check out my posts
here and
here.
i have a G4 450, and the reason i got this box over a firewire A/D converter is because mpeg encoding on my computer is SLOW! this box encodes to mpeg 1/2 in real-time, so there's no problem with cpu usage. another big plus is the space taken up by these files. with a fw A/D converter using DV as capture format, 1 hour is about 12-13Gb; with mpeg-2, an hour is about 2Gb.
the included pixela software is pretty good for what it does: allows you to edit mpeg files, and create DVD's. are the programs as slick as iDVD/iMovie? no. does it work okay? yeah.
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