ADVC-100 versus DAC-100....Help

[arcorob]

I am looking for info on these. I know about the ADVC but the DAC seems to be the same thing ...but about 100 less ! Why ?

I also see there are a number of known issues with ADVC (some issues with Vegas video, TI, ect)

Someone talk me into the ADVC 100 please...I use Premier, Vegas, have Win XP and a Belkin Firewire...so similar machines help

Oh yes, running ASUS mobo (p4p800 deluxe) gig ram, p4 2.6

[dgraham]

The ADVC-100 has been incredible for me. I ran a Pentium III for a long time with an ADS firewire card and I have experienced zero problems with the hardware. I had a problem trying to capture from Premiere, but as soon as I shelled out the $30 or so for Scenalyzer, the capture process has been flawless. I'm running Windows XP. My PIII setup was using a Tyan MB with a VIA chipset. Generally frowned upon by the populace here, but was fine for me. I recently upgraded to a P4 on an Intel MB and it has been great there too.

Sorry I can't speak about Vegas from experience.

One other cool thing about the ADVC-100 is the ability to disable macrovision. I do some work for a non-profit and they use short clips from macrovision-protected sources. I don't know if the DAC has this ability or if that's even something you care about.

Well worth the $300 IMHO.

[reubenray]

I have the DAC100 and capture 3 to 4 hours each week with no problems. I bought mine from Ebay and like you stated it is about a $100 cheaper. The DAC disables macrovision automatically, unlike the ADVC which you have to push a button. I am also using scenalyzer. On the Canopus forum I believe they are having trouble with the computers using the XP system.

[Kool_Aid]

There is no problem with Windows XP as long as you download the patch from the Canopus site.

[arcorob]

Yikes..thats what scares me. I just want to plug and play.LOL

So there is a patch ? I thought it was on request only ?

[Marco33]

There is no problem with Windows XP as long as you download the patch from the Canopus site.

What problem?


I'm running XP with the DAC & Vegas Video.

[arcorob]

Now I am really confused.

Here is my bottom line parameter. I want PLUG and PLAY like my camcorders. No patches or codec tweaks, no workarounds, just Input/output and done.

The DAC is sounding better .what about audio sync ? Someone said AUDIO sync on the dac was problematic.

[Marco33]

I don't see how it could have an sync problem cause, any time the tape quality is poor, and cause a sync problem, the DAC just skipps over that part of film.


You'll be humming along "dum de dum" and all of a sudden you drop 40 frames in a row cause the tape quality is real poor at that point so rather than have a sync problem the DAC just skippes that part.

Those old home movies you want to convert to DVD... GOOD LUCK. You will need a good TBC and even then it may not get you there.

Have a store bought that you want to preserve to DVD... should work just fine but remember that, the lower the quality the more likley you will still have problems.

After having both a regular capture card and the DAC... I would have to say they both have pro's and con's. The con's for the card? It's system dependant while the DAC does all the work. Also the card will capture those bad parts of film without dropping 40 frames in a row yet, there is a good chance, in the end you will have a sync problem because of it.

The DAC is still more cost effective (Cheaper) than upgrading you system and easier to work with (Plug & Play).

[hiptune]

I've been using the ADVC - 100 for a couple of months now with XP on a P4, intel mother board. No download patch was needed.
works wonderfully.

Jeff

[nelson133]

I've been using the Canopus box with an AMD 2400+ and XP for over 6 months without a bobble or a patch. I use mine for video tapes and downloading from the tv and wouldn't switch unless someone came up with something that could pull dvd quality from tapes. I. E., never.

[arcorob]

Thanks guys...Mine will be used almost EXCLUSIVELY for moving HI 8 and DIGITAL 8 tapes into the machine.

Currently I use my TRV-340 SONY camcorder BUT the hours I am putting on it is what scares me. Single point of failure kind of thing. It goes, I am toast. I just added a MINI-DV to the mix too so have to get those wedding videos in, no matter what format.

Think I will go with the CANOPUS.

[Metaluna]

I have the "black screen" problem on a Win2K machine with my Canopus, but oddly, not on my WinXP system. Rebooting with the Canopus powered on usually solves it for the Win2K machine though, so it's only a minor annoyance. The Applauncher "patch" on the Canopus site is only for WinXP so it didn't help me. I guess some people see the problem on XP and some don't.

[arcorob]

Thats interesting. I wonder if it is really a CANOPUS problem or a MS or CODEC problem. I say that because I was having a similar problem with DIGITAL passthru on my SONY the first few months I owned it. Drove me nuts. MAGICALLY, it went away (probably after a system rebuild)

It does a similar function to the CANOPUS and I wonder if it is software...Hmmm..Well, ordered my ADVC-100...wish me luck...LOL

I am a persistant guy...Thats how I would up with the machine I have...

