Dazzle Multimedia DM4100 Digital Video Creator

If The Blair Witch Project taught us anything, it's that anyone with a clever idea and a video recorder can make a movie. The DM4100 Digital Video Creator from Dazzle Multimedia makes it possible to put together your creation on your PC.

Basically an input-output device for composite or S-video multimedia, the Dazzle ships with an excellent suite of video editing software that makes it simple for anyone with a moderately powerful PC to make and edit their own movies. The Dazzle claims to run on a Pentium 133 or higher with only 16 MB of RAM, but we recommend at least a Pentium II and 64 MB of RAM for any serious video handling.

This USB version we tested was a cinch to set up--we installed the software, plugged the Dazzle into a free USB port, and we were ready for prime time. A lot of multimedia graphics cards offer hardware input-output similar to the Dazzle, but one of the things we liked best about using this device was not having to dig around behind our machine every time we wanted to plug in a different multimedia source.

We were able to capture smooth video--up to 352 x 240 resolution at 30 frames per second--on our Celeron 300 (with 64 MB of RAM). We could then easily output the video to a VCR or even to CD with our CD-RW drive (although a third party program is required to create video-CD format discs.)

In addition to the Dazzle software, this package includes the powerful Ulead Video Studio and Ulead Photo Express. (The Dazzle can create still images with resolutions up to 1,600 x 1,200 pixels.) An Internet version is also available, offering an easy way to create streaming audio and video.

At its current price, the Dazzle is expensive for hobbyists, but for those users interested in professional digital video, it's a steal.

Pros:

Easy to set up and use
Excellent software bundle

Cons:

USB version won't work with Windows 95
Connecting cable could be longer

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I have the parallel version of this device and have not had the benefit of encountering any usb related problems. however, most of the reviews here are misplaced. most of these other reviews sound as if these people bought the wrong product. the Dazzle DVC is a mpeg encoder, which means it is best suited for computer files. low-resolution for e-mails to high-resolution for presentation. a cd-rw drive is a must once you have this item. i have backed up several hours of family movies and made many copies on cd-r. you can put 1 hour of good quality video on a cd-r that costs less than $.75 . perfect to pass many copies to family and friends. with the right software you can even make a video cd (vcd) which can be played on about one-third of dvd players. If you're looking to make vhs tapes out of your editing process you'd be better served with a video capture card. for the most part the Dazzle DVC is mostly about mpeg files. the video capture cards that have to be installed into a computer do not offer the range of features that the Dazzle does.