DAC-100 vs a capture card.

[Marco33]

I had used an MSI card for a while and felt my captures could be better. rather than upgrade, I bought the DAC-100.

Now, the MSI would drop frames cause my system was to slow. The picture & sound would stay in sync but, you could tell there where a few frames missing but, the picture never skipped.

After my first capture with the DAC-100 it dropped a total of 41 frames... all at the same scene. I guess the tape was poor at that spot cause I redid the capture at that scene & still droped frames.

Unlike the MSI card which would still capture, the DAC would just cut over the poor video. So the scene runs along and just at that part... 1 second is missing which accounted for 2 words in the movie.

Adjusting the tracking fixed the problem but, I was just P1ssed that it (the DAC) would do it that way. Yes, I understand why.

Just (^(*@!(@!$^teed OFF.

(breath)... I'm better now.

[reubenray]

I just received my DAC today and was wondering what you was capturing and what software you was using for the capture?

[Marco33]

Capturing a Widescreen version of Aliens. You can only get the SE edition on DVD. I happen to like that one a little better. The editing makes it flow better.

I use Vegas Video 4 but, I have also tried DVIO. In DVIO I don't know which setting to use AVI 1 or 2. Mostly I just use Vegas. I've surfed a LOT and the consensus is ANY DV capture software will do.

I've captured to MPEG2 & AVI with lots off different software. If you have the HD space I would HIGHLY recommend capturing to AVI. It's so much better than MPEG2. I was blown away at the quality of my first capture.

EX: Aliens is 2 hours 18 Min, equals out to 30+ GIG.

[FL350innh]

Marco,
Yep, I understand what you are saying. Source is everything with these damm digital converters.... When I played with the Canopus ADVC 100, it would just lock up with bad source. I'm thinking a side effect of the "Audio lock" feature. The DAC would keep going, but the audio would be out of synch for a few mins of the movie.. then It would come back in, but during those bad spots it would do a drift.... In contrast my ASUS 7100 TV tuner cap card would just be out of synch for the rest of the whole cap...

[Marco33]

It's always something.

Dropped frames
Sync issues
Gop's

I realy thought this DAC-100 would be great but, all those old home movies look ok on the TV but the DAC drops frames cause the tape is poor. Looks like they will never make it to DVD.

What's the use of having one if you can't get those home movies converted over.

[FL350innh]

Marco,
I hear ya...What I ended up doing with a bad tape was to break the cap down to smaller sections, I used Premiere, Moved the audio around on the time line and exported the project.. Yep, kind of a pain.. Do you have a high end VCR with TBC avaialble to you? I have an older Toshiba (660?) 6 head that works pretty well getting old tapes to cap. I have the gold cables etc... If you'd like I could try cappin them for you.....

[Marco33]

I don't have any sync issues. Just meant that once you figure out one thing it's something else.

Regular 4 head. Brand new vhs player 6 month's.

I might take you up on that transfer. Hit me with a PM.

[fourthquark]

I recently purchased a DAC-100 and have completed 3 captures from VHS tape. Each capture was about one-half hour in length. I got zero dropped frames on two of the captures. On the third capture I got lots of dropped frames, but then I noticed that my capture disk was almost full. I cleared some space and re-captured, and got zero dropped frames. All three captures had perfect A/V sync.

The VHS tapes I captured from were borrowed from the library. I can't comment on the the quality of the source video because I am new at this and I have no basis for comparison; but given that the tapes came from a library, I would assume they have had lots of use.

So far I am happy with the DAC-100's capture performance. I will post again if I encounter any problems with longer captures or other VHS tapes.

My system:
P3-1Ghz, 512MB RAM
Maxtor 7200rpm 40GB HD (primary dosk)
Maxtor 7200rpm 80GB HD (capture disk)
Adaptec DouConnect Firewire/USB2 adapter
Panasonic PV-4660-K VHS VCR

[GreyDeath]

If the DAC 100 is giving you problems, you may want to try a friend's DV Cam with throughput or put it to DV Tape then transfer it via firewire.

My brother has a Sony MiniDV Camcorder (sorry, I don't know the model number) and it transferred flawlessly one movie that I was having problems with dropped frames due to poor tape quality.

I say "try a friend's DV Cam" first unless you have loads of cash to throw around on a "possible" solution... :P