ADVC-100 vs ATI Radeon - Screenshots

lordsmurf · Posted: Dec 16, 2003 03:40

Have you considered taking the box to another house, on another computer, using another SCART adapter, and another VCR ... plus another source tape ... then work your way back to your old setup one step at a time? To eliminate things one by one?

Hopefully you know friends/family that are up for that.

That kind of thing has helped me out more than once, and not just video either ... all sorts of things.
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Will Hay · Posted: Dec 16, 2003 03:52

Craig Tucker · Moderator Joined: 05 Apr 2001 Location: England

Or just get rhegedus to do all the work for you and send you the discs in the post.
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Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 16, 2003 06:50

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 16, 2003 06:59

I'm at home for lunch.

I know I said I've I've done a test 'capture' from my DVD standalone to the ADVC via s-video cable, but I haven't via composite cable (the same ones I used directly from my VHS player).
The results are superb.

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rhegedus · Member Joined: 25 Sep 2002 Location: on the jazz

So it's not the Canopus and it's not the cables.

I think the difference in quality of your VCR output between TV and PC may lie in the difference in resolution between the two and the difference between capture and VCR resolution.

I'm not sure, but VCR resolution is at most half of DV (hence VHS captures should be encoded at half D1 x D2) so if you've captured VHS as DV, half of the data will be a guess or repeat of the other half.

I'm only guessing here, so don't shoot me down, y'all.

Either way, I suggest you encode your VHS captures at about CBR4000 half D1 x D2 and burn to DVD and compare with your VHS output to TV to see if there is any 'realworld' difference, not just on high res monitors.

Good luck.
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Regards,

Rob

downer · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2002

I have tried to follow this post from beginning to end. I have the same problems with color saturarion of reds (and blues actually) with my Canopus ADVC. I am in NTSC land. Most of my captures are VHS concerts where the stage lights are always some form of red usually.

I run from a Mitsubishi HD2000U Digital VCR with built in TBC to my ADVC with gold plated S-Video connection and composite connections for audio. I can't figure out the saturation problem. I just use the filter in Procoder to adjust it.

I was wondering if this would make a difference. VCR -> MiniDV Cam with analog passthrough -> ADVC??? Hopefully i am getting one for X-Mas and can test it out.

proxyx99 · **Banned** Joined: 22 Oct 2003 Location: Americas

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 17, 2003 02:21

Rob (regadus) is already aware of this, thanks to the wonder that is instant messaging, but for my sanity and the benefit of others...

...I went to (a UK) Radioshack last night, and bought...

....a set of gold-plated RCA cables (are phono cables , red, yellow and white, the same as composite cables?).
I plugged them directly from the scart adapter in the VCR to the ADVC and there was no benefit, same darkness and reds

...a scart to composite lead, which I plugged directly into the VCR.
No benefit, same darkness and reds.

...a signal booster.
No benefit, same darkness and reds.

...a new scart block, which I ran a scart cable to from my VCR to, and then using the composite plugs rans a set of leads to the ADVC.
No benefit, same darkness and reds.

As a further test I ran a set of composite leads from the DVD player to the VCR scart input, and then from the scart output of the VCR ran a set of composite leads.

Guess what?

The picture was superb.

I'm out.
I'm sick and friggin tired of this bastard thing.
Bugger it.
I'm out of ideas.
Will
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Will Hay · Posted: Dec 17, 2003 02:24

Slightly off-topic but I started the thread so you complaining

....
...I took some advice and captured some VHS with Virtualdub last night at 352 x 576 (rather than the 720

x 576 I had been.
When I played it back on my PC of course it was taller than it was wide.
This is okay right?
It will play properly on my TV yes?

Will
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proxyx99 · **Banned** Joined: 22 Oct 2003 Location: Americas

Then the only conclusion is: source (VCR) related.

