Roxio Easy VHS to DVD (Mac)

I rarely provide reviews and have never provided a bad review (largely because I'm British and it feels wrong somehow?!). However, in this case I'm going to make an exception. I bought this product because the blurb said it would capture video AND let you edit it seamlessly with iMovie.
On the plus side, this program DOES capture VHS from your old video cassettes or VHS-C/Video8 camcorder recordings. It set up easily enough and I was capturing my old home movies within 30 mins of installing the software. HOWEVER, this is where my problems began.
EVHS-DVD converts your old video into MPEG2 files. This is no problem if you capture your video then choose to IMMEDIATELY edit it with iMovie. The software converts MPEG2 into a format that allows you to edit with iMovie.
Unfortunately, after capturing your video, the software presents you with several options, one of which is 'Capture more video' (or similar wording). If you have several cassettes as I did, you choose the 'Capture more video' each time. Eventually you end up with several MPEG2 files on your hard disk which is where the problems start.
1. iMOVIE WILL NOT OPEN MPEG2 FILES
2. EVHS-DVD WILL NOT LET YOU OPEN FILES YOU HAVE PREVIOUSLY CAPTURED USING EVHS-DVD.
3. EVHS-DVD WILL NOT CONVERT MPEG2 FILES UNLESS YOU CHOOSE 'Edit with iMovie' EACH TIME YOU CAPTURE A VIDEO
4. THERE IS NO WARNING IN THE SOFTWARE THAT IGNORING THE 'Edit with iMovie' OPTION MEANS YOUR CAPTURED VIDEO CAN NEVER BE OPENED AGAIN BY EVHS-DVD
5. THE MPEG2 FILES YOU NOW POSSESS ARE EFFECTIVELY REDUNDANT. No program on your Mac will open them (unless you have a special QuickTime plugin) and iMovie will not import them
I have had a long email conversation with Roxio Technical Support who effectively said 'Yes sir, you're right, and we note your concern, but we can't help you'. Very poor indeed.
The whole problem could be solved if EVHS-DVD had a 'File....Open' option to open files you've previously captured. But there just isn't. Nothing. My advice is do not buy this product until this very fundamental flaw is fixed.

Okay, the software is nice & easy to set up, however -

1- You may find you need more cables - it comes with a short adaptor cable for USB to the 3 seperate coloured pin plugs, so I needed to go & buy a 3 colour cable (like the ones you use to plug video consoles into your TV) & then a 3 colour to SCART adaptor since my video player doesn't have the 3 colour out.

Once everything's plugged together you press play on your video & following the menus you get a little screen on your Mac showing what the video is playing so you can check sound & picture & cue your video ready to transfer to your computer. Pretty straightforward, but...

2- Every time I cue up a new video I can't get the video sound on my Mac. Unless I unplug the USB & then plug it back in & it's magically fixed. What's with that!

Okay, so you click on the big obvious "record" button on screen & sit back while the video plays through. You can choose to have the record stop automatically at 60 minutes, 90 minutes, etc, but...

3- you cannot customise the stop time to suit the actual length of the video you're transferring.

When the recording finishes a little window pops up saying something like "please wait a moment" while your computer converts the video format to something it can use, this may take a little longer than you might think...

4 - The transfer time is not quick, on my Macbook is about 1 1/2 times the length of the video (a 1 hour movie takes 1 1/2 hours to transfer), obviously if you have a more up to the minute Mac it should be faster.

Once the format is converted you get the option to transfer the file into I-Movie (editing software), or Toast (the DVD writer software), or to quit leaving the video saved in your Movies file as a ".mov" file.

5 - If you do not choose I-Movie at this stage you will not be able to do it later! The format that the video just converted to cannot be opened by I-Movie, & the VHS-DVD software doesn't allow you to transfer saved files to I-Movie. If you do chose to go to I-Movie you have to wait for another format change (go make yourself a cup of tea, a 1 hour video took about 1/2 hour on my laptop). (Oh, & if your version of I-Movie isn't compatible it won't tell you until it's done this format change.)

If you opt for the Quit option the saved .mov file can be viewed in I-Tunes.
If you opt for transfering the file to Toast Basic (provided with the package) you just drag in the videos you want & choose from a selection of DVD title menus. You can title the videos, but otherwise ...

6 - You can't customise the DVD menu in Toast Basic. Not a terrible omission, but it would've been nice to just drag over a JPEG of your choice for the selection menu.

Once you've made your selections (recording quality "Good/Better/Best") click record &... wait.

7 - It takes ages to convert/buffer the files ready to burn to DVD. I put four 1 hour videos together on one video (I'm guessing this is about the maximum per disc at the default settings), selected the highest quality & it took 16 hours before it was ready to burn the DVD!

Finally the DVD is burned & ready to watch. The formatting is pretty basic (the software splits the videos into chapters), but straightforward, however...

8 - Sadly the picture quality at "Best Quality" using the defaults is not as good as the source video. I transferred old VHS tapes at the highest quality setting & the resulting DVD was kinda fuzzy & all dark areas on screen were now an impenetrable black. The sound level varied from one recording to the other as well, I assume the DVD volume depends on the volume controls on your computer rather than the levels on the source video. Overall the kind of picture quality you would expect from You-Tube, but not adequate for archiving your old movies. I haven't tried playing around with the Advanced settings yet, but assume that this will provide higher quality (being "Advanced", I'm not too sure what half of the settings do, a bit more info or a quality demo would be nice. The higher quality settings obviously mean your videos will take up more room, so less movie per disc, but presumably the processing time per disc will be about the same).

So, easy to use (except for the problem with I-Movie), but expect it to be time consuming, & the results at the default are of poor quality.

This does an adequate job of converting analogue to dv with one very large fault. The quality is not good enough to watch on tv/dvd. If you just want to send clips to youtube then this is fine for you. If you want to convert vhs to dvd like it says in the title, you will be left disappointed just like I was.

I've sent mine back too and ordered the more expensive ADVC-55 Analogue to DV Converter. Hopefully it will do the job that this cannot and will not do.

In fact it should be called Roxio Easy VHS to Youtube!