Dazzle DVD Recorder - Old Version

3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars | 87 ratings

Price: 37.99

Last update: 04-11-2025


About this item

Effortless to Edit
Fun to Share
Simple to use
Quick to Connect
Easy Archive
Quick to Connect
Simple to use
Easy Archive
Fun to Share
Effortless to Edit

Top reviews from the United States

  • another Amazon customer!
    5.0 out of 5 stars PERFECT - no tech skills needed - easy, goof-proof!
    Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2006
    Don't think about video capture cards, going into the operating system, or even opening the computer case - just turn on the power, plug Dazzle's USB plug into your usb port, and connect the colored cords on your vcr with the same colored plugs on Dazzle, install the software, and let this wonderful tool do all of the heavy lifting.

    EXCELLENT quality, and they will lower the quality if you want a smaller file - like, say, if you want to back-up your vcr to a cd-r. The test for quality is time - tell it to record to 70 minutes, and your work is DONE.

    I REALLY like the fact that the software is so stable, I recorded a SIX HOUR VCR tape using a 512 meg XP machine - not a moment's problem.

    They also included software that makes editing these video files real easy, if you want. That is just icing on the cake.

    Strong, solid, silent - the John Wayne of VCR to computer file translator tools.

    As an aside, I have held onto some VCR tapes for years, one for more than a decade, hoping something like Dazzle would come along.

    Prayers answered.

    Just shut up and BUY it.
  • Michael
    4.0 out of 5 stars Still works on Windows 11
    Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2023
    Works well, but I'd probably only recommend it to people capturing VHS/DVD content. I think anyone capturing from a variety of consoles or other mixed sources may have to spend a lot of time fiddling with settings, but for straight video transfers you can set things once and forget about them.

    You'll need to download the drivers from the Pinnacle website. Search for ""Hardware drivers for Pinnacle / Dazzle* Studio video devices" and it'll come up. The drivers labelled as being for Windows 7 work fine on 11. Be sure you choose the correct installer, either 32-bit or 64-bit.

    Pinnacle Studio works but is somewhat limited in digitizing capability because it caps the framerate at 30fps. With OBS Studio it can capture up to 60fps if you do the settings correctly. There are videos on Youtube that can help.
  • Charles P. Kalina
    1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing: Buy a DVD Recorder Instead
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2007
    Dazzle made perfect sense: an inexpensive peripheral that would pipe video directly into a USB port so it could be edited and burned onto DVD. But in fact it's a disaster. People who gave it a five-star rating must be blessed somehow: My experience matched the one-star ratings.

    The software that comes with it isn't Vista-compatible. Pinnacle's website doesn't make it obvious where the upgraded software can be found. The upgraded software is 211MB for the DVD recorder (never mind the "Studio" editing software). Good luck if (like me) you use a dial-up connection.

    The upgraded software crashed the system (blue screen of death) during installation. When the system came back up, the drivers for the DVD drive had been corrupted (fixing this requires going into the registry editor). Once I got it running, the resulting video was unsatisfactory -- fuzzy around the edges and had interference patterns along the bottom.

    Perhaps there are ways to fix all this, but the point is that it's not the easy-to-use, plug-and-play, amateur-friendly device it claims to be.

    So: I returned "Dazzle" (the first time I've ever sent something back to Amazon) and bought an entry-level regular DVD recorder for only about $30 more. My time and aggravation were worth at least that much. The DVD-R was easy to set up and worked perfectly the first time out. Sorry, Pinnacle, but I strongly recommend that course of action instead of buying Dazzle.
  • Usagi Kougeki
    3.0 out of 5 stars worked eventually
    Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2008
    The main reason I got the Dazzle DVD recorder was to copy my VHS tapes to DVD. Mostly I have instructional videos and a few old videos from a trip. So far, I guess the Dazzle is doing what it says it does, but not without causing a lot of frustration first. I had problems installing both the Instant DVD Recorder software, and Pinnacle Studio. Instant DVD froze twice, and I had to restart the computer both times. Pinnacle Studio also froze twice. The 2nd time I was trying to install it froze when it appeared to be almost finished, it said it was configuring the software. After about 10 minutes I had to ctrl alt delete and close it. But it must have finished installing cause it was on my computer and working.

    The first thing I tried to do with it was try using Studio to edit some mini DV home movies that I want to put on DVD. My camcorder instructions say it can be connected to the computer with a USB cable, but Pinnacle Studio couldn't detect the camcorder and says it must be connected with a firewire cable. I don't have one of those, so I went looking for the S-video cable to hook it up through the Dazzle. Tore the house apart looking for it, but couldn't find it, so I can't comment on how well it works with that. I decided to try VHS to DVD using Studio. The video it recorded was choppy and the sound was garbled. I thought maybe the VHS tape was bad, so I tried a different one. Same as the first.

    I couldn't figure out what the problem was with Pinnacle Studio, so I tried the Instant DVD software to do the transfer. I recorded 5 minutes of a VHS tape (I didn't want to waste my time if it was going to be garbled too), it recorded fine.

    So it seems after finally getting the software installed it does the bare minimum I wanted out of it, record VHS to DVD, but it seems I won't be doing any editing with the software.

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