These days, we all consume media digitally. We have DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Streaming movies and TV shows directly from the internet is becoming the new norm. However, we all have a stack of VHS tapes in our house that we simply can't part with or that are otherwise unavailable in digital formats, including home videos, television shows recorded years ago, movies that can't be found on DVD and much more. Fortunately, there is a solution in VHS to DVD Converters.

Radio Shack distributes its own line of converters in the form of the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter. Like all the other products on our VHS to DVD converters comparison matrix, this product consists of two components: hardware and software. The former is the quintessential plug-and-play piece of hardware. The latter's flaws seriously retard any benefits the hardware offers.

The hardware component of the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter is compact, easy to use and highly compatible. On one end of the unit are the familiar red, white and yellow RCA outlets. The unit doesn't come with any male-to-male cables, but they're easy to obtain. On the opposite end of the unit is a male USB connector at the end of a wire.

Simply connect the RCA cables to your VCR and the USB cord into your computer and you're ready to start converting your VHS tapes into a digital format. That is, after you installed the software. This is where we run into many problems.

The software included in the box alongside the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter is the ShowBiz DVD 2 application from ArcSoft. By any standards, this software is subpar. It suffers from numerous problems, including poor performance, limited functionality and overall poor software design. Fortunately, the hardware portion of the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter is not proprietary to this particular software application.

The biggest gripe we have with ShowBiz DVD 2 is its stability issues. The application contains no less than five reproducible crash bugs. It's hard to imagine that any self-respecting software company would release an application as unstable as ShowBiz DVD 2.

Another problem we had with the software portion of the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter is its slapdash editing features. The controls are counter intuitive, and capturing video using the software is problematic at best. Editing chapters and scenes is nigh unto incomprehensible.

The good news is, as we mentioned before, that you don't have to use ShowBiz DVD 2. The hardware component of the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter is compatible with nearly any application that is capable of capturing video.

If you choose to buy the Gigaware VHS to DVD Converter, we recommend tossing the software in the box and buying a better capturing and editing solution. TopTenREVIEWS provides great options that get the job done. Head over to our video editing comparison and review page for those products.