Perhaps it's just me, but I find this product's name to be misleading. ADS Technologies' DVD Xpress sounds like an external DVD disc burner. In reality, it's a decent video capture device that accepts and converts video from camcorders, VCRs and televisions and converts it into digital files that may be stored on a PC's hard drive.

With the competent DVD Xpress, you can effectively archive home videos, as well as videotapes, and save them as digital files. And with the video now on your PC's hard drive, you can edit and save the video to common formats. If you own the right hardware, you can output edited video back to tape; burn it onto a DVD disc or VideoCD (a means to store an hour of low-quality video onto a CD) or create and publish streaming video for use on the Internet.

 

 

 

 

 

The USB Instant DVD is an external audio/video (AV) input box that connects to a PC via its USB (USB-2) or Firewire ports and accepts composite and S-Video connections. The unit comes with cables that let you make connections to analog video equipment, but lacks an S-Video cable. The documentation is well written and I found the device easy to install, configure and use.

Using the DVD Xpress, I captured good quality video with almost no dropped frames. The device makes the capture process easy by letting you simply follow a step-by-step wizard. Technically, the DVD Xpress captures video in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (for VCD, SVCD or DVD) formats at up to 720 x 480 (720 x 576 PAL) from any analog (VHS or SVHS) or digital source. The capture software also offers adjustments for brightness, contrast, chroma, saturation and hue.

The system comes with Ulead's VideoStudio 7SE, a decent video-editing program. As you would expect, it's a stripped down version that offers basic capabilities and encourages you to upgrade to Ulead's real version. Using the software, I easily edited videos by adding transitions, superimposing audio, adding titles and more.

Overall, I was impressed with the DVD Xpress. Over a year ago, I evaluated its predecessor, ADS' USB Instant DVD that performed a similar function but relied on a computer's sound card to capture the audio. Unfortunately, the sound was always out of sync with the captured video, which was a pain to fix. There are no such audio synching problems with the DVD Xpress.

If you're familiar with the USB Instant DVD product, you'll find that the DVD Xpress is smaller and lacks the Instant DVD's ability to output video back to VCRs and televisions. Outside of an easier hardware installation that doesn't require you to open your PC, the USB Instant DVD doesn't offer much over other analog video capture systems such as the popular Dazzle Digital Video Creator II.

If you'd like to import video from an analog camcorder and edit it on your PC, the DVD Xpress can do the job. And if you don't own a MiniDV camcorder and a PC equipped with a Firewire connection, the DVD Xpress offers the easiest way to get video into your computer.

1/13/04 Wayne N. Kawamoto, Managing Editor

video-editing review - DVD Xpress