Review: Epiphan DVI2USB 3.0 Frame Grabber

Editing Challenges

One of the challenges I’ve encountered with the workflow I’ve developed so far is working with the WMV files it produces. I edit in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, GPU-accelerated, on a fast 2-core i7 laptop with 12GB of RAM and a 64-bit Windows 7. I generally enjoy reasonably fast encoding times in Adobe Media Encoder, but even though Premiere Pro has no trouble importing WMV files, transcoding WMV files to H.264 MP4s (or any project with lengthy WMVs therein) brings it to a standstill. This is a significant problem when working with projects that composite 45-minute AVCHD clips (speaker video) with 45-minute WMV clips (Epiphan-sourced presentation video).

So I added another step to my workflow: converting the files to MP4s in Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate ($49.95), which provides speedy batch conversion of WMVs to MP4s (Figure 8, below), generally (in my experience, on my laptop) at 20-30 seconds of transcoding time per minute of video. With the 10 conference sessions I captured at Data Summit 2014 last month, I simply loaded up the WMVs in Wondershare overnight and composited the resulting MP4s with the speaker AVCHD clips in Premiere Pro in the morning.

Figure 8. Batch-converting in Wondershare. Click the image to see it at full size.

At some point, of course, I’d like to eliminate this step and be able to edit the captured presentations immediately, but so far I haven’t found a capture solution that will make this possible.

Streaming Workflows

I haven’t used the DVI2USB 3.0 in a live stream yet, but I’ve heard of users deploying Epiphan devices in live streams, and have at this point filed this possibility under “Topics for Future Research.” Stay tuned.