Digital video/analog converters

[Hans de Wolf]

I have noticed that recently a new type of analog-digital video 
converter has appeared: an USB device that contains an MPEG-1/MPEG-2 
encoder. An example is USB Instant DVD from ADS. 
<http://www.adstech.com/products/macav1750/intro/macav1750intro.asp?pid=MACAV1750>

In the past USB-based video converter did not work very well because 
USB could not handle the data rate. This new generation uses a 
hardware MPEG-1 / MPEG-2 compressor to reduce the video stream to 
something that can very well be handled by USB. Maybe these devices 
are using the same electronics as the Sony Micro-DV cams ?

If you capture the contents to MPEG-1, you should be able to burn a 
VCD directly from this data, if you capture to MPEG-2 you can use 
that directly to create a DVD or SVCD.

Of course, editing the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 with standard software is 
difficult, and the price difference between the PC and Mac versions 
is ridiculous ...

Is there anyone who has hands-on experience with this technology ?


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