Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac Review

This being Roxio’s first hardware/software combination product for the Mac, there were bound to be a few rough edges. But the core product is a solid solution for the intended market and purpose, namely copying analog videos to a Mac for conversion to DVD and other digital formats.

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A simple USB device that captures analog audio and video into MPEG-2, the native DVD format. There are other video converters available, but most of them save the video file in a different format, requiring you to go through hoops to convert or encode your videos for storage on DVDs.

Inclusion of Toast 9 Basic. After all, this product is designed to archive all of your analog movies to DVD format. Toast is by far the best DVD authoring tool for consumers and prosumers on the Mac.

Simple setup and preview ensures the hardware is set up and working before you press the ‘Record’ button. It’s a basic idea, but it’s funny how often the basics are overlooked.

Video Quality selection lets you decide whether size or quality is most important.

Simple one-click sending of captured video to iMovie, Toast, or QuickTime.

Roxio’s Easy VHS to DVD for Mac has a few rough edges. None are enough to be deal breakers, but it would be nice to see some improvements.

You have to go through the step-by-step setup each time you use Easy VHS to DVD for Mac. After the first time or two, it gets a bit old. I would like to be able to jump ahead to a Record Now step, where I can provide any needed information and start the recording process, instead of having to confirm that the right video in is selected and that I can hear audio.

Custom time input. If I know the video I am recording is 38 minutes, I should be able to enter that time, and not be forced to either select the next highest time (one hour) and record 22 minutes of nothing, or have to wait around to manually stop the recording.

Easy VHS to DVD for Mac should have its own basic editor. This is important so I don’t have to go through re-encoding processes that take lots of time and can degrade the final version. If I only need to trim the start and stop, or take out a section or two, I should be able to do that from within the application and not be force to endure hours of re-encoding in iMovie and iDVD or Toast.

No converted video library management. If I record a movie and forget to ‘Send to iMovie’ or ‘Send to QuickTime,’ I’m stuck. I can’t launch the application and load an existing converted movie. Sure, the MPEG-2 file is in my Movies folder, but as far as Easy VHS to DVD for Mac is concerned, it doesn’t exist. I’m left to look for a third-party application to do what Easy VHS to DVD for Mac should be able to do on its own.

Easy VHS to DVD for Mac is a very easy to use converter that can transfer your analog VHS, Hi8, and other tape formats into native DVD format, ready to store permanently on a DVD disk. Easy VHS to DVD for Mac includes a basic version of Toast, so creating a DVD from your videos is a simple drag-and-drop process.

I was impressed by how simple Easy VHS to DVD for Mac is to set up and use. I was also impressed by the high quality of the converted video, at least when using S-Video input (I didn’t try the lower quality Composite video input option).

There are some rough edges on the software, but none of them are showstoppers nor do they affect the ease of converting video or the quality of the final result. It’s important to note that the hardware seems to be a tip-top solution for digital conversion. I suspect the software will only get better with each update.

Roxio’s Easy VHS to DVD for Mac rates three stars because it does everything it says it will, and does so in an easy and intuitive way.