AVerMediaEZMaker 7, USB Video Capture Card , Analog to Digital Recorder, RCA Composite, VHS to DVD, S-Video, Support Windows 11, Mac 10.11/10.12 (C039), Black,3.2 x 1.1 x 0.5 in (82 x 28.5 x 14 mm)

I am about to go and write a BAD review for a similar item, (EasyCAP DC60) which I bought prior to ordering the AVerMedia C039. If this review spares one person from making the similar mistake, I'll be glad.Like lots of folks out there, I have old personal videos on VHS, VHS-C, and 8mm tape, and I'd like to convert them to digital to share and store. The cost of having that done is a bit off-putting, and you just have to leave off your old tapes (or mail them) with someone and hope they do a good job of it. Having captured video in the past from magnetic media via (now antiquated) capture cards, I took a peek online and found that since then, the hardware has come a long way! Now you can also EASILY capture the sound along with the video (used to be more to that), and it's all in a convenient USB device that's all external.I thought I could save a lot of $ by trying to convert my own videos, with less than a $20 investment, and I assumed I could lick the technical gotchas confronting reviewers frustrated by the (much cheaper) EasyCAP device. That is too big a subject to delve into here, but suffice it to say despite not being a noob I couldn't get very far with it. I was a tad hesitant to try another similar device fearing I'd get burned twice, but after taking a look at AVerMedia's professional lineup of products and support at their website I went for it. SO HAPPY! What a total difference in quality.I am using it for now on my notebook, which has no DVD drive, so I had to go the route of downloading the drivers from their website. I installed them, plugged in the device, and immediately started capturing video through the built-in cam, then live via the cables from the old Sony HandyCam, and then finally from one of the old tapes, just like that. As I do not have a DVD drive for this PC I can't comment on the included software (going to install that later) so I am using a free version of AMCAP from the web, and it works fine so far for what I need to do, except that I have to convert the files later to get their size down. There is a bit of a learning curve left as to efficiently capturing and compressing the video but I believe I will be able to accomplish my goal of converting my own videos at a tiny fraction of the cost of paying someone else to do it, and it should be kind of fun.Using the AMCap program, the onscreen display sometimes looks a bit choppy and laggy, but when I play back the recorded video file it's fine, so that is likely due to my little notebook's graphics capabilities and is not reflected in the quality of the recordings. It might turn out that I need a meatier PC to do the actual work but that is in no way the fault of the capture device.I am on Windows 7 starter, on a little ASUS notebook, and this device works just fine for what I need it to do. I would not hesitate to recommend it based on my experience thus far.

Update: I'm not sure how this was working so well back when I originally bought the device. For some reason any program I use to capture will work for like 5 minutes but then the source audio/video is just completely lost and freezes on the last frame it was rendering. No idea what the issue is. I've tried a bunch of things, including reinstalling the latest drivers from the AVerMedia website, updating Windows power settings (including usb power settings), and using different usb ports. Dropping this down to 1 star because it doesn't seem to work anymore!Original review:There were some comments and answers that said it took some tweaking to get working on OBS, but I had no problems. Plugged it in, installed the drivers from the AVerMedia website for Windows 10 x64 (v10.2.64.103), then added a Video Capture Device source in OBS. In OBS it showed up as "AVerMedia USB Polaris Analog Capture". Audio and Video worked straight away, didn't even need to modify any properties or crossbars. I used Component instead of S-Video. I'll be sure to report back here if I run into any issues moving forward, but this has been great so far!

The software installed pretty easy. I have a Win 7 home premium, 64 bit, Pentium dual 3.2 GHZ with 4GB RAM. I validated that the right version of DirectX was on my PC and it was but I ran the install from the AverMedia CD anyways. I then. loaded the Cyberlink Media Suite 10 CD. I needed the CD key which is printed on the CD so I had to start over. Write down your serial number on the CD sleeve before you start to optimize time. This is where the fun starts. I opened up PowerDirector from the start menu and it recognized the AverMedia DVD EZmaker 7 RCA/USB connector device. I clicked on the Capture icon on top and it enabled two icons - "Capture from TV signal" and "Capture from External or Optical" device. It defaulted to "Capture from TV signal". I turned on my Sony DCR-TRV230 Camcorder, clicked Record in the capture player controls and no video was presenting in the Capture preview window. I recorded for a while and then stopped since I was testing out if the settings were right and to see the record quality. I stopped the recording and it requested a file name. I provided it and reviewed the video. Nothing recorded. I shut down the app and rebooted my PC since this magically resolves issues. Went through the steps again and same results. I switched to "Capture from External or Optical" icon and that didn't work either. Then I figured I'd review the product reviews on Amazon for any pointers. No luck. I then went to the Cyberlink site and found the PowerDirector User Manual. When all else fails read the manual. I realized that this is a sophisticated piece of software that needs some User Understanding. Scanned the manualto pick up pointers. Went back into PowerDirector and started playing with Profile and Capture settings. No luck and I didn't find Cyberlink knowledge base helpful for my questions. I got tired and went to bed. I woke the next morning and went at it again. All of a sudden it is magically working with no changes and another reboot. My goal was just to copy my hundreds of hours of 8mm tape to DVD or a hard drive. I have ripped through 5 tapes already and am very happy since it is working and the content is amazing. I'm going to see if I can leverage some of the editing capability with the PowerDirector software to clean up the content. Not sure what this version provides but I will read the manual and Play. The Avermedia web site and Quick Guide are not very user friendly. They have the Mac User Guide linked to the non Mac version which I have. The User Interface is different. I didn't contact Customer Support because it was the weekend.To Sum it up I am happy with the product but the documentation can be improved. To be able to digitize all of the kids and family functions from the past is amazing. It also is going to save me hundreds of dollars. Sorry for being so verbose but if this saves someone some time and frustration it is worth it.