Review: Director's Cut Take 2
What do you do with all the old home movies? Convert them! (October 27th, 2003)
The Good
- Price, ports on back, two analog outputs, support. (Really good support!)
The Bad
- Does not have an audio to video lock feature (although unnecessary).
One of the problems with the advent of non-linear video editing on a personal computer has been "what to do with all that analog footage?"
Your family videos are on an old video camera or VHS. Your parents' family videos are on Super8 filmstrips. Nothing you own is digital, and these analog memories are aging faster than you think. You think you're ahead of the game because you converted the filmstrips to VHS a few years back? You aren't. That VHS can fall apart in just a few short years, suffering from tape stretch, heat, humidity, or just plain age.
You're a wiz at iMovie- you've been using it since it first came out, and now you're ready to tackle those favorite memories- but how do you get the video into the computer?
The answer here is Miglia.com's Director's Cut Take 2.
The DC2 is a wonder. It looks and behaves professionally. It allows for analog in, analog out, and digital connection via firewire 400. It comes with directions, diagrams for connecting it to your computer, VCR, and TV for use as a monitor, and -(and this is really cool) - all the necessary cables to use it. In a world where printer companies have all but stopped placing a USB cable in the box, this scores a few points.
There's nothing more frustrating than getting a new product and not being able to use it right out of the box.
iMovie
iMovie is a program that has changed dramatically over it's short lifetime. It changed so much so, that many DV converters like the DC2 actually failed to work with iMovie 3.x. The DC2 works beautifully, and shows off the hard work that Miglia has put into keeping this device up to date.
Usage
Turn on Power, select NTSC or PAL, and whether video is coming into the device or going out from the computer, and start iMovie. The computer will recognize the DC2 as if it were a camera, and allow you to start importing.
It works equally well with Final Cut Express, Pro, and iMovie, and even works just as well on Windows machines - no drivers needed.
The proof, however, is in the quality of video it captures. I've used this device on three occasions for events, and it's been spectacular. Of course, final quality depends upon the quality of the original tape, but the work that the Miglia DC2 allows me to do is a marvel. This is a pro product at a consumer price. It has a headphone output so you can monitor your audio, dual analog outputs so you can display on a monitor at the same time as you output to analog tape. The only con I can squirm through is that there is no audio video lock, but this feature is unnecessary. I imported over six hours of video and the audio never got off sync. An added plus is the fact that all cables connect to the back of the device, so you can organize your workplace properly. Miglia started in 2001, but with equipment like this, they're a company to watch.
