EasyCap USB Review

191 Comments

If you want to capture your favorite TV program right to your computer without any kind of fancy video card, usbfever has the answer. The EasyCap USB2.0 audio/video adapter captures high-quality video and audio directly through your USB port all while allowing you to record in your favorite DVD formats.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on one of these truly useful little gadgets and it did not disappoint. The EasyCap came with its own drivers and Ulead video capturing software that had me recording tonight’s Red Sox game in about 5 minutes. All I had to do was install the driver/software, plug in the EasyCap to my digital cable box, tweak a few recording options and to my delight I was recording in no time flat.

Nothing is better when something just works the way it is supposed to and the EasyCap is no exception. For those of you who don’t have a fancy video card with all kinds of inputs or like me have your computer in a place where you just can’t hook it up to your digital cable line the EasyCap, at only $39, is a great alternative to grabbing high quality audio and video for your desk or laptop.

Filed Under: Video

191 Responses to “EasyCap USB Review”

  1. dae giovanni

    Hey there! I am looking for a good screenshot capture tool– I want to take my own shots for vidgame reviews instead of borrowing from other sites. Any opinions on if this guy will handle the task well?

    Reply
  2. I am a novice at this stuff and I would like to know if Windows Movie Maker will recognize
    this hardware a a video device for the video capture command

    Reply
  3. willards

    have read all the comments so far but not seen any relating to a prob i have. loaded up program ok but when i go to capture/capture video i get a dialog box headed ‘change field order’ on my desktop this loads to 10% then freezes the whole program and i hve to abort. tried my laptop and it loaded ok twice then after i managed to capture some video it only loads to 50% then i get an error and have to abort. anyone any ideas??

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  4. I had problems with the EasyCap DC60+ USB video capture card recording only in B/W until I went to changed to NTSC_M as follows (in the ULead software that came with it):

    Capture Properties
    Video Capture Filter
    Properties
    Video Standard
    and set it to NTSC_M

    Also I had to set the MS-Windows Sound Driver to “Use only default devices” as follows:

    Control Panel
    Sounds and Audio Devices Properties
    Audio
    Select “Use only default devices”

    Reply
  5. Windows Movie Maker will recognize this device. It’s what I use, rather than the supplied ULead SE software.

    I spent a couple of days trying to get anything at all to work with the drivers supplied on the CD. Then I downloaded drivers from the manufacturer’s site, but still not working too well. The drivers disabled my headphones and seemed to disappear from my PC’s device manager “sound, video and game controllers” list whenever I removed the EasyCap USB device from any USB 2.0 port. I had to roll back my system with System Restore to get my headphones to work again. And every time I plugged in the EasyCap (even before rolling back) I had to install the drivers all over again.

    Then I decided to let Windows (XP Pro) find drivers itself, rather than using the supplied drivers, when I plugged in the EasyCap. XP applied drivers for a USB 2860 device (aka USB PVR-TV Device – check driverguide.com if not offered by XP during installation). And these drivers behaved well with everything, and the video\audo captures have been excellent – going from analogue VHS NTSC VCR tape to WMV 640×480, 25 fps digital video files. So, once you get this toy to work, you should be very happy with it. Good luck.

    One final tip: – A laptop may only have a microphone in jack, which can behave as a line-in as well (only on a laptop). If you use a PC, then you cannot use the microphone jack to capture audio with EasyCap, you must use a line-in jack. Make sure that your line-in is not muted in your sound control or mixer panel for your sound card.

    Ken

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  6. I have Ulead VideoStudio 11. Is it possible to use this instead of the old 8th version that is included with the hardware?

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  7. Have used Dazzle in the past, and captures (Video/Audio) well. Would not waste time with Ulead 8, not at all flexible, used extensively with Cyberlink Director suite, also a giveaway with DVD drives and some other hardware.
    Have just bought this Easycap to trial, and will let you know how I get on,just wondering about speed, but does only use USB2.0,which is good.
    Have used extensively, if you want know, Dart Recorder 4.0, absolutely the best for old Vinyl/Cassettes capture.
    Other products need to plug into Audio socket on card for sound, does not sound the better way to me.

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  8. excuse me, has anyone played ps2 or other consoles using this device? does it lags?

    i’ve searched everywhere but people that used other devices usually has the same issue , lags.

    Reply
  9. Mitchell

    Please may you help me with my easy cap settings, the colour is in black and white. I was wondering if anyone knew how to change it to colour please message me back.
    Thank you.

