ION Video 2 PC MKII | Analog-To-Digital Video Converter for PC (USB / RCA / Composite / S-Video)

I've had this for over a year but only recently started using it. It's just what I was looking for -- a way to digitize old VHS cassettes that were deteriorating and -- face it -- nearly obsolete. There's a drop-off in video quality but the results are acceptable and certainly better than nothing. Worked right away with Windows 7 -- I didn't have to mess with drivers or anything. The copy I got came with Cyberlink Power Director 8 which is different (and I believe BETTER) than the software advertised. Cyberlink is shipping Version 10 now, so perhaps that will be bundled with newer copies of this product. I agree with Donald Anderson's review -- the software has editing features I will rarely use (mainly whiz-bang graphics and stuff). I just use Power Director to "capture" the audio/video stream and then pull that captured video into Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker. Then I can cut out the garbage and condense the good stuff, perhaps add a title or caption, throw in some fades between shots, etc. Kinda fun. BTW -- look to Youtube for helpful videos on using both software programs. Resulting file sizes are pretty large -- but lots of choices for video format so you can make them less of a pig on the hard drive. My 10-minute videos end up being about 250 mb and are of acceptable quality.Possibly helpful hints:Get a big external hard drive to hold your videos. You'll fill up your computer's hard drive in no time at all, and external drives are pretty affordable. I use two different 2TB drives, one to hold the videos and the other for backup copies. I have many hours of video converted so far and am nowhere near filling up the drive. You can also burn to DVD but those don't hold much.Clean the heads on your VHS recorder head (easy and cheap to do -- lots of YouTube videos on it). If you're dealing with crappy old VHS tapes they're likely to dirty up the heads in a hurry and you're SOL. Some of my tapes literally had mold forming on the inside; some still played, some were hopeless and gone for good.When editing, save constantly. I find that both Power Director and Windows Live Movie Maker tend to crash frequently -- I know video editing is very processor-heavy.I need to reboot often with Power Director. When you're transferring from tape (they call it Capture)you can toggle on and off, but often around the third consecutive toggle it gives an error message and you have to start over. Frustrating -- so I've learned to do a restart before I begin a capture session. Usually works fine the first and second time. If anyone has a solution to this, please advise.There are dedicated software programs to help you organize your digital video collection but I use plain ol' Excel to catalog my clips and even launch them by adding a Hyperlink. Works great and makes everything easy to find.

The minimum recommended requirements are a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP 2000 with 512 MB (3 GB DDR2 or above recommended). I'm running a 5-6 year old Dell with a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom and 1 GB of RAM running Windows XP SP 3. I had previously replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 840EVO static drive with a 6 Gb/sec transfer rate. I don't know if that was a factor or not, but it can't be ruled out.I popped in the CD, installed the drivers, rebooted, then installed the included Cyberlink PowerDirector software. I plugged the ION Video 2 PC into my Enhanced USB port NOT my other 2 Universal USB ports. This is a VERY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION!!! Every computer should have at least one Enhanced USB port which has a higher transfer rate. I never knew there was such a thing until I read the review by "J. Lord" mentioning this.Also, unlike "moersenice", ArcSoft did NOT install on my computer. I recommend reading their review for further information for removing it in case it does install on your computer.I plugged my DVD player into the Video 2 PC using their included RCA cables. Then I opened Cyberlink, clicked on the "Capture" tab, hit record in the program and play on my DVD player and TADA! 15 minutes later the whole video was captured. This program captures in real-time, so have something else to do while you're recording. I didn't have to download any additional drivers or do any updates or had any problems. It was the easiest, dreamiest analog-to-digital video capture system I've ever had the pleasure to work with.On a final note, it says it includes TrueTheater HD technology to upgrade SD video to near-HD quality. I don't know if this is true or not. The video I captured looked great and certainly good enough for YouTube. You can see the video at "http://youtu.be/CLLL9KdMrK4" for an example. Viewer discretion is advised. PG-13.HOWEVER... The included freeware Cyberlink program is c**p for anything other than video capture. Despite what it says, I couldn't edit my video using the software. Also, it captures to MPG. I had to use YouTube Video Editor to get the results I needed. If you want to edit or do anything of value you'll either have to purchase the upgrade (don't worry, there will be plenty of pop-ups to help with this) or use another editing program. For PC, Premiere (Pro or Elements) is still my favorite, but they are no longer the market dominators. Sony Vegas, NCH VideoPad, and VSDC all make decent video editors for the home user. Heck, even Windows Movie Maker can do a half-decent job.Hope this helps, and happy video capturing!