The DV-Bridge comes with two 1394 connectors - also known as firewire and i-link.

The Hollywood DV-Bridge is a PC and Mac compatible stand-alone device that has S-Video (Y/C) and composite video inputs and outputs as well as stereo audio ins and outs through RCA connectors. It also has two 6-pin 1394 connectors, which can function as a firewire passtrough as well as in and out connections. It comes with one 6-pin to 6-pin 1394 cable to get you going right out of the box but you must supply the more common analog cables. The Hollywood DV-Bridge also has a LANC connector in the back, which supposedly translates DV camera control codes into LANC so that your editing application can control LANC compatible devices. Since I don't own any such device, I didn't test this capability.

Analog audio is sampled at 48KHz 16 bits. DV audio can be output in analog at 32 KHz 12 bits, 44.1 kHz 16 bits or 48KHz 16bits.

The DV-Bridge doesn't necessarily need a computer to work. It can convert to and from DV by itself and it is great to convert analog footage to be recorded on a DV camera or deck or DV footage from a camera or deck to be dubbed to any analog format. It automatically senses the input source and switches to the correct mode of operation. Because it converts in real time via hardware, it lets you watch your converted footage on the fly on an analog video monitor. When connected to a computer, depending on the software you can playback and/or edit your DV footage on the computer while watching it on a video monitor. This is definitely the way to edit as you can only see what a video will really look like on a video monitor. If you only use the computer monitor, you may end up finding out that what looks great on your Mac or PC screen may not necessarily look good on video.

This short clip was captured and put together in I-Movie The soundtrack was done in Sonicfire Pro.
Click on the image above to watch the video.

No drivers are necessary when using the Hollywood DV-Bridge with a Mac. It's truly plug and play and works right away with most DV-compatible applications. Both Final Cut Pro and iMovie see the device as a regular DV camera or deck and capturing and playback work perfectly. As I mentioned before, you can see the video that you are working on simultaneously on your computer screen and dedicated video monitor. Using the device with a PC requires the installation of the supplied drivers.

I have read many messages on the Hollywood DV-Bridge technical support forums and I can see that most reported problems are actually a result of user error. This unit is extremely easy to use, still all the common rules of video do apply. As an example, many people complain about rolling images or loss of vertical sync. This seems to happen only when people feed non-timebase corrected VHS, Hi-8 or S-VHS video through the unit. In such cases the original signal may be bad enough to cause the DV-Bridge to lose reference, causing the aforementioned problems. The old "garbage in, garbage out" rule applies here and feeding good quality footage through the unit should definitely give you good results. If your footage is bad to start with, run it through a TBC before it goes into the DV-Bridge. Another common problem seems to be with the automatic mode switching function. It does take a few seconds to kick in and the more impatient users seem to have a hard time waiting for it to do so. I have found that, once in a while, the switch will not work but there's a little button in the back of the unit that lets you manually switch modes. I prefer to use the button all the time since it's faster, more reliable and it lets me switch between sources instantly.

You can use a transcoder, such as the Panasonic UTP-2, to convert high-quality analog component video to Y/C for use with that DV-Bridge.

Are there any other limitations with the unit? Well, it doesn't have analog component connections. But what would you expect at this price range? Personally, I don't see any problems with using Y/C as the crosstalk is virtually nonexistent and the image quality can be very high. The important thing is to have a clean Y/C signal to start with. If you use a component video source such as Betacam SP, MII or a DDR, utilizing a good external transcoder to convert the signal to Y/C may give you an edge over the built-in encoder - that is, if your deck happens to have one. I own a Panasonic UT-2, which transcodes between all analog video formats, and I use it a lot. A unit like this can give you excellent results if you require the highest quality possible.

The Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge is one of those rare products that deliver outstanding results at a very reasonable price. I consider it to be a must-have if you own a Mac or a PC with firewire connections and have at least one analog VTR or camera lying around. It is also a perfect unit for authoring DVDs on the Mac from Betacam SP or MII footage, since it will preserve the quality of the original images and should make your DVD footage look practically like your master. And since Apple's DVD Studio Pro relies on the DV format to achieve faster MPEG-2 compression, just the time saved on the first project should definitely make this a worthwhile purchase.

Paulo de Andrade
Sr. Producer

Dazzle works for PC too
By Stephen Schleicher
Producer

In recent months, I have been using DV more and more in my work, and have been looking for a simple solution to convert Analog to Digital. I used to have the Pinnacle DC1000 card in my system, but since Windows 2000 and Premiere 6.0, it hasn't worked at 100% (plus it has no DV in). While I like the Osprey 500WM card, it too has some quirks (not to mention each of the cards were taking up space in my system and conflicted with IEEE-1394 card).

I first got hooked on the Hollywood Dazzle DV Bridge when Paulo brought his review unit into the office to show off. It seemed very cool at the time, but I needed a real world problem to convince me this was a needed product.

So here was the situation, on a Sunday afternoon in February, I had already spent several hours trying to get an aforementioned capture card to work properly so I could digitize footage needed the next day. Having nearly pulled my hair out, I decided to go out and purchase the Hollywood DV Bridge because of its ease of use. I drove to a nearby computer retail outlet that had had a great deal of my business at one time. You are probably aware that computer retail sales people are not the most brilliant in the world, especially when it comes to cross platform hardware. Regardless of what a sales person will tell you, the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge will work on your PC. It says so right on the box and the company website.

I ended up going to a better computer retail store where they had plenty of the devices on hand. I drove home, opened the box, connected it to my system and to my VTR, installed the driver, opened up my NLE, and digitized the footage. Total time spent doing this process-1 hour, and that included the 50 minute round trip.

This product worked great right out of the box, as it should. Had I purchased the DV Bridge before fussing and fighting with the other capture cards in my system, I would have had a lot of free time on my hands that Sunday.

On the downside
There are a few problems I have encountered with the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge that are not the fault of the hardware. First, the Hollywood DV Bridge will not work with Microsoft Media Encoder. While Microsoft Media Encoder says it will accept DV input via firewire, it will only accept DV input via the Osprey DV 500WM card. At this time no other IEEE-1394 card is supported.

The second problem is with RealProducer. At times the software acts like it is about to accept a signal, but ends up crashing. This too is a problem with the software and not the Hollywood DV Bridge.

Bottom line… if you need to convert an analog signal to a digital signal and do not want to spend a great deal of money to get a DV add on for your analog capture card, do yourself a favor and consider the Hollywood DV Bridge.

RATING: Highly Recommended
PRICE: $299
PLATFORMS: Mac, Windows and stand-alone

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