Canopus ADVC100 vs cheap USB video grabber?

[itm2]

I want to convert a load of old VHS tapes to digital (probably MP4/H.264), and am trying to decide on appropriate hardware for the A2D conversion. I have access to a Canopus ADVC100, but my PC doesn't have a firewire interface. The alternative is to buy a USB video grabber, but it would need to be something low cost.

Would it be worth the trouble and expense of adding a firewire interface to my PC just to allow me to use the Canopus, or would I get similar results from a low cost USB device? If so, can anyone recommend a suitable USB device (readily available in the UK)? For example, would I expect lousy results from the £5 USB video grabbers that can be found on eBay?

[DB83]

You will get better results from the ADVC and the interface card for the PC should be cheaper than a respectable usb device.

There are only a handful of these worth mentioning - although many claim 'good' results with these $10 specials - namely the ezcap116 (not easycap - too many fakes) or Hauppauge devices.

[itm2]

You will get better results from the ADVC and the interface card for the PC should be cheaper than a respectable usb device.

There are only a handful of these worth mentioning - although many claim 'good' results with these $10 specials - namely the ezcap116 (not easycap - too many fakes) or Hauppauge devices.

How about one of these cheap (£2) firewire-to-USB adapters - would it compromise the results from the Canopus?

[DB83]

I doubt if it will work.

[itm2]

I doubt if it will work.

Really? Why not?

[loster]

USB 2.0 may not be fast enough to support Firewire when the overhead is considered. Also those devices are typically used for hard drives and such where latency is not as much of an issue.

[DB83]

Well show me a link for what you propose to get. I have merely read reviews of such products on Amazon.

But where I come from, capture software has to see the device to capture footage. It can not see the ADVC since that is no longer DV AFAIK. And even if it saw the device what would it capture in ? The point of the ADVC is to capture as DV which is lossy but not as lossy as mpeg2 as you would inevitably get with a usb device (not counting this Heath-Robinson method). And given you intended format you want the best you can get before conversion. Some usb devices can capture direct to h264 but if you plan on doing any editing then that is not really recommended.

[itm2]

Hmm...that's a bummer as the PC has a mini-ATX motherboard so doesn't accept alot of standard-sized cards :0(

[itm2]

Well show me a link for what you propose to get. I have merely read reviews of such products on Amazon.

This was the first one I found on eBay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Firewire-1394-6-Pin-Female-to-USB-Male-Adaptor-PC-Laptop-Acc...item23249d1cf2

As the video is very old VHS (mainly recorded from TV in the 1980s and 1990s), would I really see much better results from the Canopus when compared with say this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Video-Audio-Grabber-Capture-USB-2-0-Upload-to-PC-Adapter-Tra...item5408f1a9c4

[DB83]

The converter looks similar to those on Amazon that 'do not work'. Go there to read the reviews.

As for the capture device I worry when they state that it works for Win7-64 but not for Win7-32. Not an issue for you if you are indeed still on XP. But it's still one of the easycap $10 knock-offs.

[Cornucopia]

Those are factors, but it has more to do with the Device Class & Protocol (isoc, and drivers, used. Without specially-designed drivers, USB doesn't have a "uninterupted broadcast" feature (peripherals wait on each request by the host). It's possible to use a "Smart" converter/adapter such as the Pinnacle MovieBox DV USB, which has its own Firewire controller & specialty dirvers, and so re-packetizes the incoming DV stream, but even that is known to fail and/or drop frames.

*********************

The benefit of SOME of those generic USB capture boxes is that they allow for lossless encoding. But they suffer from POOR A/D conversion electronics, which means you'll have artifacts regardless. The Canopus boxes, while not perfect, are well built and really only fall from perfection in their color subsampling & DV (DCT) compression artifacts, but both of those things are elements of every DV encode, even the best.
I haven't seen a sub-$50 USB capture box that I would ever recommend to ANYONE. So I'm with DB83, go with the ADVC and get a firewire400 port card (hopefully TI chipset).

Scott

<edit>Those kinds of connector adaptors DO NOT EVER WORK (for DV transfer). They may work for other things like external HDD connections, but that's probably it. I'm warning you: do not waste your money!
And that other USB device is just the kind of thing I was saying I could never recommend.</edit>

[DB83]

Hmm...that's a bummer as the PC has a mini-ATX motherboard so doesn't accept alot of standard-sized cards :0(

Define 'standard-sized'. Most of these cards are pci-e short length. It would be more critical that you have a spare pci-e slot available.

[itm2]

Hmm...that's a bummer as the PC has a mini-ATX motherboard so doesn't accept alot of standard-sized cards :0(

Define 'standard-sized'. Most of these cards are pci-e short length. It would be more critical that you have a spare pci-e slot available.

For some reason I had it in my head that I needed to buy an adapter to fit the last PCI-e card to get around height restrictions, but I've just opened it up and it looks like there's a slot that can accommodate a PCI-e firewire card. Any reason not to go with a budget one like this?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Ports-Firewire-1394-PCI-E-IEEE-1394-1395-Controller-Card-f...item19f602bff8

It's an Asus M4A785D-M PRO AM3 motherboard with AMD Athlon II X2 240E Dual Core CPU and 2Gb 800MHz DDR2 RAM. Does that sound OK to capture VHS video via the Canopus?

