done the Cd installs the software and instruction manual onto your computer, click on the icon which guides you through the process. Now that I have used both easy menu and expert menu I can comment on both.One caveat is that the best quality is achieved only when you record upto 110 minutes in one sitting, you can still record for longer duration with slight compromise in the quality of the recording. SO MAKE SURE UR TAPES ARE NOT LONGER THAN 70 MINUTES DURATION BEFORE U START RECORDING, if they are longer than 70 minutes duration then you can adjust the recording time on the menu pretty easily to fix this issue.overall the converted video quality is decent, I personally use cocusoft products to reconvert dvd files to MP4 for palyback on quicktime.Of note though you will need a seperate 3.5 to 3.5 mm cable or 3.5 to rca audio cable to convert audio cassettes to mp3 or wma format, I ordered them from amazon and recieved them today.I am using 3.5mm to RCA cable via vidbox to convert my audio cassette files to WMA files, and LO IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM, AWESOME!!!.I have previously tried audacity but found it complicated and confusing to use, but with Honestech the audio-file conversion is a breeze!!!, truly, just remember few things.1. In the settings click on the noise reduction box and set noise reduction below – 10.0 ( minus ten point zero), I initially set noise reduction at the highest and the recording quality was very bad but once I set it to low level it worked like a charm, no hissing unlike with other software. ( NOW NOISE REDUCTION LEVEL OF – 11.2 IS WHERE I FOUND THE BEST QUALITY OF RECORDING WAS, BUT FOR YOU ALL IT MAY DEPEND ON YOUR COMPUTER SETTINGS AND ALSO THE QUALITY OF THE TAPE USED TO RECORD THE ORIGINAL, SO BY TRIAL AND ERROR USE YOUR OWN JUDGMENT.!!!)2. In the audio device properties keep the ”master input mix” bar at 25% level or lower, and in this setting the recoding was smooth and the output file had no hissing for me and the quality of recording was better than original.3. Now this one is important, when you record using 3.5mm to rca audio cable via vidbox I have very little hissing only, however if you use 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm cable bypassing vidbox there is lots of hissing noise, so i think either the vidbox has a built in filter or it just does good job eliminating hissing, I have so far used only one type of 3.5mm to 3.5 mm cable to record the audio so unsure if the quality of the cable i used had anything to do with it??, anywayz if you want to convert cassette to wma then connecting to your computer through the vidbox probably gives you the best quality.I shall try out various setting for video recording over next few weeks and update this review again.Once again the audio conversion software works like a charm, I am happy with this software, so far it has been a great buy, instead of spending a fortune at walgreens or sams or other stores trying to get your old tapes converted, with he help of this software and a laptop you can get it done at home!!!, wow, I am happy.Overall this product works as advertised and is a winner, thanks Honestech for a great product.ADDENDUM – 01/06/2010Advanced Video options are nice to use as well.You can convert either in 4:3 of 16:9 format, one can convert the VHS to WMV format and store it on hard disc whils the basic simple format only lets you burn it onto dvd immediately after aquring the content. Easy record format only lets you record 110 minutes of best quality of video whilst advanced recording input u can do about 5-6 hours of WMV format recording which is awesome.Some of the settings I used for advanced format included WMV format best video output possible at 4:3 since my VHS tapes were standard definition only. I initially did a mistake by trying to record to an external source HD connected via USB drive, you will achieve best performance quality by recording on the internal hard-drive of a laptop or a desktop, you can always transfer it to an external storage device, software froze up when i tried to record to an external HD but worked fine with internal HD.You can also edit, join, unjoin, add effects to your video using th existing software which is cool too. you can also…

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