Thinking about a Canopus ADVC100

[flameout]

Hi, I'm kind of new to this, and want to start transferring my old VHS and HI8 tapes to DVD (Just bought a Plextor PX-708UF). I have a VERY old WinTV card, but want to scrap that and get the "Canopus 1394 Advanced Digital Video Converter". For under $300, I can live with that

I'm just not 100% sure if this is what I need. It sure sound like it, and reading the reviews here on this forum, it seems like everyone loves it (I did the search by asking for top reviewd, and this was #1)

Will this do what I need? Convert my old tapes to MPEG2, then I can just usiing something like TMPGEncDVD Author to complete the process and burn to DVD? I've been reading and searching all through this forum (my head is actually starting to hurt from reading) but just wanted to make sure I can do what I need to do with the Canopus ADVC100

Thanks

[Will Hay]

The ADVC-100 wil capture to DV, you need to encode to mpeg2 with something like TMPGEnc Plus before you author with TMPGEnc Author.
You can use something like the MainConcept mpeg encoder to capture directly to mpeg2 of course.
The ADVC-100 is a great buy, I went from an ATI Radeon ViVo and have never looked back.
This is my procedure for capturing with the ADVC-100.
Will

[briandugas]

I'm not sure if you have any editing needs of this video. If you don't need to edit, continue reading. Circuit City has a product on sale right now for $99.00. It's called the ADS Instant DVD 2.0. It's similar to the ADVC 100, but rather then convert analog to a DV stream, it converts analog to a MPEG2 stream. Then you won't have to convert with TMPGEnc. I will say that about 75% of the folks here will prefer the ADVC 100 because with a DV stream, you can do edits if you ever need it. I bought the ADS product because I never do edits, I only cut out unwanted segments. Just another option. There are other MPEG encoders similar to the ADS one, so if you want to go that route, research research research.

[MrMungus]

I'm not sure if you have any editing needs of this video. If you don't need to edit, continue reading. Circuit City has a product on sale right now for $99.00. It's called the ADS Instant DVD 2.0. It's similar to the ADVC 100, but rather then convert analog to a DV stream, it converts analog to a MPEG2 stream. Then you won't have to convert with TMPGEnc. I will say that about 75% of the folks here will prefer the ADVC 100 because with a DV stream, you can do edits if you ever need it. I bought the ADS product because I never do edits, I only cut out unwanted segments. Just another option. There are other MPEG encoders similar to the ADS one, so if you want to go that route, research research research.

But remember, as Will mentioned, you *can* encode directly to MPEG-2 using the ADVC-100 -- as long as your computer is fast enough to handle the CPU load inherent in MPEG-2 encoding. The other benefit of a DV capture device like the 100 is that you can *also* capture to DV (if you want to edit).

I mention this (again) because now that I've done my research and experimentation, I'm in production mode and actually doing a lot more conversions and the way I like to do them is using an analog>firewire capture device to encode to MPEG-2 rather than the Instant DVD device. In fact, I'll be returning the Instant DVD device because I don't really need it at this point (but might get one later if I get a low-powered laptop).

[mracer]

Using ADVC-100, I just capped last night over 3 hours of video with zero dropped frames. When played back from digital to analog it is hard to see the difference from the original DirectTV source.

[nelson133]

I have used the canopus box to convert many VHS movies and am totally satisfied. I've used several different methods of authoring and burning and all have worked. If you're doing commercial tapes, don't forget the advantage of Macrovision removal by it. It's easy, simple, and has always worked for me. Nyah Levi

[Holden]

I just converted all my home movies this past year. Here's the recipe I used:

1) Datavideo DAC-100 for converting analog S-video/composite video to firewire DV. This is like the Canopus ADVC-100, but doesn't have the "video lock" feature, whatever that is. Most of my home videos were good quality Hi8mm. Also, it ignores macrovision all the time. You don't have to press any buttons to disable it. Plus it's about $100 cheaper. I will admit that two old 80's vintage VHS tapes with tracking problems completely confused the DAC-100 and produced unusable output. Maybe the Canopus would do better.

2) WinDV (free!) to capture the stream coming from the DAC-100. Captures to an AVI file that is a DV format.

3) TMPGEnc to convert, cut and splice the AVI files to DVD compliant mpeg2 files. It will convert to all kinds of mpeg2 formats, BTW.

4) DVDLab to author DVD's from the mpeg2 files and other image and music files. Beware that the interface to DVDLab can be daunting if you have not used a multi-pane programming tool before. But, it won't mess with your mpeg2 files like many easy to use author programs will. (I tried TMPG Author, but found it too limited in what you could do. It didn't do anything wrong, but I didn't like it.)

5) ImgTool Classic v0.90 (Free!) to create .iso image files (You'll need NTFS for a full size DVD image. FAT32 can't handle the 4+GB file). While DVDLab could burn DVD-RW's on my system, it never produced a usable DVD-R. Make sure you get this exact version. I had loads of trouble with other versions.

6) DVD Decrypter (Free!) to burn the .iso image to a DVD+-R.

The end result was, AFAI can tell, DVD's with zero quality loss compared to the Hi8mm tapes. Also, nice DVD menu's with background music and/or background video.

Oh yeah, 7) HeadAC3 (Free!) also came into play converting .WAV and .MP3 files into .MP2 files with compatible sample rates for the menu background music. DVDLab is picky about music file formats for menus.

There's a million wrong turns to make in this process. Keep your cool and do lots of reading on this site.

Good Luck!

Greg

[flameout]

I couldn't hold out any longer, I just ordered my ADVC100. Thanks to everyone for the help and the tips. Not sure if I could even have attempted these transfers without this site and this forum