Review: Terratec Grabster AV150 peripheral

Many of us still have a large collection of VHS videos, comprising old television favourites or home movies.

As VCRs fade into the ether, transferring video to DVD is becoming more important and the Terratec Grabster AV150 should provide a simple way to do it.

The Grabster AV150 hardware is a small, chocolate bar-sized device with a USB 2 socket at one end and video sockets (S-Video and Composite) along its side.

There’s also a second Composite video socket to enable video monitoring on a TV screen while working.

However, the AV150 is not particularly easy to set-up, partly because the only instructions are on the accompanying CD (there’s no printed quick-start card), but mainly because only half the leads you’ll need are supplied.

If your VCR only has Scart sockets, you’ll have to buy a Scart-to-S-Video/Composite video adapter. In any case, you'll need either an S-Video or Composite cable.

The only leads provided are a twin phono-to-mini jack audio lead and a USB 2 link. Although the missing cables are relatively cheap, it's a real inconvenience not having them in the box.

Terratec supplies full versions of Ulead’s DVD MovieFactory 3 and Video Studio 7 SE DVD, though both of these products are one or two versions off the current version.

Even so, they’re easy to use and can handle all that somebody starting to transfer video is likely to want. Video can be automatically split into chapters, transitions can be added between scenes and DVD menus can be created.

As a minimum requirement, we'd recommend using a computer with a 1.5GHz processor, 512Mb of memory and at least 5Gb of hard-disk space.

The Grabster won't capture sound through USB 2, so the audio output of the video source will need to be connected to the line input of the sound card, which isn't exactly practical.

The Grabster and the Ulead software can handle videos up to 720 x 576, at a frame rate of 25fps, which is adequate for TV quality transcription. The captured picture quality is good, though turning your tapes into ‘top-quality digital films’, as the blurb on the box claims, is stretching things a bit.

The final quality of the CD or DVD created is ultimately governed by the quality of the original VHS recording. So, if you've an old recording sitting on a poor-quality tape, any disc you create with the Grabster AV150 will reflect this.

Also consider
Plextor ConvertX PVR 
4/5 – Much more versatile but at at a much higher price.
£152