Dazzle DV Hollywood Bridge VS Pyro A/V Link

[mojo]

I bought the DV Bridge about a year ago so I could have a DV passthrough device while editing and was very happy with it - at first. Then I decided to use it to cap some old laserdiscs and make DVDs out of them.

They capped fine (used Scenalyzer) but I had a really tough time getting the MPEG 2 files to look any good. They were swimming with artifacts and shimmered like crazy. Just to make sure it wasn't the Dazzle's fault, I borrowed a friend's DV camera (Sony VX-1000) and used it as a transcoder, testing a section of the laserdisc I had already done with the Dazzle.

I was AMAZED at the difference. The DV camera's transcoder made the Dazzle look terrible! The Bridge introduced MANY artifacts. I assumed a stand-alone analog-DV device would be just as good (if not better) than a DV camera's, but boy was I wrong.

So, finally, I decided to go out and replace the Dazzle. I had seen the Pyro A/V link in the store before, and assumed it would be better than the Dazzle. I mean, compared to the camera, the Dazzle's picture was truly awful.

Wrong again!

Compared to the Dazzle, the Pyro is noticably softer and hotter. The white areas get blown out more easily, resulting in loss of detail in hot spots. The Dazzle was also at least 30% sharper - background detail that was a blur with the Pyro became discernable with the Dazzle. Look at these comparison stills:

http://members.aol.com/mojospfx/Compare.png

I encoded the tests as DVDs (TMPGENC default template) and looked at the results on a 27" TV. The Dazzle wins, hands down. And the Dazzle isn't really that good! I couldn't recommend the Pyro to anyone. Oh, and I also should mention the sound from the Pyro was AWFUL. It was distorted and sounded digitized (yes my dipswitches were set properly and it is the latest model).

Anyway, I thought I would share these results with the forum.

Now I suppose I either need to see how well the ADVC-100 works. I wonder if a cheap DV camera with analog inputs is the way to go...

Any thoughts?

[proxyx99]

Tough call as you are the only one who knows all about your setup.
ADVC and analog-DV passthough in miniDV cam should give same results in terms of picture quality. I have yet to see something to prove me wrong. I own Datavideo DAC-100 (their equivalent to ADVC) and have no complaints whatsoever. Use good material like DV cam to establish your routine with regard to movie transfer and encoding. Use high bit rates (>6k) for best quality. Then work your way down (lower bitrate) to know where the threshhold lies (for most projects it will be around 4.2k VBR).
Check this thread:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=741050#741050
ADVC-100 vs ATI Radeon - Screenshots

... to find out more what to expect from both.