ClearClickVideo to Digital Converter 2.0 (Second Generation) - Record Video from VCR's, VHS Tapes, AV, RCA, Hi8, Camcorder, DVD, Gaming Systems (Bundle) [Requires Working VCR/Camcorder & Tapes]

Before buying this ClearClick Video to Digital Converter 2.0 I had used an older video capture device (made by Honestech), as well as a "generic" converter I bought on Amazon about a month ago for around $20. Both of the aforementioned items worked "just ok". The Honestech product was just too old and clunky; the newer capture device was OK, but took a lot of work to get it to work in the way of using a third-party capture program. I spent a number of weeks capturing and editing from my mini DV, Hi8, and standard 8 camcorders using a number of very highly rated free programs, including OBS Studio, MiniTool MovieMaker, etc. I was able to get them to work, and they seem to do a good job with the capture card I was using, but there seemed to be something missing in the way of detail in the picture quality. So, I tried one of the video capture services on Amazon that charges you $12 to convert a tape to MP4 format. I paid the $12, paid $8.40 to ship the mini DV via USPS, and included a check for $6 to get the company to ship back my tape to me. So all-in-all, it cost me $26 to "test" the quality of what a professional company can do vs what I could do using the previously mentioned capture programs. The programs allowed you to set FPS, sound quality in bits, bit capture rate of the video, etc., etc., etc. Countless possible combinations to try to find the "best" or even optimal capture quality for my tapes. I literally WASTED countless hours capturing and converting, using various FPS, quality/noise reduction algorithms, etc, etc., hence my desire to "test" a professional capture service to see how they would do. I eventually got a link to download my professionally captured video, and guess what: it was "marginally" better than what I had been doing on my own, testing many trial-and-error capture and conversion possibilities. So I decided to try the ClearClick device since it had a "Free Returns" policy. I figured, what do I have to lose. Well, long-story-short, as the saying goes, the ClearClick video capture did just as good, if not better than the professional service did for the $12 per tape. And, it is SUPER EASY TO USE!!!! It is saving me a lot of time because all I do is put the USB in, press play on the camcorder, and then after a second press Record on the ClearClick, and it captures perfectly in ready-to-go MP4 format. It also captures in 720x480, which is the mini DV standard, whereas the Amazon video capture service captures in 640x480, which is OK for Hi8 or below, but not for mini DV, which is the higher 720x480. But you have to use an S-Video cable (which I also got on Amazon specifically for this purpose; get the $20 Monster cable, not a generic $6 one since you're already spending money to capture and archive valuable memories). So ClearClick is as good as, or better than a professional video capture service. It's cheaper in the long run if you plan on doing at least a dozen or so tapes. And it's super easy to use. The only thing I would like, as others have mentioned, is the ability to set a SPECIFIC automatic record shutoff time for the recording to stop. I have 1 hour tapes that will sometimes run two to three minutes over, and two hour tapes that'll do the same thing. I do not want to set the time for 60 minutes or 120 minutes and have the last few minutes not captured. Nor do I want to use the "schedule recording function", as their technical support suggested to me when I inquired about a possible firmware update they could use to allow setting an exact record Stop function. I'd like to be able to set EXACTLY 64 minutes stop recording time, for instance. If they had this feature, I'd give it 6 stars if AMZN allowed. Nonetheless, the product rates a solid 5 stars and my highest recommendation. As far as the "bundle" software, which is VideoPad Video Editor: it is very good and easy to use, on a par with other products, I suppose. It doesn't capture, just edits and saves to MP4 in the same size or smaller file, whereas for some reason, the free products, like OBS, etc., end up saving an edited file in a larger size, even if all you did was delete/shorten the video...makes no sense whatsoever, since you're shortening a video and saving it in the same MP4 format at the same exact resolution and sampling rate. The 32 GB USB that comes with it is a SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0. Buy the ClearClick; you'll save a lot of time and will easily capture your old tapes.

I'm really loving this item!! It's amazingly simple to use, and the quality is great. I would recommend this to anyone looking to convert a bunch of VHS tapes - this will make the job easy!

