DIGITNOW! Video Capture Card Converts Hi8 VHS to Digital DVD for Windows/Mac, Video Grabber with Scart/AV Adapter

Very good and easy to set up I’m still working through my tapes

While the main item - The Video Convertor - works well there are some shortcomings elsewhere. 1. The handbook includes instructions to Download either Potplayer or OBS Studio and Instructions on "How to Use" each App, but they did not work for me with my 20 - 25-year-old VHS Tapes. 2. The Cable attached to the Convertor and leading to your "Source" is very short with "Male" connections. OK for small cameras but difficult for larger players. You may need Composite leads to connect. I am now using my very old Panasonic MS5 Camera. And lastly, 3. A Composite to SCART socket with an Input/Output switch is included, BUT it seems faulty and WILL NOT plug into my old Panasonic S-VHS Recorder/Player/Editor!!

I don’t usually write reviews, but I had to give this a 5-star rating. I’m seriously impressed by the amazing video quality and how easy it is to set up — it’s literally plug and play. The package includes everything you need: the converter, RCA cables, and the capture device. All you need is your VHS player or DVD player and a laptop, and you’re good to go. I set up OBS Studio to capture both audio and video simultaneously, allowing me to watch the film while I record, which made the process so much more enjoyable. Thanks, DigitNow!, for making digitising my old tapes so simple and effective. Highly recommended!

I had originally posted a negative review, because I could not get this to work. I was hoping to capture some old VHS tapes, and this seemed an ideal way of linking my VCR to my PC. . I have wasted an afternoon trying unsuccessfully getting it to work. I have a Windows 10 PC. The disc that came with the package successfully loaded drivers, and the capture software. But after that - nothing. Whatever I tried to do, I could not get it to recognise the video coming from the VCR. Every time, all I got was an error "No video input detected". I tried every PAL setting in the options, toggled every switch I could find on and off - but all to no avail. The device was recognised ..... but no signal. But today, I had yet another go. I discovered that the problem was not the software, which is what I had been trying to sort yesterday - it was more fundamental. The Scart connector that came with it is is bi-directional - and fiddling around with that setting out of the bag is the wrong way. Flick THAT switch, and we're back in business. BUT NEXT MORNING I turned everything back on to do another recording, and the video capture worked fine - BUT NO SOUND! I went back to testing everything again. There was definitely sound coming from the DVD (tested against a TV input) but nothing out of the Capture tool - whatever software I used to try and pick it up. So that's it, finally. Its going back, and I;m wasting no more time one it.

