Does the advc 100 or ADVC 50 cause white problems?

[thrasimacus]

Do they cause white problems like light areas becoming white
spots/blobs?

The AIW cards have a tendency to to take light shades and turn them to pure
white blobs. Sometimes when capturing a black and white movie (not protected) you end up with a cartoon on Casper the ghost.


On color sources the proble is not as bad with the AIW cards but it is still there. Foreheads, clothes, arches of noses, etc become pure white. Fixing the problem with the contrast slider ressults in no white blobs but the video gets washed out as the much needed contrast is greatly reduced.

Basically i'm asking how good is the AGC in the 100 and 50?

[pfh]

May or may not be what you are looking for but have you tried passing the signal thru one of those little Sima filters that has a black & white switch?
I have yet to do any B&W but just thought I'd throw that Sima out there.

[spectroelectro]

Whites have a tendency to "bloom" when captured in DV format. DVD is not ideal for video capture; huffyuv is better. DVD conversion is done in hardware on most capture devices and you typically have no control over it, certainly not on the AVCD 100 or 50 or the Datavideo DAC 100.

That said, I have an AVDC 100 and haven't had a problem capturing cable TV or laserdisc video. You may want to think about putting a proc amp in between the video source and the capture device to cut down on the luminance -- usually called "gain" or "brightness" on the proc amp. Even an inexpensive proc amp like the Vidicraft Vidimate or the Sima EditMaster Plus will work well to adjust chroma a luma so as to optimize your video capture, though if you want real overkill you could always invest in an Elite Video BVP-4.

On an AIW you get internal adjustments of luma, chroma, gamma, black level, etc. and that probably explains why the white bloom isn't as bad on your AIW as on an external firewire DV capture device.

[Redd]

Do they cause white problems like light areas becoming white
spots/blobs?

No.
Love my ADVC-100...money well spent. But I only use it for analog cptures. DV is captured via straight firewire from camcorder to computer via Adaptec 4300 fire connect.

Best for me.

[thrasimacus]

Alright thanx guys.

Spectroelectro, you got it backwards, it is my AIW that gives me the problems not "DV".

I am looking to buy a canopus card but i am doing my homework on it now, hence the post.

Capturing in Huffyuv is better for preventing white blobs right? If I capture in huffyuv that isn't the same as capturing in avi directly via firewire from a DV camera, right? I am not extatic about DV Cameras and their captures. Though i agree, it is better to do that directly.

I have a HDTV device that can send any video right into my PC at MPEG2 720x480 (or higher) @9mbs/sec in TS form.

Now, quality wise, it could not be any better, contrast wise, it is better than the AIW but it could be better, much better.


Do you guys think it is even logical for me to buy a technically inferior capture device like a canopus ADVC XXX (not HDTV - Max 720x480) because it can capture to a technically superior format like Huffyuv?

What I am saying is does Huffyuv really take care of the AGC defect type problems that are plaging the AIW series? I know many people must know exactly what I am talking about.

Do you guys ever get lines in your Huffyuv captures that you can't get rid off? No matter how you encode the damn thing to MPEG2 (botton or lower first).