The unit as as many people have already described. Initial tests were disappointing. The reason was that HDMI output was connected to our TV. The video seemed smooth but the audio sounded choppy. The manual said that playing the files on a computer should be fine. Maybe they meant if video was choppy it would be ok on the computer. Audio was not ok. It was choppy and the files were unusable. Disconnecting HDMI and sticking to the mini screen to monitor the capture solved the problem and all captures have been good. If HDMI is using to much CPU horsepower then they should upgrade the processor or make sure people know it might be a problem. The other complaint is the timer values. Others have commented about this but the point needs to be made again. Most if not all 8MIL tapes and VHS as well tend to run an extra minute or so. If you didn't watch the warnings on your camera when filming and ran the video to the solid stop at the end then you will cut off the last 1 to 3 minutes using the timers. All of our 90 minute 8MIL tapes actually run 93 minutes. Why not set the timers to 33, 63, 93, and 123 minutes?If you get the bundle you have an editor to trim the junk. If you do any video editing you probably already have one anyway. I down checked the sound because of the HDMI and also because they have an agressive autogain that when running against your camera's tends to pump and make some loud audio unpleasant.

I have a large library of VHS tapes of home movies going back all the way to the late 1980s. Last year I decided to start copying them to digital files to preserve them.I used a Easy VHS to DVD capture device to connect from my old Sharp model VCR to the USB port in my laptop. Using free software I was able to get the videos in digital form on my laptop, but then I would need to run filters through the videos to de-interlace them (remove those lines you sometimes see on old videos) and use other filters to optimize the videos. This took a long time for each video, but the really big pain was that the audio/video sync would be off for every video despite all the settings I tried in the video capture software. That would mean I would have to manually align the video and audio tracks of each and every video using video editing software.With frustration, I gave up on that project last summer and decided to just buy a refurbished VHS to DVD recorder to copy the VHS tapes to DVD and then convert those DVDs to MP4 video files, hoping that the audio/video sync issues would be gone. Well, do you know how much a refurbished VHS to DVD recorder is? Most of the ones I found were around $300.I had been debating whether or not to purchase this device. Some of the reviews on Amazon were positive, and some were negative. However, I saw where the issues that people were complaining about had been fixed so I decided to go ahead and purchase it. I got the bundle package that includes the 32 GB USB drive and the video editing software.On my first few attempts to copy a VHS recording of a trip my wife and I took to Las Vegas in 1998, the video was mostly fine (and the audio and video synchronized perfectly). However, in some places the video was very jittery, especially when the camera would pan from side to side. This was definitely not good news and I thought I was going to have to purchase a refurbished VCR after all. I emailed ClearClick Support about this and actually got a response from Tyler at 10:13 PM Central Time. He said that the jerky/jittery video is due to bad time coding on the part of the tape through the composite (red, white, and yellow) video connection from the camcorder. S-Video signals do not depend on time coding so that type of connection should fix the issue. I don't have an S-Video out on my old Sharp VCR, but he recommended that I purchase this cable to convert the RCA signal to a viable S-Video: https://www.amazon.com/C2G-27965-Bi-Directional-S-Video-Composite/dp/B0002J28KO. I purchased the cable and hooked it up and my old VHS videos now look fantastic (well, as good as they can be for decades old VHS recordings) and no jittery video.I cannot recommend this device highly enough. It is extremely easy to use and does everything I need it to do. I pop in a videotape, double-check the tracking, and hit the Record button. If I need to pause the recording, I hit the OK button. If I need to un-pause, I hit the OK button again. When I'm done recording, I hit the Recording button again. Then I take out the USB drive, stick it in my latop, and move the MP4 files to my external hard drive to be saved for editing at a later date.I would also recommend getting the RCA to S-Video cable if you don't have an S-Video out on your VCR, just in case you have jerky/jittery videos like I did. Finally, it's best to use a VCR where you can manually change the tracking of the videotape. My old Sharp VCR has channel up-and-down buttons on the front that I can push to adjust the tracking if there are fuzzy static lines at the top or bottom of the video.I also have an old Sony Digital-8 Handycam with many more videotapes that I am looking forward to copying to MP4 files using the ClearClick Video to Digital Converter 2.0.I don't write product reviews on Amazon very often but this is one review that I'm very glad to write for such an excellent product! If you are looking to preserve your old recordings, I cannot recommend the ClearClick Video to Digital Converter 2.0 highly enough.

Connect and record, that simple..