[hiptune]

I'm just guessing, but I think the folks who have an existing system with XP, and all their programs on it, are likely to have issues and need to canapus patch.

The folks like me who put together a system from scratch just for video capture, edit, encode, and burning, are likely to have far fewer issues to have to deal with.

Pinnicle Studio 8 is known to have problems with XP is SP 1 is installed with it. Well, I did not know that my new copy of XP already had SP 1. But.....Studio 8 is not having problems on my machine regardless.

So I should have saved myself the worry about SP 1. And the XP issues some have had (rarely) with the ADVC - 100.

There is plenty of faulty information on this site. I hate to say it, but I see reports on things that work well, but fail to mention the "NOT ON XP" part. Or just the opisite, things that don't work with XP, and then it turns out it is not XP (or SP 1) that is the problem.

Go with the ADVC 100, and get rid of anything that does not want to play well with it.

Jeff

[arcorob]

Well, my hope is to PLUG it in, leave it attached and leave it alone.

By the way...still haven't resolved a PREMIER capture bug ...lol 4 months + now....So I am using vegas for capture. WHen I use premier, if I walk away(of course) the picture freezes on capture but the tape keeps going. Could happen at one minute, 20 minutes or not at all...OH YEAH, real easy to solve...LOL

Thanks again !

[xxiangg]

I have spent some amount of time to collect informations about both ADVC100
and DAC100. First of all, I have heard nothing about A/V sync problem for
both of them. I believe A/V sync is not a problem for both of them. Both
are working great for capture, especially when the video signal quality is
poor.

The first differential factor is how to handle very bad signals. It seems
that Canopus will keep capture when the signal is bad. On the other hand
DAC will pause a while, until the bad video signal is over. So for Canopus
captured files, you need to use an editor to cut frames for the bad portion
of the video signal. For DAC, the frames for the bad portion of the video
is not captured by the device, the device cut the frames for you. Here I
probably prefer Canopus, because I can control exactly how many frames I want
to drop. And there is likely a case where DAC will drop a few frames more
than I wanted.

Another factor is about capture color quality. We all know that people talk
about HiFi a lot when discussing audio device. I do not know why it seems
that it is not as important for video. I read an article several months ago
on web talking something like "color vector graph" or "phase vector graph"
to measure the captured color accuracy. It claimed that DAC color distortion
is within a few percentage of the original source material. It is the best
consumer level product in this area regarding of color accuracy. (But the
article is already purged from web and can not be found). It seems that DAC
result color is closer to the source and Canopus result color is more
beautiful.

The next question is how important it is for color accuracy. I remember
when I study TV course, I was taught that the only color which must be
accurate on TV screen is skin tone on people. So many TV measure signals
have some special color bands for skin tones. People always adjust HUE/
SATURATION on their TV set to please their eyes. It essentially adds some
distortion to the original color signals. In this regarding, it seems that
color distortion within a certain range is not important. I do not know if
this thinking is correct or not.

[Holden]

I'm a newbie to this stuff myself, but I too am capturing from Hi8mm home videos.

I bought a DAC-100. The on/off button is finicky and I am returning it for a new one because of that, but it has been basically a plug-n-play device. I have XP pro sp1 with all patches and firewire on the motherboard and capturing was effortless.

I have yet to create a DVD that comes near the quality of playing the original Hi8mm tape, but I think that's not the DAC-100's fault. More likely my MPEG encoder.

FYI: I did some testing and the DAC-100 completey ignores/removes macrovision.

I was alarmed at first by the number of dropped frames reported, but realized these were all at record/stop points on the original video. If I start capturing after the start of a scene, I get 0 dropped frames (unless I keep capturing through the next transition).

Audio synch does not seem to be a problem.

Greg

[bobinga]

dAC100 will not record black and white
Canopus will

God Bless
Bob

[Kool_Aid]

The problem is with XP service pack 1, and the Canopus ADVC-1394 and the ADVC-50.

There is no mention of the ADVC-100, so you should be the normal "plug and pray" with that unit.

