Dazzle DVD Recorder [OLD VERSION]
by Pinnacle Systems
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Software Reviews of Dazzle DVD Recorder [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Dazzled Me
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very simple easy way to transfer your VHS, 8mm or what ever. To preserve your keepsakes for ever on DVD. I would reccomend this product to anyone. Mostly for the simplicity.
Jo Ann
Customer Review: Please Don't but anything From Pinnacle
Summary: 1 Stars
I have old VCR tapes that I wanted to convert to my hard drive. I bought two Pinnacle products within two weeks and they were worthless. The customer support is just as worthless as the product. Please...Please don't waist your time or money with these devices it will only add to your frustration. I even tried to download updated drivers from their website and it installed some 3rd party driver detection software that tried to make me pay for it. During this rough economy this is one of those companies that need to go out of business.Customer Review: Beware if you get the white version
Summary: 2 Stars
Hi, I didn't read all the reviews here yet, but I went to my local Best Buy and got the Dazzle DVD Recorder, a white (new version?) as that's what they had, while I did read some reviews beforehand that must have been about the red (older version)? The White version DOES NOT come with the extra software - the 2 extra disks, one a QuickStart Studio or something, and the other a bonus disk. It just comes with the drivers for the device, and will only make DVD VOB files, no AVI or anything else which I wanted, can't even edit in MovieMaker. I'm returning this today. As for quality, I have my DVR hooked into it, and when "monitoring" it seems like VHS quality, but the resulting VOB files seems a bit better when played via VLC Player. I have a Toshiba laptop that just makes the minimum requirements, but the output from the laptop is S-Video'ed into my 32 inch TV, so I can see the difference between when the DVR goes to the TV directly vs. via Dazzle/PC to TV.Customer Review: 5 Fatal Problems I had with the Dazzle - you can too!
Summary: 1 Stars
This is a TERRIBLE product.
I bought this from Best Buy about 6 months ago for $50. This was a complete waste of money.
Problems include:
1. No instructions. You can barely figure out what to do. It is not plug and play, as the software is confusing and the methods recommended by the Introductary Wizard are inconsistent and do not necessarily work.
2. Bad software. The software would not recognize my DVD Burner, and when I finally got it to do so, I got a message that there was an Error which prevented burning to DVD. I had used my DVD burner on another project earlier that day, so the burner was working fine, but the Pinnacle software refused to use it.
3. Very bad Tech Support. After trying to figure it all out on my own, I finally went to the website and had an online chat with customer service. After about 45 minutes of asking me if I had hooked the 3 cables up to my VCR correctly, or the USB port plug to my PC, I was told that the real culprit here was the DVDs I was using were the wrong format. I should go out and spend more money to buy a different format just for their product. That was the only guidance I got from Tech Support. And when I did shell out the money for the recommended format, it *still* gave me the same errors.
4. Misleading transition from VHS to DVD. Eventually, I found out from message boards that the Dazzle can burn content, but despite what the advertising says, it can best be accomplished by copying from VHS to your harddrive, then separately burning the harddrive material to DVD. I did this with both DVD -R and DV +R formats, on the off chance that the advice I got regarding formats was accurate.
5. Awful final DVD product. In both the formats I burned, there were technical glitches which rendered the DVDs worthless. Each was filled with skips and pauses in the video playback. In each instance the audio was off completely. In the original, a person would be talking with a soft wave sound in the background, but in the DVD, in the same scene, there would be no talking and loud music. This total disconnect of audio with the bad video issues made the DVDs unwatchable.
I cannot state highly enough how disappointed I was in this product.
Customer Review: Works on Mac, too
Summary: 3 Stars
My brother bought this version of the Pinnacle Dazzle. I was a bit miffed, as he has a PC laptop for work, but we're a Macintosh household, really. Why bother buying this thing that, after he has to go through a myriad of network copying just to get the files where he can edit them?
This thing sat around for years after he was done copying his old HI8 tapes, but I could never get up the courage to make the kind of work around he did just to use an amateur level product. Pinnacle came out with a version for Mac, later, which ended up just sitting on my Wish List, unbought.
The other day I got curious, did some poking around, and found a third party driver that made this thing work on my Mac! 30 bones got me "VideoGlide" by EchoFX, and it seems to work just fine for me. Total amateur controls, but the video and sound quality are good. It makes nice Quicktime movies, which I'm compiling before my video tapes turns to dust. Anyway, I was chuffed I didn't have to throw this away OR buy something new. The software needs a bit of tuning up (couldn't get the mono setting to work) but it WORKS. I haven't the foggiest about the Pinnacle software, I didn't need it.
There is some sound synching problems when you do a lot of fast forwarding or rewinding on your tape. I just stopped the tape, gave a pause for a breath, and started it up again. It seems to synch up fine after this.
The product itself feels SUPER cheap. I also had to use my Dremel to widen the hole for the S-Video input, which seems pretty janky to me. Ce la vie, the hardware inside is the key.
I haven't seen any cheaper products that work on Mac (at least with decent results), so this gets a "perfectly OKAY' review from me.