Canopus ADVC-100

[Brian Ellis]

I tagged the following onto the end of the long thread on m/bs: maybe it has more relevance in a separate thread:

I've just had a look at another possibility. Put in a DV card and use a DV bridge. Has anyone done this?

I've looked at what is on the market. The most popular and cheapest one is the Dazzle Hollywood but some of the reviews are not over good. OTOH the Canopus ADVC-100 does seem to have some good reviews. This would liberate the AGP slot to any graphics card (any no-nos?), at the cost of a DV card on top.

All comments gratefully received.

[wkulecz]

I got tired of pushing buttons on my TRV-120 to navigate the menu to switch Analog In and disable device control to capture analog as DV so I got a ADVC-100.

Works well. Only one minor irratation -- have to press the "mode" button on the top of the box a couple of times after stopping a capture to restart a new capture.

I use it a lot. Record a movie on SVHS. Capture with ADVC-100. Edit out comercials. Output DV thru ADVC-100 to record a VHS tape.

--wally.

[Brian Ellis]

Wally

Thanks for the +ve answer. If I understand it correctly, you plug the analogue signal in and then capture the DV signal live? Is there ever any synch problem? Do you use a Canopus card or something like the Pyro? If the former, then what control do you have over the ADVC? Do you use the MSPro 6.5 DV features on the signal?

Finally, how does the captured video compare with, say, MJPEG or Huffyuv captures?

Sorry for the rash of questions.

[wkulecz]

Never a sync problem, My longest capture was ~4 hrs of "Gone With the Wind". I use it with an ADS Pyro I got about two years ago. I capture with the Vegas Video capture tool. but MSP works. I usually output the timeline thru the ADVC-100 to make a tape using MSP6.5. Its real time, if your capture software does live previews that's what you'll get.

The ADVC shows up as MS DV cam and seems to "fake" device control so you don't have to turn it off like I had to do on the TRV-120 Ain->DV. Since your analog sources will lack DV timecodes device control won't work -- I've never tried just to "see what might happen".

There are no adjustments of any kind other than a dip switch on the bottom to choose NTSC/PAL,choose if it powers up as in or out mode, and enable a few options that only work if you have Canopus DV hardware/software.

Other than analog capture not automatically restarting after you stop it, it'd be about perfect. You hae to cycle the mode to restart it.

I haven't made a MJPEG vs. HuffYUV vs. DV with it, but I did for my TRV-120 and to me DV is so much less hassle than any analog capture board that the slight improvements from MJPEG or HuffYUV at > 3.6MB/s data rates is just not worth the hassle or extra disk space. YMMV. If you are doing "bluescreen" work then DV might not be so great but otherwise its definitely the way to go for a good quality low hassle workflow.

--wally.

[davpen]

I will give my vote of support to the ADVC-100. Capture quality seems to be on par with what I used to get with a RRG and the on board hardware MJPEG at its highest res/quality settings. I just use an el-cheapo firewire card with mine and haven't had any problems. The capture process works pretty much the same as an analog session with the RRG.

"Other than analog capture not automatically restarting after you stop it, it'd be about perfect. You hae to cycle the mode to restart it."

I have never had this problem. I can do as many captures as I like without ever touching the ADVC-100. For the record I am capturing NTSC from a JVC SVHS deck using MSP6.0VE.


Cheers,

David.

[Brian Ellis]

Wally, David

Thanks for your inputs. This is beginning to look like a real possibility.

It may actually also be a cheapo solution for me, as I can rebuild 3 computers here and swap the P4 m/b I use for my office work onto the video work (not possible before, 'cos of the G-200 incompatibility) and delegate my video PIII/450 system for office work (wonder whether it will slow down my typing )

David, I thought 'Strilia was on PAL???????

[davpen]

Yes Australia is PAL but I have imported a lot of Anime NTSC tapes from the US in the past (I only buy DVD's these days). I am using the ADVC-100 to back up these old tapes.

David.

[wkulecz]

Davpen,

Thanks you are correct. Don't have to touch the box when uisng MSP6.5 Vid Cap for multiple captures, must be a glitch in the Vegas Video capture tool (I'm using an old version).

But the VV cap tool previews audio and video where the MSP6.5 doesn't seem to do this for DV unless I've missed a setting somewhere.

--wally.

[davpen]

I get video but not sound in the preview in the MSP6.0SE capture utility. I didn't do anything special to get this other than installing the latest patches and upgrades from ULead.


David.