Recommended Canopus ADVC-300 settings?

[cbkilner]

Can anyone recommend some Picture Control settings for use with the Canopus ADVC-300 when capturing composite analog? For S-video?
I'd like to get good transfers of home video (typically noisy pictures from consumer-grade analog camcorders) to DVD.

For example, for composite capture, should 2D Y/C separation be used?

For an S-video source, should the 3D Y/C separation be used?

When should 2D or 3D NR (noise reduction) be used?

Are the default settings any good (I've heard them criticized, but never heard any improved recommended setting)?

Canopus and their inadequate manual aren't very helpful in this regard.

Thanks in advance.

[gshelley61]

It's likely you will need to do some trial and error on each project with regard to settings, inputs/outputs used, etc.

Every source will vary from each other... so each tape or whatever you are capturing will have to be examined individually and compensated for.

[cbkilner]

I realize that the Picture Control software can do a great amount of correction and optimization and that a trained eye looking at a studio monitor can do trial and error adjustments.

But I'm not a video professional; I'm just looking for some general guidance regarding when to use the most basic settings to improve the analog-to-DV conversion - I'm not trying to optimize each clip, but rather find a general setting for capturing an entire tape. These are the settings in the "filter" tab and typically not very suitable to trial-and-error testing since the final results can only be evaluated by viewing the playback of the DVD (encoded MPEG2) under a varienty of conditions (low light, high motion, etc.).

From my understanding, the ADVC-300 can only do 3D Y/C separation on S-video input and only do 2D Y/C separation with composite, but the default settings are to 3D Y/C.

It is also my understanding that 2D NR compares adjacent portions of a single frame for NR and 3D NR compares the same portion of multiple frames, which seems to make 2D NR better for video with a large amount of motion, but the "filter" tab also includes a "motion detection" setting which might help 3D NR in high motion settings.

The default setting has both 2D & 3D NR turned on and set in the "weak" position. Is this a good default for handling the basic video noise produced by consumer analog camcorders?

[gshelley61]

Generally, the more noise suppression you apply (whether it is 2D or 3D or both), the less defined and "sharp" your image will be. For sources that are in good shape, I would try the milder settings. If you have a lot of video noise, try the higher settings.

To help develop an eye for what a well balanced video should look like, set up your monitor/TV contrast, brightness, hue and saturation using the THX test patterns available on some commercial DVD's (Monsters, Inc. for example). Watch some DVD's that have exceptionally good transfers... the Superbit Fifth Element is one of the best looking film to DVD transfers ever done. The Lord of the Rings DVD's also look very good.

After some trial and error tweaking, test captures, and before and after comparisons, you should be able to get a good feel for what your Canopus unit is capable of and how to effectively use all the adjustments. I mean, you spent $500 to get it... don't you want to spend some time getting to know how to get the most out of it?

[The village idiot]

Maybe it is time to buy a good waveform monitor and vector scope.

[gshelley61]

Maybe it is time to buy a good waveform monitor and vector scope.

Now you're talking. I happen to work in the TV business and we have all this great pro broadcast gear all over the building. I wonder if they would notice if I "borrowed" a few things... ?

[cbkilner]

Thanks for the general advice (and my kids have the Monsters Inc. DVD).

I'm a geek and like to tweek and test things, but not necessarily at the expense of DVD-R blanks. I'll keep notes of my settings and results (and try some more involved testing when I get the time).

If any ADVC-300 users have advice, I'd love to hear it.

[gshelley61]

Go buy a few DVD-RW's. That's what I always use at first. When I am satisfied with my results, then I copy to a final DVD-R.

[racerxnet]

Did you post at the Canopus forum with your questions? If not, why not! They are extremely helpful.

MAK

[victoriabears]

I have had a 300 for about 6 weeks, and fell into the trap of fiddling with the default settings too much, i was starting with a very good vhs recording (Yes they do exist despite what people say!) and find just the default settings are fine.

I do have a particularly difficult tape to transfer, and as the previous posts say, get some RW disks, and capture a few minutes , then play then on your dvd player on a TV, or get a TV hooked up to your video card if it can be done.

Don't put more than 2 hours on a DVD, that also helps with quality.

Which capture/editing/authoring software are you using?

I was amazed at the quality Power producer Gold 2 has given me, even after using things like windows movie maker, ivcr, and tmpgenc to encode the avi to mpeg, I think with VHS original, we have to be careful not to try too hard to improve on it!

Good Luck

[gshelley61]

Yes, avoid the temptation to over-enhance... you want to gently adjust and correct, and only if needed (video is noisy, hue is off, color is over/undersaturated, too much or too little contrast, etc.)

[cbkilner]

gshelly61:

The DVD-RW would be OK for my own material, but I'm doing 1-2 hour transfers for others - and even within a single tape, I have some clients who have both Master (camcorder material) and duplicate (copy) material on a single tape. I'd rather not spend too much time tweeking material that I'm not getting paid very much to transfer.

MAK:

I've posted at the Canopus forum, but most users have the ADVC-100 and those with the ADVC-300 are using either the default settings or settings specific to the particular material they are transfering (Japanese animation, EP tapes, etc.).

Terry B:

I've actually been getting very good results (as good or better than the original footage) with both the default settings and with enabling either the 2D (for composite input) or 3D (for S-video input) settings. I think that getting rid of some of the video noise prior to MPEG2 encoding really helps the MPEG2 quality. In reading the Canopus forums, however, I've read of people getting artifacts (afterimage, Moire, etc) using the defaults.
I use a 5-year-old iMac DV (400MHz) for capture with iMovie4. I edit, add chapters, and save the iMovie file on a FW hard drive and then burn the DVDs on my wife's eMac overnight (a 1 hour disk takes 4 hours and a 2 hour disk takes 6 hours) using iDVD4. My ADVC-300 replaced a Dazzle Hollywood-DV Bridge that was dropping frames when converting old, degraded tapes.
iDVD4 is limited to 2 hours (and requires a hack for RW disks), but for maximum quality I usually burn an hour at a time using the 2-pass VBR setting. It uses the same basic encoding engine (Compressor) that Apple's DVD Studio Pro uses, so it gives excellent results with just a few clicks of the mouse. Some video pros who've seen my results have been extremely impressed - even before finding out the DVDs were produced with Apple's consumer hardware/software. When alternately displaying the original videotape and the DVD on a 27" TV, they thought the DVD was the original footage (and fooling a pro that knows what MPEG2 artifacts look like is tough).