do external converters work?

Question

ok so i found this thing that looks like a thumb drive but it says it is a converter for video it says its 5 times faster then real time

first is this true
and second
will it convert video to view on my creative zen

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-detailsInactive.asp?Sku=A03-7122
says it is no longer available but im sure you could fid it on ebay or something

Answer 1

it most likely has the converter codecs/software hard coded onto the USB dongle which saves your computers CPU from having to run the application that is doing the converter computations, thus saving clock cycles. i would be highly skeptical, especially since it would have to be limited by the bandwidth available to the USB at any given time (ie: reading and writing from a USB hard drive, mouse, keyboard, digital web cam, and any other thing that uses USB and is plugged in/in use) this is not to say that it would not work at all, just that it does not seem to be an ideal or elegant solution.

Answer 2

well most converters are designed to convert video and audio in real time between Analog/digital video feeds like RCA or HDMI with Firewire for you computer.

I've never seen a converter that can convert data 5 times faster than it can play.

That sounds similar to a DVD player which uses the X as how fast it can burn,i.e., 1x = burns as fast as video playback and 2x = twice the speed of video playback.

What type of converter is it? Do you have a link you can share?

Edit:
Now that's some more information. Yes now I understand why it is 5 times faster, it's converter Digital to Digital. I guess this would be a real thing, but considering it isn't available anymore is not a good sign. I would just use a software converter like Quicktime Pro($29) or VLC(Free) which have the same format conversions(like h.264).

Answer 3

Got a link to the converter? Hard to say, just by the description... There are plenty of external TV capture/converter devices but I'm not familiar with thumb- drive-sized ones.

Answer 4

Looks relatively legitimate, but I have not seen or heard anything about it personally so I can't be sure.
The zen can handle MPEG and some wmv files and the converters says it supports writing MPEG-1, MPEG-4, and wmv video, but they are not listed in it's "accelerated" formats list, so it might be just as slow as any other software converter for those, you never know.