[spectroelectro]

xxiangg made a particularly excellent post about the DAC-100 and hte ADVC-100.;
I don't think there is any good reason why the Datavideo DAC-100 costs $100 less than the Canopus ADVC-100. I own a Canopus and a friend owns the Datavideo DAC-100 and they seem to function identically, except, of course, for the switchable macrovision defeat on the ADVC-100.
As for the issue of how each of htese excellent devices handle bad video, I don't see that as a significant concern. If you intend to capture A*N*Y video which is likely to go bad (viz., old VHS tapes, old Beta video tapes, old Hi-8 tapes) you M*U*S*T use a digital Time Base Corrector in btween the output of the VCR or camcorder and the input of the ADVC or DAC-100.
With a TBC enabled, all the issues with bad video go away. Even if the VHS tape or Hi-8 gets so wonky the playback comppletly breaks down for a second, both the Canpus and the Datavideo units will capture flawlessly as long as there is a TBC correcting the video input.
You can get an excellent cheap TBC for $170: the AVT-7810. Works like a charm, and has various controls for brightness, color, etc. built in.
People her are talking about "sync" but seem to mean two different things. One issue involves the analog sync signal recorded on a VHS or Hi-8 analog tape. When the tape gets old, this analog sync signal breaks down and digital capture device (which depend on that analog signal) start to drop frames. Inserting a TBC into the signal chain eliminates those problems 100% guarnateed.
The oher "sync" issue involves the well-known problems experienced by PCI video capture card owners who find that the audio gradually drifts out of sync with the video. This is caused b ythe fact that the audio in a digitally captured video signal is typically locked to the clock used in the computer, which tends to drift. Computers are poor timekeeper, the typical computer clock drifts by several seconds or more per day.
Both the Datavideo DAC-100 and the ADVC-100 eliminate this problem by using a hardware clock that forces a hard lock between the video and audio in a captured NTSC signal. With either of these units you can capture literally for horus and you will _never_ have any problem with the audio drifting out of sync with the video.
On price alone, I would go withe Datavideo DAC-100. Wish I had known about it before I bought my Canopus ADVC-100, would've saved $100. Both units seem entirely equivalent in their fucnitonality (except for the defeatable macrovision on the Canopus unit, which is moot if you use a TBC since the TBC strips out macrovision anyway).

[arcorob]

So the bottom line seems like I will be okay in any event. Rather than old cranky tapes, I will be transferring freshly recorded wedding videos, from 5 different camera's and taking the burden off the one which has been doing the job thus far.

Basically the ADVC for me will be what the SONY logic was doing, namely, taking various sources, digital, analog, etc and moving into my PC for edit and render..EXCELLENT.

This was a big issue for me as I do disaster recovery and always looking for single points of failure. My TRV340 was just that. It went and I was hosed.

Thanks to all and as always, this board is the best !!!

[Marco33]

dAC100 will not record black and white
Canopus will

God Bless
Bob

Because there is no color burst but, some B&W tapes are not true B&W?

[ipa]

Regarding the ~$100 difference between the DAC-100 and the ADVC-100, here's a tip: If you have a student in your family, they can qualify for an academic discount from some websites. My daughter, who's in high school, just ordered me a ADVC-100 for $199.95 + free shipping.

[SLICK RICK]

arcorob,

I also just ordered the ADVC 100. I ordered mine from NEWEGG.COM for $275, where did you order yours from?

SLICK RICK

[neo]

I have the Canopus 100. It worked fine with XP at first but although XP still installs the device none of my capture programs work. They say either there is no device installed or no driver. Despite all of Canopus' email, phone help, patches, and 1 RMA, it just does not work.
They are waiting for MS to fix the problem but if you look at the Canopus forum there has been problems with this line of products for over 6 months still waiting for MS. It is great when it works but when it does not you are just out of luck.

[neo]

Is the Datavideo DAC-100 a small firewire box like the Canopus? Does it come with a driver? The problem I am having with my Canopus is that it relies on MS's ADV Compiant AV Tape Recorder/Player driver and for whatever reason it does not work anymore on my system even though XP recognises it and installs it. Any ideas? Is there any way to re-install MS's driver? No one seems to know what the problem is or how to fix it.

[Holden]

Is the Datavideo DAC-100 a small firewire box like the Canopus? Does it come with a driver?

No driver needed for me. XP with SP1 and all patches.

Yes, the DAC-100 is an external firewire box. I turn it on and start the video source playing and XP says, "Found new Digital Video Camera". DV capture software gets the signal.

Greg

[captbics]

ipa,

Exactly which site did you get the student discount from for the Canopus ADVC-100?

[almostaborted]

check ebay, i've seen it there

[ipa]

I found it at academicsuperstore. Just search for canopus. Funny thing I noticed...if you use IE to view it, you only get 50% off shipping, but if you use Opera, you get FREE shipping. All you need to do is fax or email them a student ID after you order. There are other academic sites that sell these. If you look at conopus's site and follow the "where to buy" link, you'll see the rest of them.