Thinking about the Canopus ADVC-50/100

[Will Hay]

I've decided to go the easy route.
I have far too many VHS tapes and whilst my ATI Radeon has been superb it's time to do it correctly.
I know very little about these timebase correctors but figure its the best route.
It's simply a case of VHS input into the ADVC-100 and out to the firewire port of the PC, right?
I've only heard about the Canopus range, but whilst I imagine it's exactly what I'm looking for over here in the UK it's not cheap.
Can anyone recommend an alternative I can go look at?
I only want to transfer the footage to avi (avi, yes?) and encode to mpeg2, I'm not bothered about cleaning up the image or adjusting the brightness etc.
Many thanks for any assistance,
Will

[The village idiot]

Datavideo DAC-100. Some say the Pinnacle moviebox DV, but I don't think I would buy it. I have a Razzle DVBridge, I wouldn't buy that again. If you have a lot of money, check for the JVC (S)VHS/DV machine in this thread:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=181984

It's a JVC pro product incase you want to look on the JVC UK web site.

[The village idiot]

Almost forgot, if you don't need to send the video back out to tape, you could look for the Canopus ADVC-50.

[Will Hay]

Hey village, thansk.

Almost forgot, if you don't need to send the video back out to tape, you could look for the Canopus ADVC-50.

No, I just need to 'capture'.
So, the ADVC-50 is exactly the same apart from the output?
It's a 5 1/4" bay right?
Same principle, no other hardware needed?
Thanks again,
Will

[Will Hay]

If you have a lot of money, check for the JVC (S)VHS/DV machine

The ADVC-100 is £269 in the UK and I'd never get that much out the jopint account and past my wife without her knowing

I have a Razzle DVBridge, I wouldn't buy that again

Believe it or not I was going to add 'I've heard I should stay away from Razzle Dazzle products' in my first thread, man that is one signatire I'll never forget
Will

[Will Hay]

Almost forgot, if you don't need to send the video back out to tape, you could look for the Canopus ADVC-50.

One drawback to the ADVC-50 is that (having been home for lunch and taken a look inside my PC) I don't appear to have an internal connector on my firewire card.
Is this a problem?
Will

[EricB]

The ADVC-50 has a 4-pin external Firewire (ilink) connection just like on a digital camcorder.

[The village idiot]

You can make the 50 work external. It is meant to be installed as a PCI card (only for power) or as a drive bay with power from a 4 pin drive type connector. You could easily get a drive power extension cable, and then connect it outside you case with the regular firewire cables. Only other thing thing is the ADVC-50 does not have a Macrovision defeat feature! so you may have problems there.

[Will Hay]

You can make the 50 work external. It is meant to be installed as a PCI card (only for power) or as a drive bay with power from a 4 pin drive type connector. You could easily get a drive power extension cable, and then connect it outside you case with the regular firewire cables. Only other thing thing is the ADVC-50 does not have a Macrovision defeat feature! so you may have problems there.

I have a scart thingy on my source which removes it, so I'm sorted there
Will

[Will Hay]

The ADVC-50 has a 4-pin external Firewire (ilink) connection just like on a digital camcorder.

I'm sorry guys, I'm confused
Looking at the canopus site both the front panel and tyhe PCI card itself looks to have a standard firewire port, so...
....if I install it as a PCI card in a spare slot why can't a run a cable straight into my firewire (around the back of my PC)?
Am I missing something?
Thanks,
Will

[EricB]

Sure you can. Your previous post seemed to indicate that you hadn't seen the external Firewire port on the Canopus card. What did you mean by:

One drawback to the ADVC-50 is that (having been home for lunch and taken a look inside my PC) I don't appear to have an internal connector on my firewire card.

[The village idiot]

If it was me, I would find an external power supply that had the +5 and +12 volts, and put the ADVC50 into a box of some sort, and use it completely external. But that is just me. In fact, maybe I'll do just that. I want to replace the DV bridge, and was thinking about the DAC-100, but this might be way cheaper. And if it only needs the +5 volts, I already have the adaptor from the Bridge Too bad you can't power it from the firewire connection, That would be sweet!

