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Plextor PX-AV100U Digital Video Converter

     Being the leading company providing quality disk burners whether its CD-ROM, DVD, or even Software, Plextor is a name we have all come to know and trust as far as the best you can buy. Of course Plextor products do come at a price, but perhaps that's of no concern when you have the ultimate guarantee of getting the best there is. Having a Plextor product is a sign of prestige. Burners, software packages, or even what we have on the bench today, a digital video converter, the edge that Plextor products have and have always had, is that they never fail to deliver exactly what you buy them for. For some that can be a hard concept, but from our experience, we have never had a single Frisbee from a single one of our previous Plextor reviews. Today at ClubOC we will push our CD and DVD burners to the side and focus on the digital video converter offerings from this fabulous company.

Product Specifications

• Capture from various sources: Capture video to your PC from a TV, VCR, camcorder or DVD player.

• Real-time video compression: Video is automatically compressed into the MPEG-1 (Video CD) or MPEG-2 (DVD) format while it is being recorded to your PC, saving you lots of time and hard disk space.

• Hi-Speed USB interface: Connect using your Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port for the highest quality video.

• USB bus powered: This ConvertX draws all its power from the USB bus, so there’s no need for a bulky AC adapter.

• Bundled WinDVD Creator 2 software: For capturing, editing, authoring, and exporting video to CD or DVD or to share on the internet.

• Includes DivX® licensed software

• Convert video in Software to DivX® video to share on the internet.

• Easily upgradeable: Just download the latest software from the Plextor web site and upgrade quickly.

• Easy-to-use personal DVD or VCD video creation software

• One-year full warranty (parts, labor or replacement)

• Unlimited toll-free tech support

Product Features

     One of the advantages of the PX-AV100U is the small footprint.. this product in no bigger than a small USB hub or a Logitech mouse. It is also quite eye-pleasing which could be a benefit to those of you that like a esthetically correct desktop.

     The ConvertX also comes with everything you need to convert any kind of external media to a number of output video types including DiVX, MPEG, AI, etc... It uses WinDVD Creator as the main software, and is very easy to install and use since its a USB peripheral.

     A simple audio output to your soundcard, and USB to your computer is all it takes to convert even old VCR tapes to several different video formats.

RCA and S-Video makes the PX-AV100U compatible with old and new video input devices.

Performance of the PX-AV100U

     For our testing we used a simple selection of tests for almost every format of video, a DVD player for the output hardware, and an assorted collection of MPEG and AVI files. Out test platform is as follows...

 - Intel Pentium 4 3.0E
 - Asus P4C-800E
 - Corsair 3200XL 1024mb of memory
 - Visiontek X800 Pro

The Software Package

     The Software installation is relatively painless, just make sure to check the minimum specifications to make sure your hardware is up to the task of video editing. For those of you that like to overclock, video encoding/decoding is the ultimate testing methodology in insuring that your system is stable... Make sure to go ahead and attach your PX-AV100U to your computer before installation of the software as advised by Plextor.

     This is the first window you'll see upon successful installation of the driver and software... As you can see there is quite the selection in what the PX-AV100U can do for you.

     We used a few of our favorite import racing videos to make a compilation video. The software is very easy to use as far as taking files from your computer and merging and editing them. The output to file is also easy but we did run int oa few problems that aren't really any fault of Plextor's, but that of InterVideo who distributes the software for the PX-AV100U.

     Recording from an external device is also easily done, you just have to setup your hardware and start recording. If you are unfamiliar with video editing make sure and go through the help file. I quick search on Google for WinDVD creator gave us several sources on tutorials, so getting the most out of the ConvertX should be easy to do for even the new video editor that lies within.

Final Thoughts to Consider...

     The Plextor PX-AV100U is a very easy to use and setup product that makes video creation and editing considerably easier than I used to think it was. The only thing to really consider is that with all this talk about quality and expense you would think that Plextor would bundle something more than just the WinDVD Creator which gave us a royal headache with our DVD input. We finally went to Plextor's main site and found an update which fixed everything. I still would like to see perhaps  a bundled Adobe editing package to be distributed with the PX-AV100U/ Other than those temporary problems the ConvertX is a fine product for those video lovers out there so we'll go ahead and recommend it with the exception being that the user make sure that he or she patches it ASAP.  Here is a link to the patch.