Sights and Sounds of Multimedia

By George Harding

VHS to DVD 3.0 Deluxe …

I received an evaluation copy of this at the Consumer Electronics Show (at the wonderful Showstoppers event). The purpose of this hardware is to convert analog data to digital. The analog data can be VHS tape, video or any other such form. The tag line on the box is, “Easily convert your videos to DVD/VCD.”

I found the product to be anything but easy! I have had many problems with the software portion of this product and have not been able to resolve any of them.

The product comes with a small metal box (VidBox) which has several connectors and a power supply outlet. The device itself is a USB 2.0 type. It needs a direct power supply source, included in the product box. USB devices can obtain power from the USB port, but for some devices, the power available is not sufficient to properly operate the device. That’s the case with VidBox.

The connectors include S-video and RCA red, yellow and white plugs. If you have an S-video connector on you VCR or video camera (few analog cameras do), that is the best video transmission method. If not, the RCA plugs are pretty much universal for all VCRs and analog cameras. Often, there are not both red and white plugs (stereo sound), but one will do if both are not available. The yellow RCA plug is for video.

The VidBox is quite small, perhaps not surprising, since a small chip is all that’s necessary to do the conversion from analog to digital.

I was really looking forward to testing this product. I have both VCRs (who doesn’t?) and an analog video camera. I wanted something that would make the process of converting analog to digital easy and allow transferring the result to DVD. I have been able to transfer the camera’s analog video to VCR tape, but that medium requires a VCR player to see the result. A DVD disc is playable in many more devices.

The first step for the product was to install the software. This is a two-step process. First the processing software is installed, second a driver is needed to interface from the USB port to the software. I encountered my first problem here. The software requires a DVD writer to be attached to the computer before the software can be installed. So I had to move my DVD writer from computer one to computer two. This was what I had intended anyway, but not at that point in time.

Once that was done, the installation proceeded smoothly. Next, I tried to process a VCR tape. There are two methods for capturing video. The first is what is described at “Easy Wizard Mode.” Here you simply start playing the video and the software captures it. When you stop, what you’ve captured is written to DVD automatically. There are no options, nor are any of the settings changeable.

The second method, described as “Advanced Mode,” has three steps: Capture, Edit and Write. Here, all the options may be changed. In particular, you can set any of three resolutions: 720 X 480 (2.5 GHz machine or better), 352 X 480 (1.5 GHz to 2.5 GHz machine) or 352 X 240 (less than 1.5 GHz machine).

I tried the Easy Wizard Mode first. It seemed to work as advertised. This Mode steps you through the process of hooking up your devices, showing diagrams of the proper way to connect. You can also choose your length of recording (presumably the length is determined by the frame rate, increasing length by lowering frame rate), and choose the resolution.

When the recording is finished, the file is written directly to DVD. There is no opportunity to edit.

I also tried the Advanced mode, using the highest resolution, because my testing computer is 3 GHz with lots of disk space. The result was poor. Many frames were dropped, sound was not continuous and in spots, the video froze.

Worse, when I stopped the recording and went to Edit, I got a Microsoft error message that the program had to quit. I have never been able to use the Edit mode.

This should be a great product, easy to use, fast in process and excellent in result. I was disappointed it didn’t turn out to be so.

VHS to DVD 3.0 Deluxe by Honest Technology www.honestech.com Price about $100

Requires XP SP2 or Vista, USB 2.0, P4 2 GHz or better, 256 MB memory, DVD writer

CounterSpy …

You might think this is software used to protect against someone spying on you, and you’d not be far wrong! It continuously monitors your computer for signs of spyware.

What’s wrong with spyware? It can capture and use information in your computer without you being aware of it until it’s too late.

CounterSpy scans your computer in depth to find spyware and problem areas. When it finds spyware, it gives you the opportunity to delete or to quarantine. There are two other functions of the software, Active Protection and System Tools.

Active Protection monitors changes to your computer and installations of other software to see that nothing harmful is being done. If the change is not harmful, CounterSpy allows it. If the change is due to known spyware, CounterSpy prevents the change. If CounterSpy is not sure, it asks you to decide by popping up a box identifying the name of the item trying to make a change and giving you the option to Allow or Disallow.

System Tools helps to keep your PC running smoothly with PC Explorer, PC Checkup, History Cleaner and Secure File Eraser. These tools are optional and can be used whenever you wish.

CounterSpy installs easily and works without disturbing the smoothness of your other work. The installation process allows you to select (or not) automatic updates (you should select this, of course), Active Protection and ThreatNet. This latter item is a unique way to identify and protect against new threats. When CounterSpy identifies a possible threat that is not in its database, it is sent to Sunbelt’s analysis unit; if is a new threat, protection is added immediately to the database and included in the next update to everyone’s CounterSpy.

I’ve found a couple of anomalies in operation. I will often sit down at my computer to find a message “CounterSpy is already running.” It’s not clear why this message occurs and the only action that is available to take is to click OK. The other strange message is “CounterSpy cannot run an automatic scan when the console is open.” This occurs even when the console is not open. These are not serious problems, but curious nevertheless.

CounterSpy is a good spyware application. Professionals recommend that you run more than one spyware app, however, since so far no single spyware product is able to identify all spyware. This one, however, comes as close as any I’ve tested.

CounterSpy by Sunbelt www.sunbelt-software.com Price about $20