Belkin VideoBus II

...internet for 'Windows XP install Belkin Videobuss II' or something similar. As it happens, its not too hard to install with the instructions, although im very aware of the fact that part of it involves you saying 'yes, continue anyway' when Windows shows a warning message about detecting that the device hasn't gone through or passed Windows Logo Testing, which does make me a little uncomfortable, especially considering some of the problems I endured ...
...(which I'll mention).

Now to start with, after I'd installed it, I was able to use not only the supplied program to capture video & audio (called MGIs Videowave II) but other programs like Windows built in Movie Maker program, which I preferred as I could select it to capture video to a smaller file size (ok the quality isn't as good but the file sizes can be much smaller). However, I did end up having some problems with this device ... more

I got this external capture card, or at least I call it a capture card anyway, video input adapter, whatever! it allows for both video and audio from a TV or VCR or camcorder to appear and thus be recorded on your computer. Anyway I got it from my parents as a Christmas present a few years ago, as I wanted something to allow me to get footage from my old VHS tapes that held footage I'd taken on holidays with my camcorder.

Its a fairly simple device, with one end being the USB lead that connects to your computer through a USB port and the other end being a few a/v leads that connect to/go into a SCART lead, which you then plug into a free SCART port on your TV/VCR. Inbetween is the device which I believe does the encoding from analogue into digital, so that it can be interpreted and shown on your computer screen and saved to your computer.

Now this isn't the best hardware in terms of being user friendly for people, in my opinion. For a start, it was difficult to install on my old Windows XP laptop, as it turned out that it was originally developed with older operatng systems in mind and it wouldn't install through the supplied CD ROM properly, which was great on Christmas day considering how impatient I can be (im sure you can imagine!) but we eventually managed to get it to work after searching the internet for 'Windows XP install Belkin Videobuss II' or something similar. As it happens, its not too hard to install with the instructions, although im very aware of the fact that part of it involves you saying 'yes, continue anyway' when Windows shows a warning message about detecting that the device hasn't gone through or passed Windows Logo Testing, which does make me a little uncomfortable, especially considering some of the problems I endured with my old laptop after I'd installed and used it! (which I'll mention).

Now to start with, after I'd installed it, I was able to use not only the supplied program to capture video & audio (called MGIs Videowave II) but other programs like Windows built in Movie Maker program, which I preferred as I could select it to capture video to a smaller file size (ok the quality isn't as good but the file sizes can be much smaller). However, I did end up having some problems with this device and after a while, it stopped working with Movie Maker and wouldn't detect the device. I ended up having to use Vieowave to capture any footage, which I wasn't very keen on considering the settings were awkward to adjust (its not such a user friendly program I feel and when I did try lowering the frame rate, sometimes it didn't work or didn't make as big a difference as I'd wanted with the output file). With the default settings, I calculated that about 2 minutes of footage took up 512mb! so you'd need a pretty decent hard drive to capture footage longer than a few minutes really... also you need to be able to leave the computer while it captures as it uses alot of processor power to capture, certanly it did with my old laptop which I used when I first got this a few years ago.

I also encountered quite a bad problem once when I probably had too many devices installed and connected to my old laptop and upon trying to select to use a webcam, I was told that no video devices wre detected or something and it seemed to totally freeze up... I had to get the hard drive reformatted, so that was quite a serious fault, which may partly be because of the device as it always seemed to be slightly unstable. I think I confused it by having it and a webcam connected at the same time and when I tried to have the webcam show on an IM with a friend abroad, it instead showed what was being shown on TV so it used the wrong device and when I tried to tell it to use the other device (ie the webcam) it got confused and thats when the fault ocurred...

I've never felt that its a particularly great device in terms of it being too stable and the installation is confusing until you look it up online and find specific instructions, it just doesn't work properly with Windows XP and to be honest I decided not to even try installing it with my new Vista ready laptop, I imagine, what with Vista being bad at running old programs and possibly devices too, that it would be even less likely to work and might mess the system up even more and I really don't want to take that chance.

Something worth bearing in mind is the fact that like my dad says its pretty old technology, its a bit daft in this day and age to have something that can only really take analogue signals and then goes to the effort of digitising it into such large files like with the included Videowave software program, when we have digital TV and obviously DVDs and so on, there must be more modern ways of getting footage from disk/tape or TV to computer, one that doesn't involve using up large chunks of your hard drive for 10 minutes of footage!

