Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U

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Company:
Plextor Corp., www.plextor.com
Price:
$159 list
Spec Data:
Composite video, S-Video, stereo audio; USB 2.0; MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX (and application software can transcode captured video to WMV or ASF); MPEG-1 Layer 2, LPCM, Dolby Digital; MP3 requires $15 upgrade; InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2, WinDVD Player 5

Pros:
Good-looking output; hardware DivX and MPEG-4 encoding; can capture poorly recorded tapes
Cons:
Immature software bundle; no DV input; can't transmit PC's video output to external AV devices
Bottom line:
Plextor's latest video-capture module is one of the most stable, conflict-free devices of its type we've seen. It doesn't include digital inputs, and we weren't impressed with its bundled application software. But its superior output quality, hardware MPEG-4 encoder, and ability to capture analog video directly into the popular DivX format without loss of audio sync easily outweigh any deficiencies.

Review
There's plenty of reason to like the Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U video-capture module. This flexible USB 2.0 device can capture almost any flavor of analog video and store it as.. click here for

Capture Analog Video with ConvertX

There's plenty of reason to like the Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U video-capture module. This flexible USB 2.0 device can capture almost any flavor of analog video and store it as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or even DivX AVI files. It handled our most challenging test footage with aplomb, and its picture quality was excellent for a mid-priced device.

Installing the ConvertX is as simple as loading a driver, connecting the device to an analog video source, and then attaching it to your PC's USB 2.0 port. Video-capture devices are notorious for conflicting with system drivers, packet-writing applications, older BIOSes, chip sets, and other system components. The ConvertX had no such issues on our well-used testbed, and worked like a charm. Unlike the bidirectional Pinnacle Studio MovieBox USB, the ConvertX is a capture-only device that can't route captured video back to a VCR, camcorder, or TV. It provides composite and S-Video inputs but lacks a FireWire interface, which would let it transfer DV video to and from digital camcorders.

The bundled InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 disc-creation software doesn't let you fine-tune many capture options, but it does offer a good selection of presets, including VCD-compatible MPEG-1, three quality levels of DivX, and five levels of MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. WinDVD Creator offers an easy-to-learn four-step guided workflow that divides projects into capture, video-editing, disc-authoring, and output stages. It lets you capture directly to CD or DVD and then perform basic authoring functions on-disc.

Less impressive are its video-editing and disc-authoring features, which allow only one video title per DVD and force every project to include a root menu that merely plays the entire disc like a videotape; multibutton menus are possible only if you create a second 'chapter' menu that assigns buttons to each chapter of the main video title. Navigating the program's video-editing timeline is cumbersome, and the package includes only a modest selection of preset layouts, themes, and menu-customization options.

This is especially unfortunate given the ConvertX's other strengths. Our test unit operated flawlessly on our Windows XP testbed, producing output quality clearly superior to that of the MovieBox. Even when capturing poorly recorded test material and tapes made with the Macrovision system, it produced stable, well-saturated output that was free from dropouts. Its hardware-encoded DivX output (the only encoder certified by DivX Systems) was surprisingly smooth and never lost audio synchronization when transcoded to an MPEG-1 VCD or MPEG-2 DVD.

Despite underpowered software and less flexibility than some similar products we've tested, the ConvertX is a terrific way to copy analog videotapes and live television broadcasts into a digital format that's ready to incorporate into a Web site, DVD, or Video CD.

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