August VGB100 USB 2.0 Video Capture Device Card - Grabber Lead to Convert VHS / S Video / RGB via USB Transfer Cable - For Windows 11 / 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP

Following August’s video tutorial on YouTube I downloaded the ‘new’ drivers and installed everything quickly and easily. Since then I’ve digitized about 30 VHS tapes without a hitch. I started with the included software which is basic but works fine. Later I started using OBS which is certainly more robust.It took me quite a while to decide on one of these to purchase as the reviews are uniformly bad from the cheapest to the most expensive units. This one seemed to have a higher number of successful users. I watched the August YouTube video they published in May detailing the installation. It was nicely done and featured ‘new’ software. So I figured I could disregard all the older reviews that complained about the software. Also, most said they had success with OBS.With both softwares the video and audio is quite good, not much loss from the VHS tapes. I have encountered one problem though, that occurs every time I shut down the computer. When I open the software (August’s or OBS) it does not connect to the device. I’ve found that all I have to do is unplug the device, and plug it back in. That usually does the trick but sometimes closing the program and reopening it is also needed. In any event, I’ve never failed to get it working in less than a minute’s time. And once up and running it stays connected until the computer is shut down again.OBS has some odd behavior which was noticed by another reviewer. His review helped me figure it out the first time. What happens is sometimes when OBS is opened I will have audio but no video. Other times, video but no audio. Sometimes neither.Here’s what I found works:If no audio, unplug and replug deviceIf no video, go to Video Capture Device/Properties, if checked, uncheck ‘Use Custom Audio Device’Recheck ‘Use Custom Audio Device’ and make sure correct device is in the pull down below (AnalogAudio in (USB 2.0 Video Capture)). Video appears as soon as box is checked.I’m not sure why this works, but it works every time for me. People have mentioned having problems on newer hardware. I’m using an older computer with USB 2.0 ports and haven’t tried it on anything newer.

I read all the negative reviews of this product with listed issues. Guess what, I got everyone of these problems! The fundamental problem with the product is there is no user's manual that gives you guidance to deal what seem to be common problems that everyone faces. The manual that was shipped with the product is a skimpy installation manual! If you are not patient or have sufficient dexterity, this product will be difficult for you.At any rate, here are the listed problems (I have seen each on!) and the recommended action:1-"Device busy or not available": This does not happen all the time but the fix is as follows. Unplug the USB converter, push refresh button and it will display the computer built in camera output. Now plug the device back, push refresh and select the capture device2-" Material is copyrighted": It appears in some tapes sometime more than once. Stop capture when the message appears and restart again. At the end of capturing all the tape segments (this problem may occur more than once in one tape), merge all the files in one using MPG-2 (default capture compression)3- No Audio: Must select the incomprehensible selection "Audio Pin Source" whatever that means4- No Video: Must select the appropriate video standard under "Device Setting". In North America it is NTSC-M-J.The real work occurs after capture to merge (project), convert into the appropriate standards and produce (DVD, etc. The "raw" files are huge MPEG-2 high quality (1.2 MB/s, almost 4-5 GB per hour). I am still experimenting with the compression choices but it appears that WMV (Microsoft video compressor) may be the most efficient.

I've tried two different operating systems and several different pieces of software, but had no luck getting this to work.I first tried this device under Linux (Ubuntu 16.04, kernel 4.4.0), and it showed a USB ID of 1f4d:0102. It was claimed by the cx231xx driver and appeared as a /dev/videoX node. So far so good. With guvcview, it would not respond to any ioctl()s requesting frame sizes, and manually forcing a frame size didn't work. I also tried both VLC and Cheese, but each of these just showed a blank image -- as if no video signal were detected upstream.Since the manufacturer never claimed Linux support, I managed to put together some spare hardware and install Windows 7 on it. Neither the installation package for the drivers nor the application software included on the CD were very impressive, and they are apparently affected by some critical bugs. The capture software (ArcSoft ShowBiz) would easily get into a state where it would complain about being unable to open the capture device; some other reviews mention this, but I didn't find any of the possible fixes to be helpful. ArcSoft has apparently discontinued support for ShowBiz, so I don't expect these problems to ever be fixed.During the rare moments when the capture device was correctly detected, the software only gave the option of capturing in one of several different PAL or SECAM standards. This was not especially useful, since my input source is NTSC.