Analog camcorder capture with Plextor ConvertX

[mountie926]

Recently I purchased the new Plextor ConvertX box (M402U)+. The ability of hardware encoding the video input signal into MPEG-2 and streaming the signal via USB2 to the PC sounded appealing to me. The main purpose is to convert my analog camcorder tapes to DVD. Maybe in future I follow to archive my analog PAL VHS tapes as well.

The first tests weren't that satisfying. I connected the Hi-8 PAL camcorder via S-Video cable to the box. Normally the picture is crisp and clear. The output was not that good. Well I still have to play a bit with sharpness and contrast settings, but my biggest concern are faster movements in the video (or movements of the camera). The result is jerkily/wobbly. It seems that the real-time encoder cannot provide quick enough a higher bit rate. The specification says that the unit gives in HQ mode an average bitrate of 6Mbit/s with a peak of 9.8 Mbit/s. I have to add that I used the software (coming with the package) to author the DVD (in PAL of course). I live in Canada and own a multi-norm DVD player. So playing the PAL DVD on a NTSC TV is not a problem and gives me normally very good results.

Does anyone have experiences in capturing analog camcorder video with ConvertX?

How does ConvertX compare to alternative ways using Canopus ADVC-100, ADVC-300 or ACEDVio?

Any input is much appreciated

Thanks,
mountie926

[mountie926]

Something I forgot to ask:
Is there a way to convert my camcorder PAL input into a NTSC DVD without harming the picture quality too much?

Regards,
mountie926

[nanifra]

Hi!

I live in Europe (PAL system) and have had a similar problem: the lowest MPG1 profile has a blocky appearence. All the upper profiles freezed sometimes and had serious sync problems.
The shop where I bought my P3 1000 told me it had a USB2 port: it was only a 1.1 type. USB2 allows a much higher speed (in our case can support higher profiles).
I went in a supermarket and got a USB2 card for 14 Euro and all the hardware problems are gone.
Check if USB is type 2 (the Control panel tells it), maybe not.
I still have codec problems for VirtualDub ... can you open the movies captured with MPG4/DivX?