[hech54]

I love my Hauppauge USB LIVE2:
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_usblive2.html

[itm2]

I love my Hauppauge USB LIVE2:
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_usblive2.html

It does look good but I'm not earning any money at the moment so the £30 outlay would take alot of justifying over a £5 firewire card ;0)

[hech54]

I love my Hauppauge USB LIVE2:
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_usblive2.html

It does look good but I'm not earning any money at the moment so the £30 outlay would take alot of justifying over a £5 firewire card ;0)

If you already have access to a Canopus ADVC100....you are 1000% correct.

[jagabo]

Any reason not to go with a budget one like this?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Ports-Firewire-1394-PCI-E-IEEE-1394-1395-Controller-Card-f...item19f602bff8

Firewire cards without the Texas Instruments chip often don't work for DV capture.

[itm2]

Any reason not to go with a budget one like this?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Ports-Firewire-1394-PCI-E-IEEE-1394-1395-Controller-Card-f...item19f602bff8

Firewire cards without the Texas Instruments chip often don't work for DV capture.

Uh-oh...that seems to raise the stakes quite substantially in terms of price...can't find one with a TI chipset for much less than £25

[Cornucopia]

I also notice that the Hauppauge device hech54 refers to happens to be exactly at the breakpoint I referred to earlier WRT what is good quality or not.

********

If it were me, I'd just hold off on doing anything until money started coming back in, then get the £25+ type card...

Scott

[itm2]

So another option has just presented itself for my VHS to digital transfer. I've been offered the loan of a Panasonic DMR-BWT720 blu-ray/DVD recorder with analog recording input. Does anyone know how this option would compare to the Canopus ADVC100 - i.e. recording VHS to the Panasonic, copying to DVD then converting to mp4 using Handbrake?

[jagabo]

I can't speak about that particular device but in general, MPEG 2 or AVC compression will deliver more artifacts and less detail than DV compression. But if the recorder has a decent line time base corrector you may find the tradeoff acceptable.

[Cornucopia]

@jagabo, I think that last comparison statement needed to be qualified by some reference to bitrate and/or frame-type.

Scott

[itm2]

I just did a comparison of results between:
(a) Capture from the Canopus (using WinDV)
(b) Capture from the Panasonic Blu-Ray recorder (copied to a DVD and then to a media centre PC).

I viewed both on a Samsung UE55ES7000 TV. The Panasonic results look better. The DV capture from the Canopus is higher contrast, giving the appearance of being a little sharper, but this accentuates the digital artefacts from the source - particularly blue streaking in dark background areas. The blue streaks can be seen in both samples, but the lower contrast of the Panasonic output makes it far less intrusive. The Panasonic picture is softer, with less obvious artefacts.

Horizontal lines are also clearly visible in the Canopus output, and not at all in the Panasonic output.

Am I right in saying that WinDV is as good a way as any of capturing output from the Canopus? (i.e. using different capture software is unlikely to improve the quality of the output).

In truth, the Canopus is a far more convenient way of doing the capture. Can anyone suggest any post-processing of the output which would soften the picture and bring it up to par with the Panasonic?

[Skiller]

Can anyone suggest any post-processing of the output which would soften the picture and bring it up to par with the Panasonic?

Of course a sample would be helpful but I assume there are super whites in your ADVC capture (which is normal) while the Panasonic may tone this down with some automatic gain control (which is usually not perfect). The superwhites are usually getting clipped during playback so without correction the ADVC capture looks too stark in contrast and is missing the highlights. A levels correction (255 -> 235) would fix this.

[itm2]

Please see attached a screen grab from each, showing the blue streaks. The difference between the two is more apparent in the video, as the motion accentuates the artefacts more in the Canopus output.

[Skiller]

This looks a lot like the Panasonic is doing a noise reduction.
On the other hand the ADVC is giving you the most raw and unprocessed output it can provide through the DV format.

The Panasonic does correct the line jitter while the ADVC does not.

Maybe you can use the Panasonic as a passthrough for the ADVC. A line jitter correction is very desirable for capturing so I wouldn't ever connect the VCR straight to the ADVC unless it's a deck with builtin TBC.

[jagabo]

The DVD recorder has captured with different levels and less color saturation. You easily filter the DV cap to match that, or vice versa. The DVD recorder has also obliterated small, low contrast details with a temporal/spacial noise filter. If you wanted to you could do the same in software with the DV cap. But you can't restore that lost detail starting with the DVD recorder cap. The DVD recorder has cleaned up the horizontal jitter (line TBC). You can probably pass the signal through the DVD recorder and record with the ADVC to get the same benefit.

If you want to capture and be done, use the DVD recorder. If you want the best possible quality and don't mind spending time working on the video, use the ADVC (possibly passing the signal through the DVD recorder to clean up the time base).

[itm2]

If you want the best possible quality and don't mind spending time working on the video, use the ADVC (possibly passing the signal through the DVD recorder to clean up the time base).

Some of the video that's more important to me would merit a little work. When you say "spending time working on the video" what sort of thing do you think would improve it, if I captured using the ADVC?

[jagabo]

Some of the video that's more important to me would merit a little work. When you say "spending time working on the video" what sort of thing do you think would improve it, if I captured using the ADVC?

Levels and saturation adjustments, noise reduction, dehaloing, sharpening.

[itm2]

Some of the video that's more important to me would merit a little work. When you say "spending time working on the video" what sort of thing do you think would improve it, if I captured using the ADVC?

Levels and saturation adjustments, noise reduction, dehaloing, sharpening.

What tool would you recommend for this - something relatively easy to use, and ideally can produce decent quality output in a much smaller x264/mp4 file?