[The village idiot]

I just did some checking. The prices on the Canopus products are crazy! I can buy a DAC-100 for the same or slightly less than the ADVC-50. For the price of the ADVC-100, I can almost buy 2 DAC-100s, or for about $150 more I could buy the DAC2 which has composite in and out.

If those prices are the same for your area, I would get the DAC-100.

[Will Hay]

I've done some searching at dvdrhelp.com and from the posts I've seen about the ADVC-100 and DAC-100...

The DAC-100 produces better quality, more natural colours than the ADVC-100 but the DAC-100 won't convert B&W footage, which is a problem for me.
Will

[Will Hay]

Hi

Sure you can. Your previous post seemed to indicate that you hadn't seen the external Firewire port on the Canopus card. What did you mean by:

One drawback to the ADVC-50 is that (having been home for lunch and taken a look inside my PC) I don't appear to have an internal connector on my firewire card.

What I meant was I thought that if you fitted the ADVC-50 in a PCI slot (rather than use the bay) you had to connect it internally, ie. from the PCI card itself inside the PC to an internal connector on the firewire card.
So, I'm guessing all I need do is insert the card into a spare slot and run the cable from the back of the card to my firewire connection?
Why would anyone use the drive bay, just for convenience?
It doesn't seem to have any other practical use.
Will

[The village idiot]

Th black and white still has all the sync signals, so it should convert OK. Unless you are talking about OLD equipment before the days of color TV. But then again, I've never tried anything like that. I can tell you while running video through the TBC-1000, I can disconnect the chroma signal from a S video connection, and nothing ever fails with the DV bridge. The TBC takes care of all the signals that you need. Of course PAL might be different.

[rhegedus]

I bought the ADVC-100 about a year ago and, up until now, haven't used any features that the ADVC-50 has. However, the 100 has one extra thing going for it since it is external - it is portable. This means that I can plug scarts into it straight from the digital receiver and run a long (10m) firewire cable to my PC and get crystal clear captures of TV programs instead of having to video them first (with resultant loss in quality).

If it were internal, I'd have to find a very long scart lead or pay for another digital receiver, its installation and monthly charge.

Go for the 100: you never know when you'll need the extras.

Got mine from SmartDV , but I remeber a thread a while back on the cheapest UK source for the 100.

[Will Hay]

Hey Rob, been a long while, you been taking a break?

I bought the ADVC-100 about a year ago and, up until now, haven't used any features that the ADVC-50 has.

I don't understand this pal, I thought the only difference between the 50 and the 100 was that the 50 doesn't have an output.
I would like the 100 but the cost is a major factor, a second child on the way ain't gonna be cheap
Thanks,
Will

[zanos]

If you have a camcorder just use pass thru function or get a cheap used camcorder that will.

[Will Hay]

My brand new MiniDV doesn't have passthrough, I purpously avoided it as I for the number of conversions I need to do didn't want to put it through so much strain.
I doubt I'll get a second hand camcorder with passthrough/firewire for the same price as an ADVC-50
Will

[rhegedus]

Hey Rob, been a long while, you been taking a break?

I bought the ADVC-100 about a year ago and, up until now, haven't used any features that the ADVC-50 has.

I don't understand this pal, I thought the only difference between the 50 and the 100 was that the 50 doesn't have an output.
I would like the 100 but the cost is a major factor, a second child on the way ain't gonna be cheap

Hols, work, more work, exams.............

Yep, I was refering to the output and the macrovision facility that the 100 has.

There's only about £60 difference between the two, which is about the same as a night on the pop. Once you start the VHS to DVD journey, you're night out will be distant memories, and the Canopus would have paid for itself and saved your liver some grief

[lordsmurf]

I've decided to go the easy route.

What? And miss all the fun?

Easy method and no money. Well, there goes my suggestion (DVD recorder).

