VIDBOX Video Conversion Suite

Easy to use

This product works great with Windows 10 and 11 - none of the problems that there are with other products. Took me 10 minutes to set up and then I was off and running. Very easy to use. The only tricky part is that it uses the same output name for every file created on the same day, so be sure to rename the second one (and more) or it will overwrite the first one you did for that day.

The media could not be loaded. I pulled the vidbox converter out of the packaging and plugged it all in to my VCR and windows 11 laptop and it worked like a charm with the vidbox software that I downloaded from their website. I was a little bit confused as to which software to download but realized that there was a software package with a name that matched the name directly above the license key in my paperwork, "Video Conversion for PC", and I downloaded that software, put in the license key and started using easy mode but I wasn't happy with the graininess of the footage. At the end of the Easy capture it asked me if I wanted to convert it to MP4 so I did and the file size went down considerably. When I plugged the VCR directly into my 65" Sony 4k TV the footage was a lot cleaner than the file I got out of the vidbox, Grrrrrr!I decided to try again. This time I used the advanced mode. It wasn't a ton more complicated to use. I boosted the saturation from the default of 32 up to 40 and I reduced the default sharpness from 4 down to 0. Then I recorded in mpeg2 mode. I did not convert the file to MP4 the 2nd time and it worked.The second mistake I made came in post processing. It has nothing to do with vidbox but I thought I would share anyhow. When I turned my video clip from vidbox into a movie using the free program "Windows Movie Maker" I chose to Save the movie as "Recommended for this project" which turned out to be a low definition 480 resolution MP4. When I uploaded the movies to youtube they were super grainy. Later I used "Windows Movie Maker" again and tried saving the movie as "For High Definition Display" which produced a 1080 resolution MP4 file. This didn't show the graininess when viewed on my 65"4k TV. I was finally happy with the results when I uploaded the movies to youtube.I'm not sure using advanced mode and changing the settings for saturation and sharpness made all that much difference. I'm pretty sure the most important steps were (1) don't convert your vidbox file to be an MP4 and (2) save your finished movies as HD files before publishing to youtube.The vidbox case itself feels a little bit tinny. The circuit card is a bit loose in the vidbox tool. Didn't seem to cause any issues though. I would buy vidbox again. FYI, I did not get a discount for writing this review. I'm just a guy that had some VHS tapes to convert to digital.

OK - The hardware hookup is easy as is the download. When loading the software on my Mac, it asked about the camera and microphone. I said "No" because I thought it might record noises and video in the room. Recording the video worked, but there was no audio. It turns out I have to say "Yes" for both the camera and microphone. Then it all worked.The registration was a bit clumsy. The name on the order and the box didn't match the name on the registration site. After a couple "not valid" errors, I finally got it right.As for the recording, the audio is very good, the B&W is pretty good, but the the color is inconsistent. For instance, skin color might blend from flesh to purple to blue to red to yellow, etc. To be clear it's not horrible but the color is not great.For something that has nothing do do with this product - - One recording was too long (2 hrs 40 min) to record on a DVD. Because it was 4.9GB, I just thought the MP4 file was too big. I changed it to MOV. Yeah 3.9GB but it still didn't work. I thought maybe my burning program couldn't handle MOV. I got a compression app and reduced the MP4 to about 4.0GB. It still wouldn't burn, so I decided it must be the video length that gave me grief. I split the video into two portions and recorded the two videos on two DVDs with success. Just so you all know ...

You certainly can't go wrong with this!

Like any budget USB capture device, works ok. I went a different route to get better quality captures.

Simple interfaceShould go to their site for installation and instructions - poor written instructions in package. You may need instructions to install drivers on MacFlawless transferEasy to useGlad I bought this

I bought the conversion suite for PC and Mac but didn't have any luck with either. First, I installed it on my Windows 10 PC. It seemed to work fine for the first Video8 tape, but problems quickly arose. The preview window went blank, and no amount of troubleshooting could fix this. But it still worked, even though I was blind to what was recording. Then the software refused to record the entire video. If I left it recording till the end, I would capture only a few seconds to a couple of minutes of a two-hour-long video. My workaround was to record only in 15-minute increments, which worked, but I needed to stitch together the recording segments with Premiere Pro, which was very tedious and daunting considering the number of tapes I needed to convert.So, I switched to my MacBook Pro, which the reviews here suggested was a better platform for this. First, it wouldn't install with my OS version (Navajo), and I spent hours updating the OS to Catalina. VidBox finally installed, but the icon just bounced up and down in the toolbar. After a lot of troubleshooting uninstalling and re-installing VidBox, I finally got the initial purchase key screen. I provided the key from the sticker on the CD, but it wouldn't accept it, saying it was invalid. I could find no other CD or Mac information in the package. Did I somehow receive the PC-only version? Support tried to sell me a new package for the Mac, which I declined.Instead, I dumped this nightmare and ended up purchasing another product from a different vendor for half the price, which works great! For a software package that's twice as expensive as the competition, I expected a much better experience.