I have had wanted to get my precious memories off of the tape and onto DVD for a long time. Overall it has proven to be a good product.
I made this mistake and waited forever for a movie to burn, before realizing it was stuck trying to make the menu. If you don't see images in each of the menu chapters, do not proceed. But I just start over, and can get it to work the next time. But I have had a couple problems with getting the menu screen to work when editing. I have not had any crashes or major problems. This time is much shorter when burning mpegs rather than avi. I have not checked exactly because I let it run and come back later, but I would guess it takes at least 4 hours for 60 minutes of tape. Editing the movie does not take any time at all (if you are doing the basics and once you get the hang of it) Then the burning it to DVD takes awhile. So a 60 minute tape will take 60 minutes. The movie converts to your PC in real time. If you pick certain features that are not available with the base software, you will get a popup box asking if you want to upgrade.
If you want to do more fancy things with the movie you create you need to upgrade your software. The software comes with the basic features and some extras. It was very close, but I am going to go with the avi. But I did this once, and thought the quality wasn't quite as good as the avi. You can create the movies in mpeg rather than avi, and this takes about half as much space. I then found there is a menu option for deleting these too (when you are in the edit option) I was running out of space again, after burning numerous movies, until I found this directory and how much space it was eating up. But if you have burned the movie(s) to dvd, you can also build up a great deal of space in My Documents/Pinnacle Studios/Auxillary Files. One thing to be aware of, there is a mention option to remove a captured video and free up space. For this reason, I would suggest doing a defrag before starting. So I cleared off space, and did not get the message to go away until I had about 12-14 gig of free space. It was annoying that it would not tell me exactly how much space it required. I kept getting a message that I did not have enough space. Also, the software requires space on your harddriver to burn the movie to the dvd. You can get about 60 minutes of high quality film onto a DVD, and this takes up about 7 gig. Just installing the software that comes with it took 7 gig (you could probably get by with less by not installing all features?). If you simply want to covert your tapes to DVD, with no frills, then I would highly recommend this product. The software is fairly simple to use, and the end product looks good. I have made about 6 DVDs now, and I am pretty happy with my purchase.
Since that file fails to install under 32 bit Windows Vista Home Premium, I tried adding the emAudio.sys driver to C:/Windows/System32/Drivers folder and then running DVC90.EXE (as suggested by CS and elewhere on the Forum,) but its apparently not workable in Vista either.( More customer reviews)I purchased the Dazzle 90 product to convert my 8mm cassettes from an older Sony Camcorder to DVD. but the install aborted with an error message about an unrecognized operating system - there might have been a check for appropriate OS built into their routine. When I attempted to install it there was no "certification" warning.
I too tried to download the previous Pinnacle drivers from their website - but there was a clear warning not to use the file you referenced, but to use a separate file (PCLEUSB2.EXE listed right below that download link) specifically designed for the Dazzle DVC90. Use the winxp driver in your vista install of the unit, then when it says this driver is not certified for vista, just say continue. These do all O/S, and all Models of DV and DVC units. Use the winxp driver in your vista install of the unit, then when it says this driver is not cerified for vista, just say continue. Here is a link to posted Dazzel drivers, these do all O/S, and all Models of DV and DVC units.