Looking like an oversized USB key with a bunch of cables dangling off it, Kworld’s DVD Maker USB2 is, in fact, an external video capture device.

On one end it has composite and S-video inputs, as well as a pair of stereo audio-in sockets. At the other end there’s a USB connection and an audio lead.

Plug the latter two into a computer and wire up a camcorder, VHS deck or PVR to the inputs and it will capture analogue video and – assuming you have a DVD burner on your PC – convert it to a shiny digital video disc.

An additional snapshot button on the unit itself is supposed to capture still images in compatible programs such as Paint Shop Pro, but this feature was unreliable and, we found, relatively pointless.

DVD Maker comes with two distinctly separate bits of software. Kworld’s own PVR-Plus application is quite confusing and more than a little irrelevant, since its main function is recording TV programmes, even though the DVD Maker doesn’t actually include a TV tuner.

More useful is the other program - Ulead’s DVD MovieFactory 4 SE. It’s easy to use and can help to cut out a lot of the fiddly bits of DVD creation.

On our first attempt we left everything on the automatic settings and used DVD MovieFactory’s Straight to Disc feature, which allows the user to set a time limit on the video capture and then – theoretically – walk away and let the program make the disc itself.

The results we got, however, were very poor, with blurred movement and other strange visual distortions. It was only when we investigated the advanced options menus and made a few tweaks that we managed to resolve these issues and eventually produce a good quality DVD.

Whether the initial problems were down to the device itself or the Ulead software, it’s difficult to say. That said, we were pretty pleased with the picture quality of the disc we eventually created.

Once we’d sorted everything out, it was clear that churning out further video-to-DVD conversions would be extremely straightforward.

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