Canopus ADVC100

[Living_Tribunal]

howdy y'all,

I had a question regarding capture cards. I am currently using a Hauppauge PVR 250 for capturing stuff off tv, and it works great. however, I am now in the market for a avi-capturing device, and have narrowed my options to either an ATI AIW (possibly 9800 AIW) or the Canopus advc100.

Although I'm an avid gamer, and would benefit from the extra power of the ATI, the most important thing for me is capture quality. Video cards are always upgraded, but I hope to keep this capture card as long as possible.

More info: I plan to use this to capture video off of mini-DV tapes and do extensive editing w/ adobe premiere, virtualdub, avisynth, etc. My budget is $250 or less, roughly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[seikima]

Canopus all the way! the video-audio sync is the BEST in the business!

[edDV]

...
...
More info: I plan to use this to capture video off of mini-DV tapes and do extensive editing w/ adobe premiere, virtualdub, avisynth, etc. ...

I'm confused. If you plan "to capture video off of mini-DV tapes" why do you need these analog video capture devices? All you need is a IEEE-1394 port and cable. What am I missing?

[proxyx99]

Hmm, you don't capture miniDV, you transfer from tape format to HD format as pointed above. Any miniDV cam with a pass-through would do as good as Canopus. This will provide for miniDV transfer as well as capture to DV from other sources via your cam (VCR?). If you don't have one and need transfer from other sources then miniDV cam Canopus will do a good job. Don't know about ATI so no suggestion here.
Again, every miniDV cam has a built in iLink (Firewire) port for transfer. In this case (If you own one) you don't need anything other then Firewire port on your PC.

[Living_Tribunal]

Thanks for the reply. I had just started using a digital camcorder. Previously I had only been capturing off live TV or off VHS tapes. I still plan to capture using the above sources, so I still need a recommendation on an ATI AIW vs. Canopus for (1) quality and (2) something that won't be obsolete too soon. I've heard pros and cons about each (with ATI AIW, some say it improves as your CPU/system gets faster (although once the videocard part eventually becomes obsolete, whereas with the Canopus there are no issues with audio/video sync, and everyone generally raves about the quality and ease of use).

As for the firewire port for transfer to HD, I actually did not know about that, being a relatively new digital camcorder user (got one as a present recently), although I've been capturing from other sources for awhile now.
I'll do more research on exactly how (and what more equipment I need) to do that.

Thanks for the info, and any additional comments regarding ATIs AIW vs. the Canopus.

[thecoalman]

Read Proxyx99 thread.... you may not need either if your cam supports pass-through. If it does it works like the canopus.

[edDV]

I agree, a MiniDV camcorder with pass-thru does essentially the same thing as the Canopus.

The ATI AIW is mostly about NTSC (or PAL) capture from either its internal TV tuner or from external sources. It has hardware MPeg acceleration that takes some of the load off the CPU.

The Canopus captures analog sources to DV format and transfers the resulting DV stream to the computer via the IEEE-1394 port. At the computer end, the stream can be saved to a DV-AVI file or passed directly to an MPeg encoder or other process.

The Canopus has hardware for high quality NTSC/PAL decoding and conversion to DV format. It has no MPeg hardware acceleration like your PVR-250. The processing load for direct encoding to MPeg falls to the CPU.

Feel free to ask more questions.

[pippas]

I agree, a MiniDV camcorder with pass-thru does essentially the same thing as the Canopus.

With the possible exception of locked audio ?

I find the best options for me have been:

DV camcorder transfer - digital transfer via firewire

Analogue capture to DV - via Canopus ADVC50 (no dropped frames + locked audio )

MPEG 2 capture -- via Panasonic DVD recorder -- transfer DVDRAM disc VRO files to computer - read with TMPEG DVD Author - edit as required.

Not a single 'capture' card in sight -- absolutely no dropped frame nor audio sync problems at all!

I can't help feeling that anything that requires either:

1) software drivers, or

2) audio input connections via a soundcard

seems to be inviting problems that don't have to exist.

Just MHO

[Living_Tribunal]

Thanks for the replies so far. I've just bought a firewire card and cable, and hooked up my camcorder. The only option it gave me for creating the video was Windows Movie Maker, so I picked that and began capturing. I only captured about 2 min (i picked dv-avi setting), but it won't play back.

Any thoughts?

Also, is there better software to use other than Movie Maker?

[budz]

Use Scenalyzer Live

[Robert Simandl]

I use WinDV with no problems, and it's freeware.

[Living_Tribunal]

Hey y'all,

I just tried using WinDV. It captured fine, but the output avi file still won't play using Windows Media player. I downloaded and installed the panasonic dv codec, but that didn't help.

Any thoughts? Again, thanks for all the help so far. It's a learning experience.

[redwudz]

Try anything except WMP. VLC player is the most universal. Or Zoom player or Media Player Classic. No reason you should not be able to play DV files.

[proxyx99]

Installing a good player such as PowerDVD (latest) will solve all your playback issues (WinDVD as well). Players listed above are also a good alternative although PowerDVD codecs seem to be a better "global" solution for your PC.

[edDV]

Hey y'all,

I just tried using WinDV. It captured fine, but the output avi file still won't play using Windows Media player. I downloaded and installed the panasonic dv codec, but that didn't help.

Any thoughts? Again, thanks for all the help so far. It's a learning experience.

Most desktop players will struggle playing a DV stream in real time at full resolution. Most DV editors will allow limited realtime playback (including wmm2). Generally people edit the DV material and then encode to MPeg2 for burning to a DVD or to some other format. Higher end DV editors* support full resolution playback on a TV by using the hardware DV codec in your camcorder.

* The least expensive editing program that will do this to my knowledge is ULead Video Studio 8.

Another way to playback DV to a TV through the DV camcorder is with a program like WinDV. You need to inhibit recording in the menus. Remove the checkmark next to the record button. This is an "undocumented feature". Be careful you don't overwrite a tape by accident.

[hexxisoft]

vegas 5 is a good all in one, having a capture and edit suite all in one. its a little expensive, but excellent.

[Billie]

Sorry, my hints were obsolete, that's why I deleted them.

[NightWing]

The standard Windows Media Player can handle a AVI DV file. Actualy like the codex built into windows.

The DV file that took a few minuts to figure out was the one that iMove generates. That takes QT to sort out.

May want to check the tool section. There are one or two program that will allow you to see the {cant thing what its called} four letter string. Thats what the system uses to figure out what is in the "AVI" containner.