LGR - Dazzle Parallel Port Video Capture in 1997
Added 2025-07-02 22:05:56 +0000 UTCUPDATE: The final edit here has another minute added and a few other things truncated/re-recorded throughout the video for clarity. The biggest being the section about capture results starting at 16:29.
The next LGR episode is here! This time all about the original Dazzle analog video capture device, which uses the parallel printer port for transferring video data.
This original Dazzle hails from the few brief years where it actually made sense to pack an MPEG-1 encoder and some memory chips inside of a parallel port device, acting as a stopgap before USB 2.0 came along and better capture devices hit the market, rendering the entire parallel port capture category outdated overnight. Though even with its printer-adjacent connections, the thing is still surprisingly capable for what it is!
Hope you enjoy this brief detour down one of the many, many dead end things from the late 90s. Stuff like this captivates me, it's the kind of device that only could've come out and seen success during a short period of time at the end of that decade, with plenty of competing parallel port products all vying for attention. Then they were gone in the blink of an eye! That late 20th century march of technological progress, man was it relentless.
Comments
I keep all the letters that people send alongside donations, either taped to or packed inside the donated item! And if there's no letter then I print out the original email the person sent asking if I was interested :)
LGR
2025-07-26 17:56:35 +0000 UTC30fps max!
LGR
2025-07-19 02:12:54 +0000 UTCThis thing is so freaking interesting! Thanks for the fun video! My first main ponder was "how do you keep up with donations and who sent them?" Excel sheet perhaps? Do you include columns for when it was received and when (if) you did a video on it? Is it multimedia-linked?" The data munching portion of my brain is more OCD than the rest of it lol. My second was, "God bless you Ryan, wherever you are" I hope he enjoyed the video about his donation.
Nachts
2025-07-18 22:11:24 +0000 UTCYou may have addressed this in the video and I missed it, but does this device capture video at 60fps? The quality is kind of amazing.
Alex Weiss
2025-07-10 13:20:49 +0000 UTCCertainly want to once I move back home and can set up a network again!
LGR
2025-07-09 15:05:33 +0000 UTCThis was a fun one. I would like to see the video conferencing if you pull it off (maybe as a blerb)? 7 fps video conferencing sounds very 90s, and who knows what the audio quality will be.
Chris Gardner
2025-07-09 13:47:39 +0000 UTCI remember watching A Thief in the Night in Jr. High. It's actually up on Youtube.
Chris Rogers
2025-07-09 03:35:27 +0000 UTCAt one point I had Nvidia's equivalent of an ATI All in Wonder card. That came with a huge dongle (which held the inputs and the TV tuner) in translucent green plastic.
Duncan
2025-07-08 18:32:23 +0000 UTCTruth. I went full digital copies and then streaming-only for a long time, now I'm going right on back to all physical copies of movies and TV that I care about. Services have all become garbage.
LGR
2025-07-07 20:21:05 +0000 UTCGenuinely though! Those results over a dang parallel port at a relatively affordable price had to have been amazing in '97.
LGR
2025-07-07 20:20:09 +0000 UTCI am super impressed by that. That's crazy ahead of its time.
Alyxx the Rat
2025-07-06 17:09:40 +0000 UTCThis brings me back to the early 2000s where the idea of digitization was cool and black magic. "Imagine watching TV and movies on your PC!?!? No physical media!?!? Woah!!' Then the streaming age came. And that enthusiasm became resentment.
PiraTed
2025-07-06 03:53:01 +0000 UTCFormer Snappy user here too. I used it to capture screens from a favorite TV show and posted them on my GeoCities fan site haha
Eric Sison
2025-07-04 18:26:25 +0000 UTCThis shook loose a braincell and reminded me of Snappy, which was some sort of protoform of this that could only take snapshots from a video feed over parallel port. My dad wanted a flatbed scanner but a good one cost 400 bucks so he made a wood box he could stick photos or documents in and take a snapshot from a camcorder composite feed in neutralish lighting, lol. I've got those old photos on a thumb drive somewhere...
Bryan Smith
2025-07-04 08:35:34 +0000 UTCI remember being dazzled by their ads: they had this picture of an apple they claimed they captured using a video camera and the "high resolution" mode that looked amazing—far better than NTSC had any right to look. Given that practical digital cameras were at least a few years away, this showed a lot of promise. I hoped you'd give that a shot (double puns, you're welcome.)
Jason Olshefsky
2025-07-03 20:26:38 +0000 UTCFully agreed. Nowadays it's "better than ever" from a certain point of view, and yet it's often just so bland and uninspiring, with few true innovations each year.
LGR
2025-07-03 14:25:41 +0000 UTCAnother that of the C-Cube chip devices from '97! Curious how it compared. Would love to see that video sometime!
LGR
2025-07-03 14:23:39 +0000 UTCI miss this whole era of computing. It was so god damn exciting, there was always some new, amazing, weird jank coming out to do some amazing/interesting thing. Nowadays we just have boring old USB. Just plug it in and for most devices they just automatically run without even needing any software. . . I guess I'm just lamenting the fall of enthusiast computing, and the rise of utilitarian computing.
Honorary Octopus
2025-07-03 14:01:40 +0000 UTCI had a Hauppage branded card from the same era that also sported a TV tuner. Used it for about a decade for capturing video from my camcorder, and hooked up a cable box to it so I could use it as a DVR.
Chris Horry
2025-07-03 13:36:44 +0000 UTCNone so far! I made sure not to show anything long enough or full screen that might trigger something
LGR
2025-07-03 13:00:24 +0000 UTCNeat. I had a Pinnacle PCI capture card few years later. Had a dongle bigger than that thing for inputs and outputs. But also, I do think it had same or a version of that encoding chip. Looked so familiar.
J Ruonti
2025-07-03 11:32:03 +0000 UTCI have a Videonics Python that does the same thing. Used it to capture MPEG-1 off live television in the mid 90s. I will probably make a video about it someday along with the other 1990s video capture devices I used.
Jim Leonard
2025-07-03 03:49:59 +0000 UTCDo the movie clips get hit with copyright strikes?
CharlieVictor
2025-07-02 22:24:14 +0000 UTCHit 'em with the old razzle dazzle. I've not watched yet but bonus points if you say that, Clint.
Dave Velociraptor
2025-07-02 22:22:24 +0000 UTC
