Home > Consumer Reviews > ADS Tech DVD Express 2.0 (USBAV-701)

The good: Its hardware based encoding design means that the conversion from analog video to mpeg2 is done inside a chip on the device, not by your computer's cpu. It also menas that while digitizing video it doesn't hog your PC's cpu nor does the resulting file need any post processing.

The bad: the bundled Ulead editor is a big pain in the back end. If you just want to do quick edits and cut scenes out pretend that the included Ulead software is missing and install VideoReDo instead. (www.videoredo.com)

Install was flawless for me on WinXP home. The bundled video capture application on my CD was Capwiz version 3.1 dated February 2004. If you check the Adstech.com web site you can find Capwiz 3.5, which adds "on the fly" capture and burning to optical media, but I suggest everyone buying this device to stay with Capwiz 3.1.

ADSTech technical support warned me in no uncertain terms back in Nov 5, 2004 that there were still "stability issues". "Note that many customers have reported stability problems with this version so if you have any problems with it we strongly recommend getting rid of it and going back to version 3.1".

Version 3.1 of Capwiz, still offered on the site and I guess for a reason, seems to have everything a user might need, without "feature bloat" or "instability" warnings. Speaking of which, a new beta version of Capwiz 3.6 has been released in mid-December, adding yet more features to the mix like "direct capture into DivX" (mpeg4), but that sends cpu requirements through the roof and defeats the whole idea of a hardware based mpeg encoder because it's you cpu which has to then convert the mpeg2 video sent by the device to mpeg4, thus requiring a 2.4 Ghz. P4.

In short: I've found the bundled VideoStudio 7 editing software to be a poor choice. The bundled Capwiz 3.1 is ok and you should use that to save digitized video to your hard drive. Then I suggest you check our VideoRedo for editing.

I give this unit 4 stars. It delivers what it promises... decent quality hardware MPEG2 encoding for common people (people doing professional video work will surely need a higher-bitrate capture board). And it comes at a price that anyone can afford.

I originally gave this device a low rating, but now I've converted about 30 hours of Hi8 and VHS tape to DVD, and I have to say that's it's a decent buy for the money. Here's why I say that...
The first one I got was DOA - - would not even turn on. Bad start. But to their credit, both ADS and Amazon were great about a return. So a new one showed up 2 business days later.
And it works. I've transferred tapes from a Hi8 camcorder and a VHS player now - - and no serious problems yet. It's been a reliable, no-frills transfer device for me - - someone with a 10+ year library of analog tapes to put on DVD.
Here are the problems: Do NOT use the "Direct to disc" option. The result is horrible - off-sync audio, mainly. Go to your hard disk, then burn the DVD.
The bundled Ulead software is cryptic, and the instructions are of no help whatsoever. And there's no in-program help. So it's "figure it out yourself". I use the bundled "Capture Wizard" to capture all of the analog video to my HD, and it's worked fine so far. A few crashes,but nothing that corrupted what I had captured. Then I use Ulead to burn the mpg's to DVD - - and I don't try and edit individual mpg files - - I just burn them on the DVD as separate files. That has worked fine for me. I know there's alot of functionality to the Ulead software, but I don't have the patience to figure it out myself, and there's nothing in the package to help me.
Bottom line: for me, it's been a reliable, no-frills way of transcribing about 30 hours of analog tape to DVD. The hardware works, and the software will function adequately if you don't expect much from it, and provided you're not hoping for a no-brainer "out-of-the-box" experience.

UPDATE 1 year later: DVD recorders have become widely available since I originally bought the DVD Express, and their prices seem to be manageable - $150 to $200 I think. The time for this box may have passed - - Recorders usually have inputs for analog tape machines, plus you can record off TV with them, so if I were looking today I'd probably just go with one of them instead.

