Hands on: Transfer analogue video to digital

Connection confusion
The Terratec products ship with both Ulead Videostudio 7 LE and Ulead DVD Movie Factory 3, everything you need to edit and author your captured footage onto DVD.

Aside from bundled software, one of the important things to think about when buying one of these USB analogue capture boxes is what kind of video and audio connections it offers and what cables are supplied.

If you don’t, you can end up spending a lot more money on cables and adapters or not be able to hook the thing up at all. My S-VHS VCR is a fairly high-spec model and has multiple Scart, S-VHS and composite video outputs as well as separate stereo phono outputs.

Most standard VCRs offer only what’s necessary to hook up to a TV – usually a Scart socket and an RF coaxial connector. Analogue camcorders will have an AV socket providing composite video and audio and will have been supplied with a cable that terminates in RCA plugs for the video and stereo audio channels.

Hi-Band (for example, Hi-8 and S-VHS) models will also have an S-video port. For Hi-band 8mm video you should always use the S-VHS connection where possible as this is a better quality signal than that available from the composite video output.

If your VCR is equipped only with a Scart socket, you can get an adapter that provides RCA-style phono jacks on the rear for composite video and stereo audio channels. Then all you need is three cables with RCA connectors at the end.

These are usually supplied with the digitiser and are colour-coded – yellow for the video and red and white for the left and right stereo audio channels.

Terratec makes two other versions of the Grabster: the Grabster 250 and 400. The 400 is a slightly larger, more substantial-feeling piece of kit than the budget-priced 150.

Aside from the fact that it’s supplied with an S-video cable, a Scart convert er of the kind mentioned above and has onboard stereo audio inputs, the main difference between this and its less expensive siblings is that the digitising and encoding is all done by the hardware.

This puts less of a strain on your PC’s CPU, but, unless you have a very old and slow PC, in which case you’re likely to run into trouble further down the line either editing or burning DVDs, the advantages of hardware encoding are marginal and probably not worth the extra cost.