184 Napier Street, South Melbourne, 3205
Victoria, AUSTRALIA
Tel: 61-3-9699 8844

Snazzi manufactures the complete range of PCI, USB, PCMCIA video capture devices and Non Linear Editing suites. With DV, DivX, WMV and MPEG 1/2 hardware or software compression built in. And High Quality Composite and S-Video in/out. So you can capture from tape and other devices and also output back to tape or your choice of medium. Setup of most products is extremely simple. It is so simple you can get often get them up and running in as little as 15 minutes! And Snazzi products really work very well ! For full info, check out www.micronica.com.au/catalog/snazzi/.

Of course the best thing is to get one and try it for yourself ! So you can see and understand how easy it is :)

Following are notes for some specific common questions we have been asked about.


• Q: I've never captured a digital video file before. It all seems a bit scary. What product and settings do you recommend for a novice to start ?
  A: Don't worry ! Consider Snazzi "VideoMaker USB" SN2200. With Snazzi USB VideoMaker it's all REALLY EASY ! If you've never played with captured video files before here is what I suggest. Set the capture settings to MPEG 1, 1.5 Mbps, PAL. Capture a short video and save it. These settings will give you a good starting point for clarity and file size. And they will play on ANY computer Windows Media Player automatically WITHOUT any special plugins, drivers or codec. So you can then simply pass that file around for all to see. And also edit. Well, at least I've never found a PC that couldn't play it :)
  Edward Jozis.



• Q: Can I use Snazzi VideoMaker USB SN2200 on a Laptop Computer and still get good results ?
  A: Quality is the same whther you use a desktop or laptop computer. Because VideoMaker USB is so compact and uses USB it's great for both. You can take it to a friend's place or to School to do your Video projects for example. You will be amazed at the results from this compact package!



• Q: Can I use the MPEG2 files from VideoMaker USB SN2200 to create DVD's ?
  A: Yes. To create the necessary DVD you will need to use authoring software such as MyDVD or Ulead Video Studio or similar to create the necessary DVD compatible files and other necessary index information.



• Q: Can VideoMaker USB SN2200 capture Still Pictures ? Or only Motion Video ?
  A: Yes. It CAN capture still shots. The VideoMaker USB software can capture still images in five differenet formats including BMP, PNG, TIFF, JPG.



• Q: Can VideoMaker USB SN2200 capture "timelapse" or one frame every minute or so ?
  A: It is really a function of various software. From the VideoMaker Snapshot module, you can set an option called "Take Multiple Frames" followed by "Interval in seconds" where you can set the number of snapshots you would like to captue. But it can not capture one frame as encoding motion video is concerned as that is really a contradiction in itself. But uou can consider other third party software to string together the stills into a slideshow or timelapse video.



• Q: What is the difference between Snazzi SN7800 and SN7208 ?
  A: Full specs are on our website as always. Apart from the small price difference an additional difference for SN7800 vs SN7208 is that SN7800 has the latest encoder and pre-processors filters, comes with component IN and captures DivX, WMV, Xvid and DV - AVI format as an additional software based encoder. So most people might chose SN7800 as their first choice.



• Q: Can SN2054 capture directly to DivX ?
  A: No. It can capture to MPEG and DV. And the DV Type 2 files are compatible with professional software like Edius, Liquid, Premier Pro.



• Q: Most products on the market are unable to pause/resume. Can any Snazzi products do it ?
  A: This is true. The SN7800 V DVD Pro PCI Card has pause/resume capability. So as long as your software can support it the SN7800 can do it.



• Q: What is the difference between Snazzi SN1600 "DV AVIO" and "DV AVIO Pro" ?
  A: DV AVIO is a very good "high end all rounder" product. And good value for money. Whereas DV AVIO Pro hardware is slightly different in the ROM firmware to render some raw contents from teh timeline. DV AVIO Pro is therefore more costly because DV AVIO Pro hardware is aimed at the "Professional (Pro)" user and supports a "Real Time Timeline Output Plugin" for example. DV AVIO Pro is aimed at the Pro market user who has perhaps Adobe Premiere already and wants compatible high quality hardware video capture and editing to suit that.



• Q: What is the difference between Snazzi "DV AVIO Pro" and "DV AVIO Premiere Pro" ?
  A: Simple...The Hardware is identical. But "DV AVIO Premier Pro" includes the full Adobe Premiere Pro full retail product bundle. Which consists of Adobe Premiere, Adobe Encore, Adobe Audition. A fantastic complete high end Professional Non Liner Editing system! Snazzi is one of the few manufacturers who bundle the full Adobe Premiere Pro product suite to provide a really complete Pro system! DV AVIO Premiere Pro is available with a choice of "Top End" PCI Card with Analog+Firewire In/Out "Breakout Box" or low cost Firewire PCI or PCMCIA card for Notebook Computers.
  In fact both SN1615 DV Premiere Pro (AVIO Edition) and SN1602 DV AVIO Pro come with the same PCI Card and breakout Box. So the difference is mainly the software bundle.



• Q: What is the difference between Snazzi SN7900 "V DV+DVDIO" and SN1600 "DV AVIO" ?
  A: Snazzi V DV+DVDIO uses a Hardware Encoder and Decoder. Which takes a big load off your computer's CPU processing. So you just need a Pentium4 1.4GHz system to achieve professional dazzling performance



• Q: Is there a Snazzi product which has the processing power to capture directly from Firewire DV Camera connection to MPEG ? Without seperate DV to MPEG conversion ?
  A: Yes. Snazzi has such a product! DV.AVIO can. To capture the high data rate required by DV without frame loss AND convert to MPEG at the same time requires HUGE processing power. However the DV.AVIO series can capture directly from a DV source to DV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV and even DivX formats ! Without a seperate conversion process.
  DV AVIO is actually a very high performance software based real-time DivX encoder which can meet the capture resource requirement. That means the PC resources wont go too high and lose frames. AVIO is even capable of encoding DivX videos using DivX officially released encoder i.e. Dr.DivX in all the formats. Further this is really a good product in terms that it can encode DivX in real-time from both Analog and DV sources. Very few products can do real-time DV to DivX encoding! Snazzi DV.AVIO can!



• Q: Can Snazzi SN7900 V DV+DVDIO capture from DV firewire straight to MPEG1 or MPEG2 without seperate DV to MPEG conversion ?
  A: No. Only the DV.AVIO series has the processing power to do it. Pls see previous comment above.



• Q: Does SN1600 DV AVIO EVO support Adobe Premiere Plugin for Timeline TV out ?
  A: No. The hardware cards look the same but they are not. Because we have changed the ROM programming to render some of the raw contents from the timeline. So SN1600 does not support the Timeline Plug-in for TV out. Please see one of the other products for this professional high end fature.



• Q: DV Bridge II SN1700 what does "Camera Mode" do ?
  A: The camera mode lets the device to work as stand alone unit. That means you can record your analog videos to DV tape from your VCD/DVD player without using a computer or vice versa.
  There are many applications where this product can be used:
  Encode Mode: People who would like to convert Video to DV for editing and archiving their videos.
  Decode: People who would like to convert DV to Video or see the real-time timeline out from any NLE software to analog monitor for having an idea of how their final production would look like.



• Q: DV Bridge II SN1700 does it work with Apple MacIntosh ?
  A: Yes. DV Bridge II is compatible with both Windows and Apple MAC.



• Q: DV Bridge II SN1700 is there are bitrate controls to reduce DV capture file size ?
  A: It is actually not possible to change DV bitrate as the encoder complies with default DV25 stream. However there can be a bitrate variation if you use other capture application like WinDVD Creator which allows bitrate variation for MPEG.



• Q: Can SN2300 Video Creator 250 USB really do video streaming ?
  A: Yes. It can do it simply and easily. Keep in mind that it is not a Pro class streaming product. It is specifically aimed for use with Windows XP using software compression making it most affordable. On its own it does video streaming in "Push Mode" i.e. It just starts sending video on any specific port and anyone having a client application can connect to this devices using the IP address and Port numbers. On the other hand you can consider to integrate it with other Video Streaming Software for more specialised video streaming applications. It is certainly a great low cost start for video streaming.