[Will Hay]

Up until now, for the last two years I've spent all my time making the perfect system, bearing in mind my financial contraints of course.
Up until now most of my time has been converting analogue camcorder footage to dvd via my ATI (which I'm a big fan of BTW) and using the system as a video recorder, ie recording straight from Sky TV to avi.
I'm tired, and whilst I believe my system is optimally tuned for what I'm doing, ie a tiny amount of acceptable frame loss I want an easy way to converting my huge collection of old VHS movies.
Some might be too bad for my ATI to cope and plus, I'm getting too many requests from friends and family to convert footage to dvd (from £15 to £25 I might add, I'm no charity ) not waste time with anything other than the quickest method.
There, I've got it off my chest, the ADVC-50/100 is just toooooo appealing
Will

[overloaded_ide]

I'm getting too many requests from friends and family to convert footage to dvd (from £15 to £25 I might add, I'm no charity

That's how you slide the expense past the wife!
Business expense that will pay for itself

That's how I do it
Course it seldm does, because I always have something else to buy, but it works for me.

Although I am worried the wife is getting wise to it!

Last few times i conected to the net and hit the stores "Window Shopping"
She stands there tapping her foot and holding a rolling pin!

I've always wondered why she bought one of those things too, she never cooks anything the would need one for

[zanos]

My brand new MiniDV doesn't have passthrough, I purpously avoided it as I for the number of conversions I need to do didn't want to put it through so much strain.
I doubt I'll get a second hand camcorder with passthrough/firewire for the same price as an ADVC-50
Will

I don't see how the camcorder could be put thru any strain by doing this. A canopus 50 will cost you about $180 here in the US. A nice low end used camcorder will cost less than this or a little bit more if you want something a little bit better.

[fourthquark]

I agree with zanos. The only wear-and-tear item on a digital camcorder is the tape transport mechanism. When you use the pass-through function, it doesn't involve the tape transport mechanism at all. All you are using is the encoding circuitry inside the camcorder

I bought a DAC-100 and, while it works fine, if I had to do it again I would just buy a cheap digital camcorder with pass-through off eBay. That way you have a DV encoder AND a spare camcorder, and likely also save some money!

[Will Hay]

Okay, so I lied
There was a delay in the UK for the TRV19 (the TRV14 but with passthrough) and I couldn't wait.
The 19 came out about two months after I bought mine which was too long, but it doesn't stop me trying to prove to myself why I should have waited.
I'm just looking for excuses
Will

[Will Hay]

Hi

I don't see how the camcorder could be put thru any strain by doing this. A canopus 50 will cost you about $180 here in the US. A nice low end used camcorder will cost less than this or a little bit more if you want something a little bit better.

The ADVC-50 is $260 (£175-ish) over here in the UK, and a second hand digital camcorder with passthrough is most certainly more than that, ebay is expensive for electronic equipement such as camcorders.
Would a Digital8 camcorder suffice, or would it have to be MiniDV?
Do they have the composite imputs, ie. the yellow red and white connectors (for connection to my VHS player?)
Thanks,
Will

[rhegedus]

Would a Digital8 camcorder suffice, or would it have to be MiniDV?
Do they have the composite imputs, ie. the yellow red and white connectors (for connection to my VHS player?)

I'm not sure if D8 camcorders have a firewire throughput to connect to your PC.

My Camcorder (JVC GR-DV2000) has an attachment, which you exchange for the battery, that's got all the outputs your need: s-video, USB, and a jack for an editing lead that splits into the usual red/yellow/white leads as was as an AC in socket. The firewire i/o is in the main body.

It's over a year old, so I'd bet the new ones have those sockets as standard.

[fourthquark]

Digital-8 with pass-through would work fine. In fact, it might even be a better proposition, since it also give you the ability to digitize analog Video-8 tapes directly. Just put the analog Video-8 tape int he machine (it's the same physical gformat as D-8), set it to play, and the camera encodes the video to DV format and sends it out the firewire port.

One of the posts I read on this site mentioned an early Sony D-8 model (the first one with pass-through - maybe TRV30?) as a particularly good candidate for this use.

Regarding connectors - I believe most Mini-DV or D-8 camcorcers have a proprietary analog A/V in/out port, and they come with an adapter to break-out this connection into the standard white-red-yellow composite connectors.

If you decide to go the used-digital-camcorder route, make sure it has true pass-through - some early models required the digitized video to be recorded to tape, then you would connect camcorder to computer and play back the digital tape. Also, MAKE SURE THE PROPRIETARY ADAPTER CABLE MENTIONED IN PRECEDING PARAGRAPH IS INCLUDED - these are generally very expensive to purchase separately.