I bought this product yesterday from Circuit City. I just got a chance to try it out, after reading the manual i thought i'd give it a try. Setup and installation is VERY easy. Capturing video from my Hi8 Analog camcorder was really easy too. The software that came with the product is called Capture Wizard. Capture Wizard simply just captures the video, but it does not allow you to edit the video in any way...this program has not crashed on me yet. The product also comes with another software program called Ulead VideoStudio 7 SE DVD which allows you to capture video, edit video/audio, special effects and more. Problem is when i capture video thats more than a few mintues the program crashes without warning, so if you don't save your work EXTREMELY REGULARLY then you will get utterly frustrated. I thought something was wrong with my computer so i defragged and virus scanned and then tried it again only for it to crash one more time. Here is my system specs:
1. AMD Athlon XP+ 1600 (1.4ghz)
2. 40gb 7200 rpm hard drive (with 20gb free)
3. Nvidia GeForce 4 64mb video card
4. cd burner and dvd drive
5. 256mb DDR-RAM

I think i will purchase more RAM today and then try it again. If i don't write another review for this product then it means it didn't fix the problem.

I read positive and negative reviews of this hardware, but I thought I'd give it a try. I wanted to transfer about 15 old VHS tapes to DVD. Well, I never got it to work. Talk about a buggy product. I followed all directions to the T, but only was able to record once at SVCD quality. Every time I tried to capture at DVD quality, it would not work from the beginning, or start to work but freeze after a few minutes. The tech site's answer for every question is "reboot." Not helpful at all. I'm not stupid...computer science grad...I should be able to successfully use any hardware, unless it is malfunctioning.

Then they had the nerve to tell me the limiting factor was not their hardware, but instead, my computer system. Well, excuse me, but if my system doesn't work with this hardware, it must not work with 90% of people's systems. I have a P4 3.0 Ghz computer, 800 FSB, 2GB RAM, 200GB hard drive with 8MB cache, 256MB PCI-e video card, etc. Not a top gamer system, but pretty darn fast...certainly fast enough to handle any kind of video editing.

Bottom line: Don't buy this hardware. It may have worked for someone, but it probably won't work for you. I would HIGHLY recommend the Canopus ADVC-55. This is what I purchased, and it has worked flawlessly. It costs close to $200, but here's my advice...buy it, transfer all your tapes, then put it up on ebay. You'll get most of your money back, and you'll have all your videos on DVDs.

I've been using ADS Tech's DVD Xpress for about six months. Here is my assessment based on many hours using the product.

You can convert your analog video to digital format on your computer. The final video file, however, is flawed. Every minute or so, the picture freezes. The freeze is brief, probably less than a second, but it is noticeable. In addition, in scenes where there is a lot of action, the picture breaks up into little squares. If you are converting a movie, and there is a scene where there are people sitting at a table carrying on a conversation, the picture is unlikely to break up (although you will still get those brief pauses). But if people are running around, or there are fast moving cars, the moving object will morph into a bunch of little blocks, and then morph back. What you get is a video file frequently punctuated with pauses and picture break-ups. The audio is unaffected.

Bundled with the hardware is Ulead DVD MovieFactory. If it worked properly, it would be a great video editing package, considering that you do not have to buy it separately. There is better software out there, but it would have been a great value as bundled software if it worked. Unfortunately, it doesn't work right, at least not all the time. I have a satellite dish, and if I record a program directly from the television to the computer, the software will work as advertised (although the video will have the flaws described in the last paragraph; but that is a fault of the hardware, not the software). If I convert a VHS tape into a digital video file, you can't edit it and burn a DVD with MovieFactory. The software will either crash or become unresponsive when I try to open the file for editing. I have to press CTRL+ALT+Delete to shut down the software, and I usually have to re-boot my computer as well. In order to work with my VHS tape collection, I had to buy another video editing software package, which was a nightmare in itself. Nero did not work at all, and Roxio Easy Media Creator is adequate once you figure it out, but slow and cumbersome (but at least it works).

After six months, I have decided to give up on DVD Xpress. Although there is no degradation of the picture quality, the resulting pauses and picture break-ups result in videos that are of worse quality that the source VHS tapes. For me, ADS Tech's DVD Xpress is not a satisfactory solution to the analog-to-digital video conversion challenge.