Dazzle DVD Recorder [OLD VERSION]

First let me say that after using Windows Vista for a almost a year at home, I have found it to be a very stable, very intuitive OS that is great at fixing problems itself, creating its own firewall rules, etc. The version of Dazzle Pinnacle that I bought said "Vista Compatible" on the box. After months of trying, and help from my Elec & Comp Engineer friend, I gave up. He even tried to use it on his XP computer, no good. I cannot get the Studio to work at all, and Instant DVD Recorder only works for certain types of small files. Avoid this junk, get the StarTech USB 2.0 Video Capture cable instead and you'll be MUCH happier with it. Remember to install its software before its hardware.

Package advertises Vista Compatable says drivers are online. This seriously took me quite a while to get it working in the Vista environment, however if you are prepared for this (read the reviews and you'll see). Customer service has an online support ticket for help and they are truly awesome, I did have to waste a few DVD's with their try this and try that, however now that I have it working for what I wanted it for I am up to my lightscribe DVD's and I absolutely love this product.

Everyone seems to have a different experience with this product. Many people report bugs/software problems and that is because there are some. I find the hardware portion of this product works quite well and the video captures are of a good quality. Unfortunately, most unfortunately, the software bites. You can capture good video, but you cannot use this software to burn a DVD. The menu generator, where you can design a menu and select chapters every x number of minutes gets hung up all the time and says "generating disc menus" and you have to force shut down the program, or computer. I will be looking around to see if they release any software updates or fixes that will take care of this, but I don't know how hopeful I should be. If anyone has a solution for these burning errors and hanging up on generating disc menus, PLEASE POST IT! I know I'm not the only person who's had this trouble because many people report having the same trouble. I will just have to use this product for the video capture stage and edit/burn with something else. I was very disappointed that I could not do everything with this product. It is supposed to be an all-in-one solution; if they fixed some small software bugs it could be great, but as it stands it is next to worthless.

I was excited when i received Dazzle, but once I opened the box, I discovered it wouldn't do what I had hoped. Before I made the purchase, I had read what I could find, on Amazon and elsewhere, but the cumulative results of this research were still quite sketchy. What I had found out, though, made me think I might be able to use it to put my video tapes onto dvd's.

Once I received the package and read the enclosed directions, I realized it wouldn't work. For one thing, I had to have a computer that could be dedicated to this task. (This is because of the extensive number of tapes I wanted to transcribe.). This was not a possibility. Obviously I didn't understand how Dazzle worked, though tried hard to try to find out. (I even went to an electronics store; the salesman had never heard of it.)

I wish Amazon could have provided more detailed information about the product or given links to finding out more about it. I was disappointed, but the experience just made me realize I need to do a lot of homework before making another purchase, though I will make another purchase on Amazon.

Horrible software - what looks like an easy plug and play product ended up being buggy and unable to deliver anything. After multiple discussions with their tech support (friendly yet ineffectual), numerous re-installs and upgrades, the product still wouldn't work, leading once to a total crash of my system. Tech help seems to read out of a training manual, rather than actually communicate solutions - it would have been nice to hear them say something like: "Oh yes, we have had this problem before, this is one of the ways we have found to fix it" rather than "reinstall software again, turn off other programs like virus checking and firewalls" (how safe - and wonderful that a product can't function under regular operations of a normal computer!).

I am getting more and more outraged at companies that feel they can market their products any way they want without having to prove their claims - this is hardly Instant DVD Recorder.... try Instant Pain in the Rear.

And before you ask, I am computer literate and run a new Dell Windows XP system with twice the recommended system requirements that the product advices.

VERY DISAPPOINTING