ION Audio VCR 2 PC USB VHS Video to Computer Converter (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I purchased this item because I needed to archive all of our home videos that were taken years ago and were gathering dust because we don't even have a VCR any more.I was a bit anxious about the purchase due to a fair number of unfavorable reviews, but I've found the converter to work perfectly.The software installed without a problem, and then it was simple to connect the Ion to the computer with the USB cable and tranfer the videos. The interface is simple and intuitive, and the transfers have all worked without a hitch.Some of our tapes had not been transferred to VHS, and were still in the 8mm format that the camcorder records in. These were no problem to convert either as we still have the old camcorder. I put the 8mm tape in the camcorder, connected the camcorder to the Ion converter (it has input jacks to allow connection with the camcorder), so the video went from the 8mm tape to the Ion converter to the computer. Again, it was easy to do and worked perfectly.The quality of the converted video looks very good to me given that it is coming from VHS tapes that are several years old and probably hadn't been played in at least 5 years. I was actually surprised at how good the videos look.Once the digital video is on your computer, you will probably need other software if you wish to edit it. The editing capability of the software that came with the Ion looks pretty rudimentary, but this is not a problem for me because I probably won't edit these old videos anyway, and if I were going to, I have other video editing software.All in all, I bought this product to convert my old VHS home videos to digital format, and it is easy to do and works well.

I'm sure there are techno minded fastidious people who can sort thru wires and feel comfortable moving and setting up various box components to make recorded transfers of audio and video when they have a mind to. But I'm not one of them. Tried it and just got frustrated. The Ion approach just seems right for most of us all thumbs types: One VHS that you can stack on top of your computer and plug a USB cable into. Load the accompanying software into the computer and go to work.I do have a one year old "big" computer: lots of memory and lots of storage. No problem with compatability with the Arcsoft program that comes with the VHS. It booted right up. Copying is a time consuming process. The program downloads mpeg files onto your computer at movie watching speed, and allows you to burn to dvd immediately. Copying can get sticky if your computer doesn't like your brand of dvd disk. I tend to stick with dvd-rw disks as better quality media with fewer issues.In just a few weeks have done eight transfers at a cost of 22 hours of my time.As others have pointed out this system provides you with a simple, reliable method to transfer data from VHS medium to your computer. It DOESN'T by itself provide for revitalization of the quality of data on the VHS. If you have restoration issues you'll need to look into getting software for your computer that will allow you to correct deficiencies in the data (not something easily done by an amateur).All things considered I recommend this as a cost effective, simple solution for anyone willing and needing to go down this road. If you don't have the time and patience needed to replicate and restore things, you might reconsider the cost effectiveness of buying dvd's off the shelf.

I was really hopeful about this product. I really would like to easily convert a bunch of old videos we have from my childhood.Beyond the hardware complaints, my #1 problem is: THEY INSTALL AD SOFTWARE ALONG WITH THEIR OWN SOFTWARE. - The software that you have to install to record things from this unit also installs Arcsoft drivers for video encoding/decoding. The Arcsoft drivers install a service on your computer that ALWAYS runs in the background, and another service that displays ads for their products in the bottom right hand corner of your screen... even if you have all other software closed. - You can opt to "stop showing these", but their background service called "Arcsoft Connect" continues to run in the background doing God knows what. - There is no way to UNINSTALL this without uninstalling all of the recording software. - Do a quick Google search for "Arcsoft Connect" and you'll see many other complaints with this software.My other problems were with the tracking. On many older tapes, the tracking would continually adjust itself. There is no way to manually adjust it; after playing with this thing for hours, the tracking buttons on the front don't seem to do anything. Even when the auto-tracking gets it right, it starts auto-tracking again and messes up all over again.This is a great concept, but very poor implementation. Cheap hardware, cheap software. Not many options. They probably cut a deal with Arcsoft to use their drivers for free if Arcsoft could display ads.This seems to be a problem with all of Ion's products; they're just cheaply made.