ADVC-100 Vs. DV Camcorder Vs AIT AIW Radeon capture

[RayS]

I have many VHS home movies I would like to transfer to disc. Probably VCD for now and DVD once the new Sony dual format burner comes within striking distance . Right now my Athlon 1.2G 256DDR is fitted with an ATI AIW Radeon 32DDR. I've been very disappointed with the video captures (dropped frames, noise artifacts and audio difficulties) and so went looking on this site for advice.

It looks like you people have rated the Canopus ADVC-100 as the top choice for analog video capture. I have also heard that many people think that a DV camcorder with analog inputs is the way to go because of the built-in H/W compression/conversion. Since I own a Hi-8 camcorder and don't really need another, I started looking for a lower cost equivalent capture method to a DV Camcorder and thought I found it in the ADVC-100. (The Canopus ADVC-1394 also looked promising but I discovered on this forum that it is not compatible with my Mobo).
Some questions and help requested:
1. Is the Canopus ADVC-100 the way to go hands down?
2. Does the ADVC-100 have hardware conversion like in a DV Camcorder or will my processor still need to do the bulk of the work?
3. Are there any advantages investing in a Digital Camcorder?
4. Are there any better alternatives (within +/- $100) to the ADVC-100 that would do as decent a job or better with Composite Video capture.
5. Should I expect more from the ATI AIW? (The bundled ULead S/W seems to do a worse job than the ATI TV Capture S/W and is not very user friendly.) Could it be my set-up? My judgment of poor quality is based on how decent the video looks on my computer monitor during feed-in and how poor it looks in comparison when I play it back from the captured file. Noise & blotches on low resolution VCD capture and dropped frames; albeit fewer artifacts and less noise on high resolution capture; in the AVI or DVD equivalent file formats. Shouldn't the converted file be comparable to what I see on my monitor on the way in or at least as good as the VCD (MPEG1) files I create from other sources?
6. Now the dumb obvious question. Since I can import composite video into my computer and see it on my monitor (800x600) at acceptable quality, then I should realize the ATI AIW card is doing its job. Is the real problem the conversion software, CODECs or hardware meaning I may find the same issues with the ADVC-100 unless I fix the root cause with better S/W, and/or H/W overload?
TIA

[irongang]

The ADVC-100 is, in my opinion, the coolest thing I've seen. I've captured many, many hours with never a dropped frame. It looks good and captures good audio. It does all of the work, leaving the CPU for other things. It's not uncommon for me to have TMPGenc running at the same time as a capture while I'm surfing the web with no problems (p4 2GHz). Just be sure to capture to a physical drive other than your C: drive. For the price (got mine for $250) I don't think you can do better.

[Bondiablo]

The Canopus is probably the way to go, best quality-price-ease of use ratio. It does the same thing the DV cam would do, converts the signal to DV and sends it to your computer. The only advantage to the DV cam is you get a DV cam. Unless you can find a DV cam for within $100 more, there really aren't any better alternatives. You could possibly get slightly better quality (though it's really an imperceptable difference) for less money out of an analog capture card capturing to uncompressed AVI or Huffy but it can be a pain to get working, you're talking potential file sizes of 60GB+ per hour and even when it is working you may still have dropped frames and audio video sync problems. I don't know anything about the All-In-Wonder so I can't help with that but if you want to see what can be done with the Canopus here is a capture I did from the movie The Matrix using the ADVC-100, Scenalyzer Live and TMPGEnc Plus 2.56 for the encoding to MPEG.

1 second DV capture 4MB:
http://home.att.net/~bonfiles/human.avi

12 second MPEG2 at Project Wizard default DVD NTSC VBR 3000 settings 5MB:
http://home.att.net/~bonfiles/human.mpg

[alfredymwong]

I understand that ADVC-100 doesn't come with any software.
So, which s/w are you using ?

I also want to buy one, either advc-100 or advc-1394. but I am using ulead video studio 6 to capture my dv video.
I don't know whether they work with vs 6 or not ?

If capture directly from vs 6 to mpeg1, the quality is not as good as first in dv, then encode to mpeg1. (i am using tmpgenc).

[Bondiablo]

I use Scenalyzer Live but any software that can be used with a DV cam will work with the ADVC since that's what windows sees it as.

Originally I was using Ulead VideoStudio 5 because that's what came with my firewire card. It worked fine too.

[trillium]

I also have an ADVC-100. To me its the greatest thing since sliced bread. I've been capturing VHS and Beta tapes onto my PC for conversion to DVD format.

I use Scenalyzer to capture as well without any problems.

as Bondiablo stated you can pretty much use whatever you are comfortable with. I'd recommend downloading a few demos and give it a shot.

[bbb]

Bondiablo,

Your links are down. I want to see your ADVC-100 samples. Can you make a VHS to SVCD sample too?

[jimbola]

I use the cheaper ADVC-50. It works great for me. I tried using my TV card to capture but it dropped frames and a host of other issues. I think the ADVC-50 was the best thing I bought in a LONG time.