• Q: Can SZ1350 Net DVD Cinema HD Play Streaming Video straight from the NW1250 Tera NAS Pro HD NAS Drive with out any additional server software ?
  A: Yes. To stream Videos from a a PC you install a very small server program to assign what directories will be visible to stream videos from. You can also stream from an Apple Mac of course. The Net DVD Cinema will list all computers running the server software to chose from.
  With Tera NAS Pro HD it is even easier. It has the streaming server function BUILT IN. When it formats up the drives it creates two default share directories. Namely the "\backup" share directory for all your data and also a "\Media" directory for serving out media files, with subdirectories \Media\Music, \Media\Pictures, \Media\Videos to seperate each media type. Simple.
  And to make things even simpler, when SZ1350 Net DVD Cinema HD is splugged into your LAN it will normally automatically detect the Tera NAS and list it as an available media source device as soon as you power up the SZ1350. Click on it from the remote control and select what you want to play. Really easy!
  So if you have a Tera NAS on your network any PC or Mac computer can drop media files on it for playback by SZ1350 without installing any server software on any computer at all.



• Q: Can SZ1350 Net DVD Cinema HD Play Streaming Video straight from any "dumb" third party NAS drives ?
  A: Depends on your choice of NAS drive. Basically to stream video the NAS has to be UPnP compliant.
  SnaZio* Tera NAS can automatically act like a UPnP media streamer if you chose to enable it and also comes with SNC streaming server software embedded by default. This has no noticeable impact on Tera NAS performance.
  For other NAS devices, it will work if that specific NAS is compliant to UPnP standards or you may install any third party server application like Twonkyvision.
  Other Media Players might simply work because they use SMB file sharing which can end up producing a very cluttered browsing screen of all the shared directories and which we don't support at a moment.



• Q: Are there any media files SZ1350 Net DVD Cinema HD can not play ?
  A: SZ1350 can play a huge range of files, which are listed in the product brochure specs. Including high definition video files that other players can not play. Inevitably there are some files it can not play. For example SZ1350 does not support WMV7 files, only WMV9 onwards as listed in the specs. It can also play MPEG-4 files but there are various profiles. We support MPEG-4 Part-2 ASP but not MPEG-4 Part-10 sometimes refered to as H.264. SZ1350 is firmware upgradable, so as new file formats like new DivX revisions come up the SZ1350 has the potential to cater for these new formats and developments.



• Q: My SZ1350 Net DVD Cinema HD sometimes hesitates or locks up intermittantly when playing media files over my LAN. Is it a SZ1350 firmware problem ?
  A: Maybe not. Most importanly don't forget to also consider upgrading the Server utility on the computer thats sending out the media files. Not just the SZ1350 firmware.



• Q: How do I update the Firmware of my SZ1350 and the Server Application ?
  A: If the SZ1350 has internet access you can do an "Online Update". Else download and install firmware updates from the Snazio website.



• Q: What are some of the Video Standards around and how much time can I record on a typical CD ?
  A: For a summary of Standard Definition and High Definition Video Standards and also MPEG,VCD and DVD standards see our "Micronica Video Capture Cheet Sheet" at http://micronica.com.au/video/faq.htm
  There you will find LOTS of good information and advice on how to capture your own videos like a Pro ;-)



• Q: My Snazzi Driver and Software fails to install. What's the problem ?
  A: From our experience it is MOST unlikely to be a product problem. Most likely you have a Virus Checker program running which is preventing the installation. Turn your Virus Checker off just for the installation. And consider getting a better Virus Checker product as it will probably interfere with other product installations, too ;-)
  If in doubt, start with a CLEAN BASIC Windows Installation on a PC without lots of background programs running.




Where can you buy one ? It's quick and easy !

You can visit one of our resellers in your area (not all resellers support all products) or order directly from MICRONICA if you like:

Micronica On Line Order Service

Dealers In Your Area