Having said that, the device itself is small and easy to store away and once you manage to get it working alright, I guess it does do what its supposed to. You might have to try and try again to get the video to show up and also be aware to check your volume levels on your computer before capturing video and audio as if your volume or wave levels are high (ie near or at the top), then captured footage will sound fuzzy... but you can get there in the end.

Its a bit clumsy and sort of old fashioned and im not impressed with its seeming lack of real compatability with the later versions of Windows but it can be made to work and can be pretty handy. I do feel that there should be more of a modern alternative though. I know I go on about the size that captured footage takes when encoded/captured through MGI Videowave (the software program included with the CD it comes with) but if you do manage to get it to work with say Movie Maker version 1 (which ive lately managed to do somehow), you don't get enough choices of the bit rate to capture to and so files end up a bit too low quality wise, so I currently prefer to capture to the massive file sizes using Videowave and then I have to use a separate program, a video converter, to convert the original file to a more condensed one (.wmv usually), that will take up less room (in terms of hard disk space) but that keeps the majority of its picture quality. Oh and also for reference if you use Videowave, it automatically captures to .avi file/format, which I tried but seem to be unable to change so your stuck with that on that particular program and im guessing its fully uncompressed .avi considering the file sizes involved!

Maybe I've just been unlucky and my old laptop wasn't the best but I don't trust it to work with up to date computers, considering it was glitchy at best with my old XP one. I'd say that this is worth having a go with if you have perhaps a spare old laptop or computer that your not too bothered about potentially causing video hardware clashes and so on, maybe you'll have better luck with it than I did! I think the key thing though is the fact that it does say even on XP let alone Vista, that it hasn't passed Windows Logo testing and that sends warning bells to my mind, which is why I'm suspicious that fault mentioned above wasn't in some way to do with it, I know I did tend to have too many devices installed on it but still... it never fully worked properly on all programs, I've never managed to get it to work with Movie Maker version 2.0 which is a real shame since that offers a better choice of bit rates for encoding or capturing to (the higher the bit rate ie the more kbpa or mbps I think it is, that it says, the higher the file size but the better the picture quality, is the basic rule here, to my knowledge and im no real expert on this stuff but thats how I understand it).

I feel frustrated that it never fully worked properly with Windows XP and that it seemed to work with programs and then after a while stopped working, its really not as reliable as I would have liked. However, when it works, it works and if it doesn't, sometimes a simple fix can be found by doing basic things like exiting the program, restarting the computer and loading the program again... always check that, if you use a 3 way SCART splitter with individual switches like my setup has, that you remember to switch the right one on *doh* well once I was fooled into thinking it was broken when I just didn't have it switched on *ahem* also check the volume controls on your computer if the audio is very fuzzy on footage you record... and if you connect it through USB and it says Windows has detected new video hardware, then yup im afraid its a case of re-installing it but thats not so hard actually, as you should have already installed the files, you only have to tell it to run from a specific location and point to the folder containing the files for the device, then click on 'continue anyway' when it says it hasn't passed Windows logo testing and then do exactly the same for the audio when it says its detected new audio hardware. It only takes about 5 minutes or less so its not so hard to do but you shouldn't have to and like I say, I don't trust installing this on Vista, so its been doomed to only be used with my now somewhat elderly laptop... hence im thinking about looking for a more modern alternative... also be aware that you can only capture either from the TV itself which will only show the analogue channels, it won't pick up cable or anything shown on the a/v channels, or from the VCR (I have a TV/VCR combi) but nothing more. You have to tape to VCR the footage you want to capture on your computer then capture it while you play it back on the VCR. I think there should be better options with this sort of thing with the more modern DVD recorders...

Anyway I hope this review helps you decide if this is any good for you... if only it were more compatible with Windows, I would recommend it more but I can't help but feel that it is somewhat outdated and it has been pretty glitchy, so at the moment I would say that I wouldn't bother with this and instead it'd be better to research more modern, Windows XP/Vista friendly alternatives.

Oh and just to clarify, I put value for money as satisfactory but I don't know how much it cost really and as a free present, it wasn't too bad, you can't complain for free! im not sure if its even for sale anymore(?) so im not sure about that... 

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