Canopus ADVC-50 and Ti-firewire?

[mushmush]

Hi,

The last few days I've been reading up on the experiences of many enthousiastic (and a few not-so-enthousiastic) Canopus ADVC-50 and ADVC-100 users.

I'm trying to make a choice between the ADVC-50 and the Datavideo DAC-100. I don't really need the D/A-conversion-option and I like the fact that the Canopus supports locked-audio and that it would fit nicely into my one, still unused, PCI-slot.
On the other hand the DAC-100 doesn't seem to have any compatibility-issues with the Texas Instruments firewire-card nor with Windows XP with SP-1.

The reason for wanting to buy a converter is that I have been getting more and more frustrated over the last 10 months or so, trying to get acceptable results capturing analogue TV & VHS with a TV/PCI-card and lots of different software.
In the end I was able to capture perfectly to AVI using my TerraTValue with the BtWinCap-drivers and iuVCR without any dropped frames whatsoever.
But I couldn't do any postproduction or conversion to another format because VirtualDub just wouldn't work on my PC, and there seems to be no other (freeware or affordable) postproduction-software like it.

Which brings me to another question I would like to ask here: do you need to de-interlace files captured with a A/D-converter, or is this taken care of already in the conversion-process? (I read something about a "comb-filter" in the Datavideo-documentation).

I'll be interested in reading all your reactions.
Thanks

[redwudz]

Well, you are covering a lot of subjects, not all of which I am familiar with.
Interlace; If your final product is TV, you need interlace. Computer monitors don't need it.
I am assuming you mean A/D conversion. If it's already digital, you don't need conversion.
Never had any problems with SP1 (I have a ADVC-100).
Unless you have TI firewire built into your motherboard, just get another card, they are cheap.
Not sure why Virtualdub won't work. It's a useful tool for AVI; But you do need a DV codec if you are using DV.