Photograph: Marc Simon
A funny thing happened on my way to reviewing Plextor's
ConvertX PX-M402U video capture device: I learned that the only record I have of my 16-year-old son's third birthday party is worth far more to me than the $159 this handy little box costs. I was playing the precious VHS home movie when the screen filled with the moire-style interference often associated with a tape gone bad. Luckily, the tape was fine--our TV had bitten the dust. Using a shipping PX-M402U, I was able to convert the movie to digital video and then save it by writing it to optical media with my own DVD burners.
The PX-M402U connects to a DVD player, VCR, TV, or analog camcorder via its RCA composite audio/video ports or its S-Video inputs. The WinDVD Creator software included with the package lets you select source and output from drop-down lists; I used the highest-quality MPEG-2 settings for my conversion. You can easily capture video; edit it; add titles, transitions, effects, and music; and build menus. I burned my movie on my DVD-R recorder and then made a DVD+R copy with another burner. If you don't already have a DVD burner, you may want to look at devices, such as HP's $250 DVD Movie Writer DC3000, that both convert and burn.
What impressed me most about using the ConvertX was that I could see no difference between the digital copy it made and the tape original.
The PX-M402U's capture formats include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and DivX. WinDVD Creator allows you to burn your final video to DVD, mini DVD, or Video-CD, or to convert your video over to AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, ASF, WMV, or DivX movie file format.
Having found it so easy to ensure the survival of one precious tape, I plan to gather the rest of our home movies and convert them all. Bringing back the memories is worth the modest investment.
Great device easily converts analog video into superb digital copies in a variety of formats.
List: $159
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