VHS to Digital Converter,Video Capture Card USB 2.0 Audio Video Capture Card Device Old VHS Mini DV Hi8 DVD VCR to Digital Converter for Mac,PC Support Windows 2000/10/8/7/Vista/XP/Android

My parents have been gone for some years now. After my mother died I went through all of the things that I thought might have sentimental value. I did not sort some things that looked to be less personal. That is until now. And they were more personal, not less. I found a whole tub of childhood VHS tapes and camcorder cassettes. So I set out to retrieve the images from those recordings and convert them to digital files. I ordered this capture card for that project. I had trouble from the beginning. The meager sheet of instructions were of absolutely zero help in getting the device up and running. I had to search for YT videos because this device was certainly not plug and play, nor intuitive. My 3rd video was fairly instructive and I got the capture card to work, intermittently. At first, in fact for about 30 hours of piddling with it, it would work and then cut off and freeze up. I initially thought it was the VCR because it was ancient and I had dug it out of the bottom of a closet. I started, stopped, rebooted, rewound and deleted more interrupted files than I could keep up with. I had used a tape cleaner. I had even opened it up and cleaned with acetone. It remained sporadic. Finally I noticed that the green indicator light on the capture card was not on when it should have been. When I reached for it, it flickered. Turns out that it, not the VCR, was the problem. It had a short. So it would start, then flicker and the software would freeze up. At first I thought it was the wire so I bypassed it by plugging the card into the computer directly. Same flicker. So I played around with it and found that if I bent the lead wire in one specific direction, it would wobble the USB plug forward to where it would make contact somewhere inside the unit. If held there, the card would function. So I taped it up. It has worked pretty well since then. I retrieved videos of my parents when they were 30 years younger than I am now, and also videos of my brothers and me as kids. I attached a picture of how it had to be taped into a specific position. My impressions of the capture card are that it is well designed as far as function, because it did a fine job of capturing and relaying what it needed to for my task. But it felt flimsy. The plug end for the USB insertion was all wobbly and the plastic casing was thin. Nothing felt locked into place or solid. And I think that is why it had a loose connection, but that is just my thoughts. All I know is that, while it ultimately did what I got it for, it was a bad unit and I wasted many hours trusting a new capture card and blaming an old VCR, which was actually good. I took off one star because of the worthless instructions and one because my unit was defective. But if a person can get the installation solved and if they don't receive a defective unit, it does its job. But I will shop for another brand if I ever need another one.