DAC100 good stuff!

[jaimicook]

I have just acquired the DAC100 video interface from Data Video. This is the way to go if you want an all round video input device. The device has a firewire computer interface, instead of the more common USB2 interface. This means that you will never have a band width problem with input or output. It has analog video and audio inputs (both RCA jacks and Svideo connector) and firewire in. The outputs are the same specs as the inputs. I had a lot of problems keeping audio and video in sync with my Dazzle Digital Video Creator II. This doesn't have the problem. You can plug in a firewire camcorder into the digital input on this and get the advantage of the additional signal processing on this. This is without a doubt the way to go if you want something that works first time, every time. I've used it with Windows Movie Maker 2, Adobe Premier 6.1, Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 and Sonic My Dvd, so it should work with about anything that can read firewire input. The price is around $200, which is certainly competative. I paid around $300 for the DVCII. I am using this to convert video tapes to DVD's before the tapes go away. One of the reviews on this said that the main fault was that it wasn't well known. I certainly agree. One little quirk I found is that you must have the DAC100 powered down when you start the computer. When the computer is up, turn on the interface and you will hear the familiar beep as it is recognised. If it is on when the computer powers up, it won't be recognised. Certainly a minor fault. Unles you are near the relatively few companies that cary this, you'll have to buy it on line, as I did.
By the way, Data Video also has a time base corrector if you can't stand the virtually non existant jittering of the sync clock. Perhaps in a professional application, such as a TV Studeo, you might need this. I am pleased with the unit without the time base corection.
Jim

[scruge]

Interesting review.

Is the encoder hardware or software based?

I'm looking for something that has a hardware encoder for dv to dvd. Most I've looked at are analog video to dvd.. I would think someone has one being Sony has dvd camcorder..

I looked at a plexar hardware encoder the other day for $120 but it didn't mention anything about transcoding dv to dvd.

BTW I bought a Sony trv460 which does a real nice job of encoding analog.. I had a bunch of analog 8mm that i wanted converted and the results far surpassed my expectations.. they looked better than the originals. Now that I'm done with it I'll try to sell on ebay.