Elgato Video Capture Digitize Video

I have an old 8 mm Sony camera that used FireWire for uploading the video to a computer. It worked great on windows XP. But when Windows 7 released it was glitchy, and I’ve never been able to get it to work on windows 10. It also has a component video audio out port. That is a small 2 1/2 mm plug that adapts to the yellow red white component video connections. It is an amazing old camera but technology moved away from fire wire. I sent the camera to a high-end camera shop that cleaned and tested it. I read a number of Internet blogs on how to make fire wire work with windows 10. I download countless drivers, tried numerous configurations, and it would not upload video. I finally gave up on the FireWire cable, and purchase the Pinnacle Dazzle component video capture device. Years ago I had pinnacle studio 14 and loved the program so I had high hopes this would work, but it did not. Driver issues and all kinds of glitchy gave me countless hours of troubleshooting to no avail . I was really frustrated! I was really getting worried since I have about 50 tapes spanning 35 years I need to digitize and preserve. Nearly 100 hours of memories. After watching an excellent YouTube video about this Elgato device I took one more chance and purchased it . It’s the best $90 I’ve ever spent. I hooked up the device to the component video on my camcorder, went to their website and download the Software for the capture device. I double clicked the software, and there’s four simple steps. 1. name the video click next. 2. Push play on the camera to make sure the video is coming through on the screen. once you see the video click next.3. Confirm you have sound. You can hear the sound when it comes through and there’s a 2 bar scale at the bottom of the page for the right and the left channel of sound. Once you have sound push the red button that says record.4. Wait for the entire video to play which most tapes can run up to two hours and once the video is finished click stop recording. No joke it’s that simple! They had some nice features like muting the sound so if you want to upload the video while you’re doing other work you’re not distracted by the sound. If you know your video on the cam corder is only a 60 minute tape you can automatically stop recording the video at 60 minutes so you can leave your computer and not have to worry about being there to stop it. There’s another simple area that will allow you to adjust the contrast brightness and other settings of the video to try to improve it. I played with this for a little while but found the default setting is the best for my videos. Depending on your computer it takes a short while to render for finalize the video and store it on your hard drive or which ever device you are saving it to. I have a New computer with the Intel I9 processor and and Nvidia 3070 graphics card and a 2 hour video takes about three minutes to process which is incredible! Each hour of 8mm video takes about 1 GB of memory. In the past two weeks I’ve uploaded nearly 25 of these two hour videos directly onto my NAS! I highly recommend anybody with a component video VHS or 8 mm camcorder or anything with the yellow red white cable that wants to save their memories to buy this device! Spend the $90 for this particular one since Elgato’s capture software is the secret sauce! There are hundreds of these devices for sale that look pretty much the same and there only $15. Don’t get fooled by a cheap price! If pinnacle studio can’t get the dazzle device correct I can’t imagine a $15 cheap knock off will get the software correct. Thank you El Gato! You have a very reliable very easy and excellent product! My children in their 30s and my grandchildren are enjoying watching all of these videos through my Apple TV!