Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge Rambling + 1 Question

[tamgiao]

Hehehe, I've been in possession of a Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge for about a week now, and so far I've been very happy with it.

It captures analog to DV very well, that is as long as the source tape is of good quality. Sometimes I experience an average of 1-2 instances of frame drops per hour (most of the time, none), which I consider acceptable.

At room temperature, the Hollywood generated quite some heat after a couple hours of non-stop capturing and started dropping frames quite often, so I went to the local Target store and picked up a Honeywell portable fan and had it blowing directly (at the highest speed) at the side of the Hollywood. What I did seemed to have solved the heat/frame loss problem. Oh, when the Hollywood gets too hot, sometimes it will either caused Windows 2000 to act weird or freeze or the device will simply disappear from the Device Manager altogether. I was like, "WTF?"

When capturing from tapes, I always get those stupid flickering lines at the bottom just like with my Dazzle DVC II.

Now, if the source tape is really crappy, then it's another story altogether. I have a few VHS tapes that are quite old (some Hong Kong TV series from 1984), and I've given up on capturing them. The Hollywood had all kinds of problems (it dropped frames and lost sync left and right) when I tried to do those old tapes. Any advice about this would be highly appreciated.

Mine came bundled with MainActor 3.56 which worked quite well. I have some gripes with the stupid 3.65 update which I downloaded from Dazzle web site. When I tried to install the update, it said, "Installation failed" and terminated abnormally at the end, but indeed it did update the executables and all necessary DLLs. I have no idea wtf is going on there. I downloaded the update 3 different times (using a download manager). I binary-compared those 3 copies of the downloaded file byte by byte, and they came out the same (so, the file wasn't corrupted during transfer). Stupid updater.

Oh, I followed Dazzle's advice about reducing hardware acceleration for graphics for optimization, and that actually made matter worse on my system. I changed it back to full acceleration and everything worked fine again.

QUESTION:

I really dislike the bundled MainActor and MGI VideoWave. For those of you who own the Hollywood, which software package is your favorite for capturing/editing and why? Please be as specific as possible. I'm looking for something simple, intuitive, with full compatibility (standard DV Type-1 or Type-2). Thank you very much.

[dilorc]

I've had the Hollywood DV bridge for about 9 months. I recently upgraded to Windows XP so now I use Windows Movie Maker for capturing. It allows you to capture as DV type 1 or 2. I installed a video capturing hard drive fomatted for NTFS, so I just set the capture timer on Movie Maker and capture one big file.

Then I use VirtualDub to edit out the commericals. BTW, you need to capture as DV type 2 for VirtualDub to be able to process it. Then I frameserve it over to TMPEG to convert it to MPEG 1.

If you don't have Windows Movie Maker, I used to use AVI-IO to capture. It was a pain in the butt though. You needed to load VfW wrappers and it never worked right with my webcam. Could only capture DV type 2 also. I've also use Scenealzer Live. It has a capture timer, supports type 1/2 DV, and does multisegment capture. Downside is that it isn't free.

I don't capture from video tape, so I can't address how these programs will work with old videos.

[Allan55]

Hi,

Now, if the source tape is really crappy, then it's another story altogether. I have a few VHS tapes that are quite old (some Hong Kong TV series from 1984), and I've given up on capturing them. The Hollywood had all kinds of problems (it dropped frames and lost sync left and right) when I tried to do those old tapes. Any advice about this would be highly appreciated.

I posted something similar somewhere else but here goes.

Your VCR machine quality can make a huge difference! An old Sony SLV798HF and an even older ...686... (both high-end) play 20-year old rental tapes with some problems but with generally acceptable results. A pair of newer cheap bottom-end ones barely play new factory-recorded tape without difficulties (one is a Panasonic, the other is JVC).

My suspicion is that the high-end machines have much better electronics in them for maintaining sync; even with bad tapes. But, if my local stores are indication, there are very few high-end VCRs anymore.

Allan55
A video newbie plus a few months after 33 years in computers

[stag]

QUESTION:

I really dislike the bundled MainActor and MGI VideoWave. For those of you who own the Hollywood, which software package is your favorite for capturing/editing and why? Please be as specific as possible. I'm looking for something simple, intuitive, with full compatibility (standard DV Type-1 or Type-2). Thank you very much.

I also have the Hollywood ..have been using Video vegas to great effect
i also use DVD movie factory..
Both give excellent caps

[ksmoothe]

Hi I'm new to recording as well but I'm having the same problem.

I haev some older carttons taken off tv like gijoe, transformers, thundercats and would like to save them before the tape kaputzzz !!!!!!

When running the VCR through DAZZLE HOLLWODD DV BRIDGE the video gets wacky on the bottom and the left side of the preview screen.

I own a sony 19 micron head VCR so when playing the tapes to watch on tv it plays just fine however when xfering through the Dazzle kit it comes out extremely wavy.

Does anyone have any suggestions ?? I'm desperate at this point ????


I also have a Sony Vaio rx-670 w/80gig hard drive.

I've tried running the VCR through the TV and using the TV a/v output to connect to both the Dazzle kit as well as my Terapin and both record wavy ???

Why would it play clear on my TV but not through the dazzle or Terapin and how can I fix it ?????

Also what is a TBC ?????

[vanceen]

This isn't too helpful, but I'm having the same problems with the Hollywood Dazzle, and I haven't been able to get any help.

