Convert VHS to DVD with sub-£50 Terratec Grabster AV 150

[Bob Crabtree]

At a penny under £50 (inc VAT), Terratec’s Grabster AV 150 external USB 2.0 box looks like something of a no-brainer for anyone wanting to convert their analogue tapes to DVDs or VideoCDs.

With sockets for composite and S-video, the USB-powered box caters for most types of domestic analogue VCR and camcorder footage - VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C, S-VHS-C, Digital8 and Hi8 - and should even be usable with Betamax machines. And, of course, if you've got a satellite receiver or a digital camcorder with composite or S-video outputs, it should be able to handle them, too.

That keen price - which even buys a full copy of Ulead's capable and easy-to-use authoring program DVD MovieFactory 3 plus a lite (SE) version of Ulead's VideoStudio editing app - is partly explained by the fact that encoding is carried out in software within the PC, not by hardware within the Terratec box.

Check out our HEXUS.headline and let us know if this grabs your fancy.