Digital video is a rising star, with DV camera sales increasing from year to year and digital software sales to consumers and enthusiasts alike also on the rise. It's a welcome trend, to be sure, but with all such trends there is a widening gap between the digital haves and the have-nots, with no easy way to share video between.
Enter the Pyro A/V Link from ADS Technologies. This handy box is similar to the Canopus ADVC100 (review on the PC Authority Web site) in that it's an analog/digital video converter. With a wealth of connections, the small box is capable of capturing both PAL and NTSC analog streams, and converting them to DV or vice versa.
With RCA composite, S-Video and four-pin FireWire inputs on the front, and RCA composite, S-Video, RCA component, and FireWire outputs on the back, the Pyro A/V Link allows you to plug in a wide variety of analog and digital sources for transcoding and recording.
A series of DIP switches on the back routes the video accordingly, preventing accidental transcoding of the wrong video. We tested the box with a variety of video streams including analog from a VCR and DV streamed from a PC and it was able to produce good end results with clear framerates and picture quality.
More than just a transcoder in a box, the Pyro A/V Link's outputs can be used to transcode video on the fly for display on a TV or projector. The display outputs can also be used to preview video as you transcode.
The unit supports both PAL (720 x 576, 25fps) and NTSC (720 x 480, 30fps) analog video, and MPEG2 digital video (with 32, 44.1 and 48kHz, 12 and 16-bit audio). About the only thing it can't do is convert analog PAL/NTSC streams for analog recoding.
The Pyro A/V Link is fairly simple to set up and use, with the only problem being the mess of cabling to and from the box.