Just for troubleshooting, I've used it to capture pre-recorded movies, and even some DVD-player output. That worked great. What doesn't work great is trying to capture old home-made VHS tapes, which is the main reason I bought it. If the quality is not pristine, the Hollywood flips out and produces distortion: usually a horizontal split on the screen, sometimes garbage on the lefthand side. If you press the mode button on the bridge three times (i.e. cycle through D/A, passthrough, and back to A/D), it clears up the picture. But that's not satisfactory, as you've already captured several seconds of garbage at that point.

And as you point out, the same tape in the same VCR is OK played through a television.

I've been trying to find out if anyone is using the Hollywood Dazzle DV Bridge to capture video of so-so or worse quality.

[vhelp]

tamgiao,

for those 1984 shows on VHS, I don't konw how old those actual tapes
are, but if you're game for an adventure ($$) you might have better
luck.

Ok, I was getting at trying (buying) another VCR. Having the right VCR
is a good combo for the capture and encode game.
If you current VCR is giving you frame drops, try another VCR altogether.
I have three VCRs, a top of the line JVC S-VHS "HR-S3910U" (well, it was
when I got it) and and much older (5-6 years old) Sone 4head VCR, and
finally, a newly purchased 4head Sharp - A great VCR!! of all the
VCRs I have, nothing puts out the best quality other than my Sharp,
and then my Sony, though both pretty much look identicle (speaking of
my encodes) But, the JVC S-VHS quality, after capturing from, makes
pretty poor looking encodes, ie, VCDs. Even when I use the S-Video
from the JVC, my final VCDs from this unit still looks poorer than
the Sony or Sharp. And, to top all the S-Video off, Both the other two
VCRs I cap from are only equiped with RCA outputs - no S-Video.

I do a lot of VHS backups for two main reasons:
* prices are very low $5 vs. $20 for DVD, though I have plenty of DVDs
* asside from backup purposes, it's a luxury to pop in a VCD CD disk
vs. popping in a bulky VHS tape, and immediately playing, and FF/RW to
any scene in an instant vs. FF/RW to scene on VHS tapes - a costly and
quick ware-n-tare on those tapes.

I get very good quality VHS-to-VCD's for most my tapes (not all commercial
tapes are done flowless and of good quality.
I'm fussy about spoon feeding others on VHS-to-VCD cuase I had to work
hard at it for many months before I learned how/what works best to
achieve good quality VHS-to-VCDs, though the VCDs are not as sharp as
the actual vhs tape, (but still sharp, if done right) the tape wont
last as long anyways, so in the long run, the VCD outwins the VHS - hence
there's no contest w/quality of VHS vs. VCD.

And, i get those flickering lines at the bottom in my VHS captures also.
Just them them out in vdub or tmpg.

ksmoothe,
The 19 micron head is only for:
* playing S-VHS tapes in a your standard VCR
* and, sometimes, in addition to above, plays EP recorded tapes better,
pending on wether or not that feature was added into the "19 micron"

Wavy'ness stratigy:
* try a set of Gold calbes, ie, Monster cables. a ste of RCA or
S-Video (if your VCR supports s-video) will do fine.

>> Why would it play clear on my TV but not through the dazzle or
>> Terapin and how can I fix it ?????
I'm not exactly sure either, but for one, you tv set, because of the
nature of it's color space, and a few other odds, you wont see those
funny lines (I see some too, but probably not exactly what you'all
are talking about) But when you engage in capturing from VHS, your
capture card is picking up those funny line (not talking about interlace
here) and will capture those lines and when you proceed to encode to
VCD or whatever, your encoder will see them and count them as noise or
in the end, blocks in your final encodes.

About the best I can offer (suggestion'wise) is to use some filtering
techiques in your encoding. Not all VCRs will produce the exact same
number of lines or level of min./max. of such. Sometimes, you have
to try another VCR and end up getting better results, or worse. VCRs
these days are pretty cheap. I just picked up one for $64 a Sharp
4header. Gives me greater quality than my JVC S-VHS does, though the
Sharp is RCA plugs only. Still better results.

DV
I use my DV cam whenever possible, to record to miniDV tapes, as I don't
always have the time to encode right away. And, also helps in minimizing
those FF/RW those VHS tapes and/or re-playing them again due to errors
or what-have-you.
The one thing you have to watch out for in this approach is that the (my)
DV cam will pick up on the Macrovision and shut the unit off. when this
happens, I have to use the analog capturing route, via my ATW card. Well,
it does give me even better quality vs. my DV cam anyways, since DV is
just another compression.
I don't use my Firewire-to-HD method for this, unless I'm messing around
or I know the quality will be better for some reason or another. Some
commercial VHS come out better than others. This is a trial and error
process for me. But, since VHS backup to VCD is one of my hobbies, and
fun too, I don't mind this futsing around bit.
As I was saying. Most commerical VHS (store bought movies) are Macrovision
protected, so this is a hit and miss game when it comes to DV cam. I
don't know if it affects the Hollywood Bridge DV. But, I'll assume it
does and shuts it off too or something similar.

Lets see... I have a whole buch of EP recorded tapes of the Summer Olympics
from two years ago. This would be a great test for me to process some
of these - just to see what the final encodes would look like. Hmmmm...
very interesting. let me go and pull a few of these... he, he..... ... ...

-vhelp