I wasn't expecting super high quality from this device as I live in PAL land - and in many ways I was right... TL;DR: It does what it says, but not in very high quality. OK at a pinch. First of all, the process of getting it to work was problematic to say the least. Try as I might I could not get it to work on my AMD PC, the default windows drivers, the ones included with the device on CDROM, or one downloaded from various places on the internet just would not work. The interface to control the capturing would appear, but it could not render any output using any software including GraphEdit which is a manual way of building direct show filters. I tried it on my Intel Surface Pro, and it worked with the default windows 10 drivers! I have Premiere on this, so I started to capture using that, but because there is no control on how the video is capture it was using a mode that ended up being useless again thanks to compression and frame rate. It presents itself as a webcam and the audio seperately as a usb microphone. I tried using the supplied software, but the software key would not work with the version on the disk, or a downloaded version, so could not try it. In the end I connected it to my Intel gaming laptop, and using ffmpeg I could get more control over the capture. The settings offered are: ffmpeg -f dshow -list_options true -i video="AV TO USB2.0" [dshow @ 000001775f829980] DirectShow video device options (from video devices) [dshow @ 000001775f829980] Pin "Capture" (alternative pin name "0") [dshow @ 000001775f829980] vcodec=mjpeg min s=640x480 fps=10 max s=640x480 fps=50 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] vcodec=mjpeg min s=640x480 fps=10 max s=640x480 fps=50 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] vcodec=mjpeg min s=480x320 fps=30 max s=480x320 fps=30 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] vcodec=mjpeg min s=480x320 fps=30 max s=480x320 fps=30 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] vcodec=mjpeg min s=720x480 fps=10 max s=720x480 fps=50 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] vcodec=mjpeg min s=720x480 fps=10 max s=720x480 fps=50 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] pixel_format=yuyv422 min s=480x320 fps=30 max s=480x320 fps=30 [dshow @ 000001775f829980] pixel_format=yuyv422 min s=480x320 fps=30 max s=480x320 fps=30 Selecting 720x480 at 50 fps gives more picture at the side and isn't quite the correct aspect ratio, so in the end 640x480 at 50fps was used. The interface automatically deinterlaces the image, but sometimes gets it wrong resulting in flickering. One of the most annoying 'features' is an auto-gain on the video which causes the image to suddenly brighten or darken which is annoying. The fact there isn't a direct one to one relationship with the field structure results in soft images (even with lots of post production in FFMPEG when trying to recombine film captured footage which should give a full 576 full resolution progresive output but it soft thanks to it's own deinterlacing). In dark images and areas the MJPEG compression fails badly producing blocks in the image. Sound seems OK, though captures a little low in volume - havent checked stereo however. After capturing hours of footage thinking it might be OK I'm now purchasing a Firewire card so I can use my camcorder (which has analogue input) to do the conversion as it will provide a 720x576 DV image as close to the original as is possible. Watching footage I've previously converted this way and the footage captured via this card is like night and day. You might get better results in NTSC land, but again I suspect you'll have the same autogain issues. FFMpeg command used (NVidia hardware compression used, crop to remove head switching noise, scale to 720 for less loss in compression): ffmpeg -hwaccel cuda -f dshow -rtbufsize 100M -video_size 640x480 -framerate 50 -i video="AV TO USB2.0":audio="Microphone (USB2.0 MIC)" -vf "crop=632:468:4:4,scale=-1:720" -c:v h264_nvenc -preset slow -preset p6 -tune hq -b:v 10M -bufsize 5M -maxrate 15M -rc-lookahead 20 "%1.mp4"

When I say "this one", it's because if you're looking for a good and simple capture card I would recommend this model over the more expensive ones and definitely wouldn't bother with the £5.00 Easycap versions I'm convinced that the Chinese Communist party will eventually conquer the west, not by stealth or force of arms but just by giving us all nervous breakdowns due to us snapping up assorted things that turn out to be shyte and won't work after a weekend of trying every permutation of cables, ports, Windows versions and ecen laptops. Such is the lesson of 'you get what you pay for' learned. This one, however, really IS ok. It wouldn't play pictures on my new Acer with the latest Windows but seemed far happier on ny HP Pavilion g6 which has an older version. Both pictures and sound were very good and I doubt you'd get better quality north of £70.00 or a hundred bucks. One thing I REALLY thought was great was that as soon as you save the project you can just drag it onto the desktop and it instantly becomes an MPeg file complete with thumbnail. The software is basic but all you really want is something that better software like PowerDirector will accept, right?. On that note, Cyberlink doesn't recognise it by detection on its Capture setting so you can't cheat and use Cyberlink to capture your VHS from the off but you can drag and drop the MPeg into Cyberlink later. On the whole, not a bad little device at all.

Successfully converted but VHS-C panasonic NV-RZ10 (with no LCD screen) footage to my computer. I didnt even know if this would work! This product works great for the price. If you dont see your footage on OBS or quicktime, dont use the original camera coloured wires use the coloured wires (AV adapters i think they are called) that are provided with the product! Would definitely recommend.

I was asked to copy VHS tapes from the mid-2000s by my granddaughter's school and needed a video capture device quickly. I use a lot of Elgato kit and hoped to buy their unit, but it appears to no longer be available. I bought the DIGITNOW costing a sixth of the Elgato unit and was not expecting much. However, I have been very pleasantly surprised and have obtained very good results from the first few tapes I have copied. I use a Mac. The drivers install from the video capture unit to the hard drive when the device is plugged-in to the USB port. When the VHS is connected to the video capture device, its output can be recorded using Quicktime. Create a new movie recording and from the drop down menu in the Quicktime window next to the record button select the AV TO USB2.0 "camera" and USB 2.0 mic audio. Press record in the Quicktime window and off you go. Initial installation is not intuitive, but once the drivers are in place the rest is very simple. I have given picture quality 4 stars, but that is due to the VHS tapes rather than the video capture device. Very good value, easy to use, and perfectly acceptable results