Home > Consumer Reviews > New EasyCAP SNAPSHOT USB 2.0 Video capture with Audio + DVD/VCD Maker from video source: VHS, V8, Hi8 for laptop/PC,video recorder, camcorder, DVD player or Satellite TV receiver (Includes software ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD 2, NTSC and PAL Compatible, Support SNAPSHOT, supports Windows XP/Vista 32 /Vista 64/Winodws 7) +Supports Xbox 360/PS3 colour recording +**FREE Licensed Blaze Video Magic 3.0**+FREE AV cable 3-3

I tried this on two laptops running Windows XP (one a 3GHz Celeron, the other a 1.3Ghz Celeron M, both with plenty of RAM) and had serious problems with sound recording on both of them. The video recorded perfectly (very impressive, in fact), but the sound had so many drop-outs (fraction of a second silences), plus occasional pops and crackles, that the recordings were unuseable. The device itself seemed OK (I was able to record audio from it using other programs) - it was the ArcSoft 'ShowBiz' capture program, which actually compresses the video and sound into MPEG files, that didn't seem able to keep up.

Doing anything else while recording (such as clicking on My Computer) created dropouts to order, so it looked like a performance problem. However changing the program priority to 'real time', disabling wireless, anti-virus etc and running nothing else alongside it still didn't solve it. ClimaxDigital, who were very helpful, said to check that the correct audio driver had been installed. It hadn't, but when I installed it (replacing the generic Microsoft one) it made things worse.

In fairness it's asking a lot of any 'ordinary' computer to compress video and audio together in real time, and although the Celerons on these two machines should match the stated minimum of a 1.7Ghz P4, they might be borderline. However I also tried it on a newer Vista laptop with a 2.0GHz Core Duo processor and 3GB RAM, which is way ahead of the minimum spec, and while it worked OK the first couple of times (oddly, there were audible crackles during recording, but not on the recorded MPG file), after a few more tests dropouts began to appear in the sound recording, quite badly in one case. On the faster of the two XP laptops ShowBiz also had problems recognising the video stream, indicating compatibility problems. The program also has an audio-only recording feature, but this didn't work on any of the three machines I tried.

Overall the ezCap seems a functional piece of hardware let down by poor-quality, ill-matched software (not an unknown situation with kit like this). My feeling is that if it works for you then you've got a real bargain, but you are taking pot luck with it - and you'll definitely need way more than a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 to run ShowBiz successfully. After failing to get reliable results on three different machines, I've sent mine back.

Like some others, I had a bit of trouble installing this, with many frustrating restarts to get the sound, and the added confusion of crappy handbook which didn't really reflect reality or help much, but once I had it up and running - superb. Good picture quality considering what was coming out of the video player, and sound which was every bit as good as the original. I had originally intended to use Roxio to drive it, because I had played with this using an older analogue PCI card, but once I got the hang of it, the ArcSoft software had a really useful function that enabled a single click to a wizard for copying video tapes, which my version of Roxio doesn't. At this price, I couldn't really fault it, and the delivery was absolutely excellent at 48 hours.

I'm new to video capturing but found this amazingly simple to use. Pros may find faults but I couldn't.
And if you do have any trouble installing or using, there are some videos on youtube that guide you through it.

Beware your PC must be pretty fast to handle video capturing, otherwise it'll just crash on you.

I bought this to record wii gameplay to put on youtube. And used an old double sided RCA Cable (which has been tested before so works). After putting the easycap into my laptop and installing all drivers and software I put the double sided rca cables into the other ends of the easycap and into the Tv out on my tv. All I get in the ShowBiz software is a black screen saying Live...
I have tried reading around but just can't get it to work.

Bought this capture device because it is more modern than the last one I bought a couple of years ago to digitise my old VHS tapes and I needed to run it under Vista 64bit.

It sort of works, as long as you can get the audio driver and video driver recognised. Once that's sorted out, I found that the ArcSoft Showbiz DVD 2 software supplied with it whinges if you try to copy a (legally owned, I KNOW!!!) VHS tape that is MacroVision copy protected. Doh!

After several days of investigation, this can be stopped with a simple registry entry. Works like a charm now!