ATI AIW vs Canopus ADVC-100 DV convertor - VCD

[ubaddala]

Hi All,
I currently have an ATI AIW and capture my Sony analog Hi8 (NTSC) thro' S-Video --> V'dub (352x480, no compression, no filters etc. 200GB HDD) to raw AVI --> TMPGENC (no filters etc. Intel 1.6 Mhz chip) --> xVCD (MPEG-1, 1450 kbps). Although I must say that I am generally satisfied with the quality, I've been reading posts about Canopus ADVC-100 DV convertor and the *wonderful* DV footage it gives.

Currently, I notice that whenever the subject is shot under good lighting conditions, the quality is real good (something comparable to VHS, 1450 kbps thou'). And when shot under *insufficient* lighting conditions I see a lot of grains (naturally !). I've tweaked with the GOP settings from KVCD.NET and some mixture of my own to get *decent* quality. In general, the quality of my video is comparable to rented VHS from Blockbuster shop !

In this regard, I was just wondering if buying the Canopus ADVC-100 DV convertor will help me get the *source* quality (or even better ) when I convert my footage to standard VCD (1150 kbps) or xVCD (1450 kbps for the best quality).

Will TMPGENC be able to give a better output with the DV ? Hoping to share some thoughts who might have used ATI AIW and upgraded/tested to/with Canopus ADVC-100.

NOTE : I am trying to stay with VCD or at best xVCD only. I do not want to bring SVCD/CVD/xSVCD into the picture !

Thanks in advance,
Uday

[Tihomir]

I got better results with ATI VIVO card than VHS-> DV camera passthru methode. The reason can be in compression level: fixed in DV format and unchanged and less compressed video for analogue cards with using app. codecs. AVI file produced by analogue card is closer to native uncompressed video.
Regards
Tihomir

[ubaddala]

bump

[FOO]

I see no reason to convert to DV. You are just going to
have to convert it again anyway. DV is a lossy compression.
The tape is analog. So either the camera encodes to DV
or an external card does. I suspect the external card would
do a better job but why not convert to the final format MPEG
without the DV step.
BTW isn't Hi8 a USB output ? Is that official DV ? I don't even know
and I have one ! I capture S-video to MJPEG or MPEG2 because
the USB capture with the Sony software looked like crap.

The question is can I capture digital out of the Hi 8 with a "real" program

[ubaddala]

Foo,
Hi8 is always analog, not digital, not DV ! You eventually capture as AVI (raw or compressed) or convert to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 on the fly (e.g. using ATI AIW card). Moreover, per my understanding there are no Hi8 cameras offering USB. At best they have S-Video out.

[IJM]

The ADVC-100 is good. I got one myself after everyone sang it's praises here on dvdrhelp.com. It is much better at capturing than my Asus v8200 geForce 3 card. But...

It does have its disadvantages. Mainly that you have little or no control over the capture. This is something I found out only after I bought my ADVC-100. It only captures at standard DV resolution (720x480 NTSC, 720x576 PAL). And you can't set basic capture settings such as brightness, contrast, colour saturation etc. You just feed in your analogue signal and you get your DV AVI file on your hard drive. That said it does seem to do a good job and I am happy with mine.

You have much more flexibility with an analogue capture device to tweak settings to get an optimum capture. The initial capture is largely about getting as much information from your source as possible, because you can't put back lost information after capture. Your AIW card should enable you to do this.

As I said, with an ADVC-100, you'd be capturing at 720x480. In my case my target format is DVD, so I don't have to resize, but I do have to run the file through a few Vdub noise reduction filters to... err... reduce the noise. If my target format was VCD, I understand from what I have read from Luke's Capturing Guide that capturing at high resolution and performing the necessary precise bicubic resizing would serve to eliminate some noise in itself. He says that this is because the ratio of intended signal to noise is higher at high resolutions. But, don't take my word for this, because there are other schools of thought that say: a) capture at the resolution for your target medium (which you're already doing); and b) capturing from VHS/SVHS/Hi8 sources above 352x288 is a waste. I suggest you experiment with a hi-res capture with your existing AIW card, see how it looks once resized and decide for yourself.

I'd make sure that you exhaust all your AIW possibilities first before you take the plunge for an ADVC-100. I've never owned an AIW card, but I understand that these ATI cards are quite good capture devices anyway and the ADVC-100 might not provide the improvement you're looking for.

I hope this helps.

Ian.

[FOO]

Like I said I have a Hi8
and it has a USB digital output.
I just don't like the cheesy little program that came
with it to grab the video.

[yg1968]

A lot of people get confused between Digital8 and Hi8. Hi8 records in analog. Digital 8 records in DV but will accept Hi8 tapes. What makes matter even more confusing is that digital8 camcorder can record DV on hi8 tapes.

Anyways, if you have a USB output, you probably have a digital8 camcorder and it is possible that you also have a firewire output (also called i-link or 1394) (the firewire cable isn't provided with the camcorder). If this is the case, you are better off using a firewire transfer to your computer. If you don't have a firewire output on your camcorder, investing in a digital 8 camcorder with a passthrough feature might make more sense than buying the ADVC-100. You will be able to use the passthrough feature to capture VHS, etc. I would suggest the Sony TRV-350 (but do not get the TRV-250 as it doesn't have a passthrough feature).

Capturing in DV is useful for DVD (or for exporting back to a DV tape) but for VCD, it might be overkill. You don't really need the 720x480 capturing resolution. If you are happy with your current setup, why change?

[FOO]

You are a wealth of information aren't you. You know
more about my equipment than I do and I have it right
here with the manual. I sure wish I were that knowlegable.

I guess I have a special one of a kind camera
that says HI-8 on it and has a USB I/O.

[yg1968]

I guess that I was wrong. You are right Hi8 camcorder with USB ports do exist. However it is a surprising combination given that Hi8 is analog and USB involves a digital transfer. The camcorder must be converting the video to mpeg-1 or something. But as you mention it is kind of useless.

As far as being a wealth of information. I'll take that as a compliment (even though, it's not meant to be one). Incidentally my post was partly a response to you and partly a rersponse to the initial poster. I hope that the initial poster is more polite that you are.

By the way, what you said about DV isn't true. The biggest lost you will suffer is when encoding to mpeg. DV is lossy but mpeg is much lossier. So you will lose some data upon conversion, in either case. But a Canopus ADVC-100 or a digital camcorder with a passthrough feature are considered some of the better options because it allows high quality capturing at 720x480 with no frame drops or out of sync issues. The loss upon converting to DV is minimal and hardly perceivable to the human eye.

[FOO]

Sorry. I was in a bad mood.
I got the camera for the kid and it was more than $100 less
than the Digital 8.

I still want to know what format comes out
of the USB hose.

Maybe I'll see if XP can just do it. It seems to know
all about still cameras and scanners.

[yg1968]

No problem, it happens to me too. You can sometimes find the camcorder's manual on the web. It might help you figure out what format the USB is transfering to, etc. What model do you have? For my camcorder, I had to install a driver for the USB transfer to work. The driver was installed when installing the program that came with the camcorder (the Pixela software for my Sony TRV-25).