Stephen Spilberg beware (Dazzle Digital Video Creator 150)

Member Name: lomond12

Product:	Dazzle Digital Video Creator 150
Date:	15/08/05 (1275 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Has the ability to transform your old videos to your pC

Disadvantages: Instruction Manual is rubbish

Believe it or not it was a clear out of my understair cupboard that inspired me to buy Dazzle Digital Video Creator. Having found about 25 videos from our old analogue camcorder I wondered if there was any way i could transfer these to my current Digital camcorder then download them to my Pc and burn them onto dvds and watch them.

So I left the place in chaos and headed for my nearest Currys with my analogue camcorder and digital camcorder in tow. I asked if they had anything that could do the job and produced my analogue camcorder from its bag. They poor boy had never seen such an antique. The answer was no but I may have a solution said the lad.

DAZZLE Digital Video creator 150. It has a piece of Hardware,you connect one end to your cammcorder and the other which connects into a USB Port. Sold said I and off home i trotted.

Dazzle Digital Video Creator comes complete with

Studio QuickStart
USB Cable
Dazzle Digital Video Creator 150 Hardware
Power Supply
DVC 150 QuickStart Guide
A/V Cables (standard RCA for audio and video, and an S-Video cable

Once I got home I opened the box . I installed the hardware my pc did all the work sat for a few moments them installed the software off we go.
Once I got home I opened the box . I installed the hardware my pc did all the work sat for a few moments them installed the software off we go.

I decided to start my first project with a recording from my digital camera.

There are 3 steps to take

Capture

This was no problem (i had problems previously with other software recognising my camcorder)

Editing

No for the fun bit. The video is captured in frames obvioulsy recognising when you turn your camcorder on and off when recording. Therefore it is fairly simply to edit out the bits where you have maybe forgotten to turn the camcorder off and you get a vision of your feet for about 5 minutes. Equally there are bits where the quality is not great such as when my son had a go and had set the camcorder to manual instead of automatic. You will want to edit these bits out.

I was then able to add a title and background music. I of course chose a steel band as the video was of our holiday to Grenada.

Great thought I now to the next bit

Making Movie

Here you have the option of outputting movie to tape,making an Avi file. mpeg file, sending it to the web and burning to disc.

I went for burn to disc option, the movie then started rendering but nothing in the help guide or instruction manual online prepares you for how long that will take. My video was about an hour long and it was still rendering after about 3 hours by now about 1.am in the morning. It got to the end of the movie(you can watch the line move along the bottom of each frame)
and started all over again. Not knowing how long this would take I decided to go to bed and start all over again making movie.
The following day I decided to try and save as mpeg file then using other applications on my pc such as nero to burn. However you then have to go through the rendering process all over again . Once more after a few hours and no indication of How long It would take I gave up. I searched the forums in relation to the software and discovered I wasn the only one having problems rendering.

I think it would be very useful if there was an indication of how long it takes to render when making movie eg 2 Hours 20 Minutes then you would know whether it is working or not.

The hardware which allows you to transfer your old videos is a useful piece of equipement and with the right software would be spot on for what I require.

So for the time being I keep tinkering to see if I can get it going and hopefully one day I will manage to see all my old videos(i no longer have the transformer that allows you to watch as an ordinary video)

Summary: some good Points some bada points