5.18.2006
Dazzle Video Converter
I recently purchased a Dazzle DVC (Digital Video Creator) 90. I did so for a school project so I could finally edit those tapes I taped with my old-fashioned 8mm video camera. The price was affordable, $90 or so, and it promised features. However delivering on such promises are where Pinnacle, the manufacturer, falls short.
First, right out of the box it did not work. It was 1500 frames per second (almost all frames) when I plugged it in and tried to use their software. Their software would regularly freeze. So I tried Microsoft's Movie Maker. It had the ability to capture it from the device, however it experienced similar glitches. It would record some of the audio, mostly garbled, and none of the video. Frustrated I looked to Pinnacles own message boards for help after their FAQ did not solve the problem.
I noted the system requirements and noted that I met them all. I tried it on my other, less new computer, to no avail. But luckily at 9:00pm on a Friday night I found out what the matter was.
Apparently the problem arises with chipsets designed for AMD processors. Normally I've had no problems with AMD processors and find they are the best bang for your buck. Turns out the Dazzle will not work with On-Board USB ports (integrated ports) on AMD motherboards.
Everything was clear now. Both my computers have on-board USB ports and AMD processors. It's a shame they don't put that on the box because the box says it works fine with AMD processors. Turns out there is a USB Bus limiter that cannot be easily changed (I'm not positive it can be changed at all). My USB ports were limited to 12% of system resources. Now for video capture they needed much more than this (no need to safe processor for background tasks during capture, you need all that you can get). So I took a trip to everyone's favorite capitalistic monster, Walmart (only one open at 9pm). I bought a $30 USB PCI card, popped it in within 5 minutes of getting home, and I was able to capture at the highest quality flawlessly.
Thus if you are buying a Dazzle from Pinnacle and have a AMD processor, make sure you have/buy a separate PCI USB 2.0 Card.
Click to visit Pinnacle
I proudly use:
First, right out of the box it did not work. It was 1500 frames per second (almost all frames) when I plugged it in and tried to use their software. Their software would regularly freeze. So I tried Microsoft's Movie Maker. It had the ability to capture it from the device, however it experienced similar glitches. It would record some of the audio, mostly garbled, and none of the video. Frustrated I looked to Pinnacles own message boards for help after their FAQ did not solve the problem.
I noted the system requirements and noted that I met them all. I tried it on my other, less new computer, to no avail. But luckily at 9:00pm on a Friday night I found out what the matter was.
Apparently the problem arises with chipsets designed for AMD processors. Normally I've had no problems with AMD processors and find they are the best bang for your buck. Turns out the Dazzle will not work with On-Board USB ports (integrated ports) on AMD motherboards.
Everything was clear now. Both my computers have on-board USB ports and AMD processors. It's a shame they don't put that on the box because the box says it works fine with AMD processors. Turns out there is a USB Bus limiter that cannot be easily changed (I'm not positive it can be changed at all). My USB ports were limited to 12% of system resources. Now for video capture they needed much more than this (no need to safe processor for background tasks during capture, you need all that you can get). So I took a trip to everyone's favorite capitalistic monster, Walmart (only one open at 9pm). I bought a $30 USB PCI card, popped it in within 5 minutes of getting home, and I was able to capture at the highest quality flawlessly.
Thus if you are buying a Dazzle from Pinnacle and have a AMD processor, make sure you have/buy a separate PCI USB 2.0 Card.
Click to visit Pinnacle
I proudly use:
5.02.2006
Random Text
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Sometimes you need to design something before the content is there. Say you are designing a brochure but don't know exactly what you are going to write. Some place filler text to see how things will work. However typing filler text or random characters: "erhasdfhdsalghds" either looks unnatural or takes a lot of time.
There is a solution and it doesn't require one to speak Latin. It is called Lorem Ipsum. It has long been used as a placeholder text. It is used often in website design, where the designer makes a design and the company takes the design and adds their content. The filler text is Latin and translates to some odd proverb about the difference between pleasure and pain.
To Generate Lorem Ipsum just go to lipsum.com You enter the number of paragraphs/sentences/words you want and it will generate them for you. Try it out whenever you need it. It looks like the English spacing and sentence structure but it is not English so it doesn't distract from the layout.
Give it a whirl!
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Sometimes you need to design something before the content is there. Say you are designing a brochure but don't know exactly what you are going to write. Some place filler text to see how things will work. However typing filler text or random characters: "erhasdfhdsalghds" either looks unnatural or takes a lot of time.
There is a solution and it doesn't require one to speak Latin. It is called Lorem Ipsum. It has long been used as a placeholder text. It is used often in website design, where the designer makes a design and the company takes the design and adds their content. The filler text is Latin and translates to some odd proverb about the difference between pleasure and pain.
To Generate Lorem Ipsum just go to lipsum.com You enter the number of paragraphs/sentences/words you want and it will generate them for you. Try it out whenever you need it. It looks like the English spacing and sentence structure but it is not English so it doesn't distract from the layout.
Give it a whirl!
