Request for ADVC-300 review

[MacHound1]

To the DVDRhelp community,

Increasing numbers of people now own Canopus ADVC-300 units. To date, nobody posted an ADVC-300 review here. Now that we've gotten past the issue of ADVC-300 not being able to defeat Macrovision, what about the other touted advantages of ADVC-300 vs ADVC-100. Specifically:

How reliable is this unit in day-to-day usage?

Does image correction make a difference when you are working with reasonable quality source material (for instance, recently recorded Hi8 tapes)? What about with old VHS tapes? What about off-air TV recording?

Does image correction circuitry tend to blur the picture too much, as some have suggested?

How many dropped frames do you see per minute? (Of course, this often relates to computer throughput issues.)

Of what use is horizontal or vertical edge control?

Is the owner's manual as poorly written as people are saying?

How well does digital auto gain control (AGC) work? Is there a reason NOT to use it?

How well does ADVC-300 control software work on a Mac? (Yes, you're right. Macs rule!)

I'm sure others will have their own set of questions but, hey, I started this thread.

[thegig]

I'm not sure what you mean by "gotten past the issue of ADVC-300 not being able to defeat Macrovision". Last I heard (and read) you cannot, or did I miss the boat? This is a biggie for me if I am going to spend over $500(USD). I can just as well buy an ADVC100 and TBC1000 and still be cheaper. If they ever did find or implement Macrovision removal, I would definately buy it. As far as the features, It's pretty comparable to the combo above. The main advantage it the bi-directional filtering. The picture is a little cleaner. The other items I didn't really look at due to the limited exposer to the unit I had. Maybe I'll go back and look again, kinda hard to be motivated to look at something you don't intend on purchasing.

[MacHound1]

Well, you're right. We haven't "gotten past" the Macrovision issue so much as come to accept that there's no amount of button pushing or switch flipping that will bring this functionality to life. However, for those of us who don't have extensive libraries of commercial video tapes, and for whom the question is which converter works best to transfer my home videos to computer, a review is definitely needed.

Does the ADVC-300 justify its much higher cost by producing truly superior output relative to ADVC-100 or a minicam's DV passthrough?

[upshot]

I'm looking for a HQ capture device also... I'm currently looking at the advc-300 and the mpegpro emr. Someone claimed that the mpegpro does not have an ire 0-7.5 switch.... So I'll add that to the questions above:

Does the advc-300 have a ire switch?

I'd like to see some serious reviews of these devices before I drop half a g.

[MacHound1]

Since starting this thread I bought an ADVC-300. To answer your question, it DOES have a 0/7.5 IRE switch.

I am having pretty good luck with my ADVC-300 so far but I am still learning how to adjust it. I've had no dropped frames whatsoever.

I'm still waiting for help on some issues over at Canopus forums. Once I get those issues nailed down I'll post a more complete ADVC-300 review here... it should be fairly soon.

[upshot]

cool man... TY

there is also some good info here:

<---capture cards

[MacHound1]

Not to give anyone the impression I forgot about this thread, but I am still postponing my ADVC-300 review here, which I wrote over a month ago, while awaiting clarification of various details being discussed over at the Canopus Forums. The quick synopsis is that ADVC-300 has pros and cons, but none of us (possibly including Canopus Support) presently understands all the implications of this complex piece of equipment. It's clearly in a different class than ADVC-100 but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a better or worse value. It all depends on your needs and expectations.

I'll post more info when I am certain about what's fact versus speculation.