anyone has a canopus advc-50 or advc-100 ?

[v1p0n3]

hello
i'm interested in buy one of this 2 cards and today i went to the local canopus representant and he told me so much shit that i went out even more confused.

he told me that this card is only a conversor..it means it don't capture, what what capture is the firewire card.
well i don't have a firewire card, but i can buy one and put on my motherboard, right?
firewire cards can be inserted in a pci slot?
which firewire card should i buy? as long as is the firewire that will capture.. any firewire card will work? and about software? only today i found the canopus don't have any software, so what can i use to capture? the firewire cards has software to capture?? which software has to be used to capture? and about edit? i can't edit with this? how does it works? can anyone explain me everything about this cards?

thanks in advance

[rhegedus]

The Canopus ADVC-100 and ADVC-50 are DV converters - that is they will convert an external video signal (from TV, VHS, cam etc) to DV avi and then feed this into your firewire card from where the data goes to your hard drive.

The ADVC-100 is an external unit and connects to your PC with a wirewire cable.

The ADVC-50 is the internal version and goes into a PCI slot or a drive bay housing. Either way, you still need to connect it internally to a firewire card because it only draws power from the PCI slot and does not transfer data via it.

Any firewire card will work and some have a capture software disk with them, so shop around. If you have XP, Movie Maker will capture as well.

Check out the capture tools section for more (and free-ish) software.

[v1p0n3]

but how can i connect the canopus advc-50 to a firewire card if the firewire as the plug outside the computer and the canopus advc-50 has the plugs inside the computer? the cable has to come from inside the computer to outside?!?

[IJM]

but how can i connect the canopus advc-50 to a firewire card if the firewire as the plug outside the computer and the canopus advc-50 has the plugs inside the computer? the cable has to come from inside the computer to outside?!?

There are firewire cards available with internal connectors.

Oh, and one further difference between the ADVC-50 and ADVC-100 is that the 100 has an undocumented facility to defeat macrovision protection. The 50 doesn't.

Ian.

[ironwood321]

Hi,
The macrovision removal function does not seem to work with PAL signals. So a cheap signal cleaner box from a electronics shop might help.

[IJM]

The macrovision removal function does not seem to work with PAL signals. So a cheap signal cleaner box from a electronics shop might help.

Hello there, my friend just down the road,

Not wishing to correct you, but the macrovision removal does work with PAL. I'm actually working on a movie at the moment that came from a macrovision protected tape captured with the ADVC-100. It's an ex-rental tape of a straight-to-video movie from the early '90s. The movie will never be released on DVD, so I'm copying it to DVD-R and cleaning it up a little in the process.

The ironic thing is though, that I'm now considering getting a Timebase Corrector to stabilize the signal prior to capture because I have some old degraded recordings with dodgy signals. So, I could have made do with a ADVC-50.

Ian.

[txpharoah]

These are honestly BOTH cheaply made Canopus devices, and I'm amazed that Canopus (a usual leader in video technology) would have made such a bad card. The reps I deal with just shake their head when I ask about those cards. I tested them, and even owned one myself for a day. Mistake I quickly corrected.

If you have not yet bought a card, look at some other devices. These Canopus cards are no better than the $40 cards found in stores like CompUSA and Fry's. I found the quality from a $10 Aver card to be about as good as the ADVC-50 and at way under the price. Unfortunately, the next best Canopus item is about $500, at which point your best bet is to move to a card like an ATI at the $100-200 pricing range if you've got a budget. Avoid Dazzle and Pinnacle like the plague. Buy Matrox if you have money. There are some other cheap $50 cards that do an okay job, some are ATI, some are other brands. I'd honestly suggest you keep shopping.

And to all the potential Canopus flamers, I don't care. Save your words. This is my opinion based on my tests (as well as the advice of two Canopus reps I deal with personally!). This buyer needs to hear both sides, not just Canopus PR from their followers.

[v1p0n3]

now i'm really confused!

i have a pinnacle pctv at about 2 years, the card to capture direct from tv is great. i can capture at 720x576 without any problem, no frame drops during 1h30min.
the main reason to change card is i wanted to convert my old vhs tapes to dvd and with this card i can't do that cause:
1-i don't have HD space to capture 1h30 at 720x576. (with my card i never capture more than 10 minutes at this resolution cause i have no HD space. I heard that with a dv card i can capture 1h with 13gb.. what is great)
2-i don't drop 1 ngle frame capturing from tv but i drop about 50% from some of my vhs tapes. (i was looking for the canopus card cause everybody tell that card is awsome and cause it also has that video/audio lock what i this will help me to rip my old tapes)
3-the quality of my current card isn't bad at all but if it can be better.. why not change card?

that's it. i don't mind to spend about 300$
no more than this..

[ironwood321]

Not wishing to correct you, but the macrovision removal does work with PAL. I'm actually working on a movie at the moment that came from a macrovision protected tape captured with the ADVC-100.

I am afraid it don't work with my box. They must have modified its firmware. Whenever I supply it a macrovision signal I get Black video i.e. no output.

This is the same before and after I went through the sequence suggested to disable macrovision.

If I pipe the signal through my standards converter that has a 4mbit field memory which can be used as a TBC I can strip this and clean up the signal. Its only then I see video output.

v1p0n3
Either way. Mpeg / DV / Huffyuv avi you will have to sort out your hard drive space problem. It recomended you capture to a clean and empty drive.

If you mpeg encode your avi with say TMPENC you can produce DVD compliant MPEG files.
These will need authoring with suitable software to make your final DVD.

With Canopus you will need a firewire card to connect the unit to. You will also need a box ADVC50 or ADVC100.

With practically bad video you will need a cheap TBC.

The benefit a say canopus firewire unit has over another is that it can guartee locked audio to video. Where as a PCI card can't as your sound card captures the audio.

Irrespectively of what other people say the canopus is a great simple to use low hassle unit. But if your have glitching trouble you will defiantly need a TBC.

[IJM]

If I pipe the signal through my standards converter that has a 4mbit field memory which can be used as a TBC I can strip this and clean up the signal. Its only then I see video output.

Ah. Interesting. At the risk of hijacking the thread, specifically what product is that then?

Ian.

[ironwood321]

I have the ACE standard converter from www.gthelectronics.com

It can be used as a TBC for converting between the same standard.

I have had it for about 2 yrs. I just recently acquired a firmware update chip for it.

[IJM]

I have the ACE standard converter from www.gthelectronics.com

Hmmm. I thought so from the description. I was looking at that one myself. I've only just started investigating TBCs, but the ACE Converter looks favorite because it has that colour shift facility. One of the tapes I have looks as though it's suffering from serious colour bleed. So the ACE looks just the job. I think it's the only one at that price point (299 GBP) that has that kind of feature.

Ian.