    Reply
  10. For any xbox 360 users with this device you can only use PAL-50 so if that is a problem go and buy another capture device i would recomend “Dazzle” very good got one myself top class.

    Reply
  11. russzero

    hi all. ive not long purchased one of these devices. primary to capture some video from camcorder for utube. the ulead software failed miserably .. but Movie Maker works great. the only issue ive been trying to solve is monitoring the incoming audio. it records ok but blindly. theres NO indication of audio on any of my MP3 recorders either. in movie maker theres no sound until the recording is played back. … a mystery.???
    by the way .. the STK1160 works for fine single capture.
    i would rate it .. if only the audio would sound.

    Reply
  12. Walter Ezell

    I bought this to use with my Olympus camera. I have been using a TV monitor to view my photos that are in the camera. I want to be able to view my photos on my Lenovo ThinkPad instead, so I don’t have to haul around the TV. (The purpose is to let the client see my photos immediately when I am on a photo shoot.) I have plugged in the EasyCap to my computer and connected it to the video output on my camera. I don’t know the next step. I “captured” a few images from the LCD on my camera including photos I took, but they were all displayed in black and white and were corrupted. And this is not what I expecte. I want a continuous video feed from my digital SLR camera. Is it possible to use EasyCap for what I want to do?

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  13. Does this product work well on Windows Vista? I’ve read that its not compatible with Windows Vista. Is this true? Has anyone tried it on Windows Vista?

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  14. The EasyCap works better with Ulead 11 than the version that comes with the device. The best capture settings is DVD. I tried others but the DVD setting works fine. Creates a Mpeg2. I captured entire VHS tapes to my laptop.

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  15. I wanna get this becuase it looks easy to use and cheap. But I still have questions. Does the picture lag? I dont have a TV in my room and wanna be able to use my PC monitor in place as a TV for my Xbox. So for viewing purposes, can I actually connect my xbox into the easycap and play off my monitor alone? Also, can you put the picture in full screen? I realy wanna know this because I havent found any answers I dont wanna play looking at a little suqare in the corner of my monitor, I want the entire screen.
    -Thanks to whoever helps me out.

    Reply
  16. I’m back with my thoughts on the Easycap. Did not want to work with the Acer PC, no sound, not even when sourced from the line in sockets. Tried with a Sempron 2500 and worked with good results using the line in sockets. Full picture, no lag and audio good as well. Have now copied some 40 serials of tapes and all successful bar one, could have been a bad tape, very snowy. However after cleaning it up with Cyberlink, was quite acceptable, don’t forget it is a analogue recording after all. If the capture of sound does not work, try the line in on back of PC. I still go by my original idea, forget the included Ulead-8 and go for a more polished capture program such as Cyberlink, Pinnacle, etc.. It will capture Audio, but still prefer Dart Recorder, cleans up the recording and gets it the way you want it. Audacity is also great and free.

    Reply
  17. i just bought this easycap and i’m not sure…on a vhs, image are not that great, it feezes and the sound stop sometimes. sometimes the sound is not sunchro. so…i didn’t pay much (30$) for this but it was written on the box ”high quality video” i dont think i could say that.

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  18. anyone having problems with lag search how to record off xbox for under £20 it will explain how to record whilstt being able to play through tv it will also work with any other console

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  19. Does anyone know if Easycap works with copyprotected VHS tapes. I have some old tapes I’d like to convert to DVDs.

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  20. IT’S VIDEO !!!!!!

    USE YOUR SOUNDCARDS AUX IN TO RECORD AUDIO!!!!!

    JESUS!!!

    Reply
  21. I have gotten the easy cap, i have downloaded the drivers and ulead but when i try to record a VHS to the computer using ulead my computer crashes i dont know what i did wrong. im using vista i dont know what to do now feel like i wasted my money

    Reply
  22. I got this with the Magix Rescue Your Videotapes! package. It all works fine, except the captured video and audio gradually drift apart. “Easycap” also doesn’t show under video drivers, but instead USB 2861 or something like that does. When I emailed support, they said it should show easycap, but their solution didn’t help. Does anyone have any ideas how I could fix this ?
    Thanks

    Reply
  23. Brin Wright

    Are there different models for individual operating systems ? Such as 2000, XP, VISTA. Or does this product work on all systems.

    Reply

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