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 17, 2003 03:14

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 17, 2003 03:51

trevlac · Member Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Location: U.S.

downer · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2002

this might of been covered already, but i don't remember, nor feel like going back to read all those posts, but did anyone test to see if there was any difference in the reds doing:

vcr->advc = output vs.
vcr->minidv analog passthrough = output

and see if the reds are still really saturated and red??

to me this will tell you exactly if it is the advc or not, if you are using the same footage. sorry if this has already been covered but i was always curious of this.

thanks.

trevlac · Member Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Location: U.S.

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 17, 2003 11:06

trevlac · Member Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Location: U.S.

If you play it in windvd or powerdvd (after you convert it to mpeg), it should look right on your pc. Bottom line is that 352x576 is a part of the dvd standard. Your player will streatch the picture back out. The PC dvd players should do this as well (actually they should streatch it to 768x576 or some number that is a 4:3 ratio).

If you want to read the basics of "digital aspect ratio conversion" (with pictures) , a short techincal write up is below. Basically, the player comes up with the pixels in between (and pads black to 720) and then does an digital to analog conversion at the standard sample rate of 13.5MHz. Oh yeah, it also overlays the edges with sync signal stuff for your analog output (analog standard), so you only really get about 702 pixels out anyway. The ADVC grabs the full 720 width, so that is why you have black on the sides of the ADVC captures even if you go from DVD.

http://www.snellwilcox.com/knowledgecenter/whitepapers/papers/digital_arc.pdf

If feel kinda funny talking this way. but I found I could only really understand this stuff by reading the engineer stuff. I probably read more than I capture and capture more than I watch. I hope I don't get a soldering iron for christmas

rhegedus · Member Joined: 25 Sep 2002 Location: on the jazz

No you don't have to resize.

I'd also try the Canopus and re-encode to half D1 x D2mpeg.
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Regards,

Rob

Will Hay · Posted: Dec 17, 2003 13:18

Yep, you're right, PowerDVD plays it just fine, thanks

Will
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Will Hay · Posted: Dec 18, 2003 16:22

Okay, first of all...
....please consider that it would have been very easy of me not to post what I'm about to.
I could have easily snuck away and never told anyone my horrible secret.

I've been doing some more testing.
I captured a ten minute clip tonight from satellite TV, I switched channels a few times to make sure Igot a good mix of broadcasting.
And I encoded, at 8000CBR with TMPGEnc, using the following different settings:

1) 720 x 576

2) 352 x 576 (to see if there was any noticable difference in this and 720 x 576; there wasn't, absolutely none at all)

3) 720 x 576 with brightness lifted by 20, and red reduced by 20 (ie. 20 and -20)

4) 720 x 576 with brightness lifted by 40, and red reduced by 40 (ie. 40 and -40)

Now, bearing in mind I've already done a couple of DVDr's with the ADVC-100 (and burnt to DVDr) and wasn't overly impressed with the colour representation.

Okay, one was B&W, the other was the World Cup Final in 1966 in which the colour had been added later, I know, I know

, but I must confess I've been basing my ADVC-100 fears on how the captures look when played back on my PC.

I've been so busy trying new cables, trying different configurations, moving the VCR up and down and taking so many screenshots/uploading I forgot the most basic principle; "how does it look on a standalone DVD player.

So, yes, you guessed it....

....which of the four options looked the best?

Yes, I'm sorry, it was the first and second, the one's which hadn't had their brightness and colour levels pissed around with.

In fact, they looked superb.
More than superb actually, they look far better than some ATI DVDr's I've created in the past.

I'm sorry, truly

But hell, at least now you all know, the ADVC-100 is one superb peice of hardware!

Will Hay, idiot.
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tgpo, my real dad, told me to make a maximum of 5,806 posts in one lifetime. So I have.

rhegedus · Member Joined: 25 Sep 2002 Location: on the jazz

Hmmmmmmmmmmm................

I think you're getting to where you need to be with the Canopus, but you're not there yet.

The TV/VCR caps you posted look shitty compared to mine and others. Let's see what the captures are like once all the cables are sorted and the source is cleaned up a bit i.e. stright from digibox etc.
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Regards,

Rob