analog to digital converter

[nerie]

I have a friend that has a bunch of vhs tapes and is converting the tapes to digital. The pain is that he is hogging my camcorder (canon optura xi) so he can use the analog to digital pass thru. How much do I need to spend to buy him a simple analog to digital converter for a gift? I want to get my camcorder back, and would like to leave him with something he can use to transfer the vhs tapes to his external hard drive via mac laptop. any ideas?

THANKS!

[ZippyP.]

How much do I need to spend to buy him a simple analog to digital converter for a gift?

How much do you want to spend? You can spend as little as $50 or as much as $250 for a good one like the Canopus ADVC-100.

[guns1inger]

Why not suggest he buy one himself, unless you have use for it later ?

[nerie]

because the support he has given me could never be duplicated.

Now, the converter for $50, which one is this? would there be a quality difference between the $50 one and the $250 one? by quality, I mean the quality of the end product, the video.

model names would help alot!

THANKS!

[redwudz]

For ~$50US you can get something like this. http://www.aver.com/products/dvm_AVerDVD_ezMaker.shtml

For the price, it works well enough. You can Google for a better price, or look around their site a little for their other products.

Other alternatives are used ATI capture cards from Ebay or similar. This would give you better quality, but at a steeper learning curve.

[FulciLives]

The only devices that work in the same way as your camcorder would be:

1.) Caonpus ADVC-100
2.) DataVideo DAC-100
3.) ADS PYRO A/V LINK

Of the 3 I would really only consider the first 2 on the list to be trouble free devices.

The Canopus ADVC-100 and the DataVideo DAC-100 are almost exactly the same unit but the DataVideo DAC-100 ignores copy protection which might make it a better choice.

The Canopus ADVC-100 can ignore copy protection but it doens't seem to work for everyone (there is a "trick" to it and the "trick" doesn't seem to work for everyone) and the newer model ... the ADVC-110 ... cannot be made to ignore copy protection with any "trick" ... at least last I heard. The DataVideo DAC-100 totally ignors copy protection "out-of-the-box" without any trickery needed.

So I would vote for the DataVideo DAC-100 which can be found for around $175 to $200 give or take.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman