ADVC100 - Pre-purchase questions

[Solarjetman]

The ADVC does not capture an mpeg file. It captures an avi file. You need to have a program to encode it like tmpgenc. But you can use those with tmpgenc dvd author just fine.

[housepig]

Glad to see you finally interested. ..heard price is down to $250 now, if you
shop around, that is.

Oh, I've been interested, believe it. I was kinda hoping I could find something that would capture direct to mpeg-2, but was not an integrated video card (ie an ATI AIW), and I'm not liking my choices - the good ones are way too expensive, and the only (relatively) cheap good ones are the ATIs... but I want to keep my cards separate.

so yeah, I'm thinking about jumping up to the ADVC and an XP-2600 chip to help speed up encoding times. We'll see - I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, I have to see what other music gear I can put up on eBay to fund my video habit!

good to know that it'll play nice with cheap firewire and XP...

[makkar]

I was thinking of buying a device which will capure directly to MPEG2 (hardware compression)
What about Pinnacle Studio Moviebox ?
Anybody who can help me will be greately appreciated
Mac

[zanos]

The Wintv pvr-250 seems to the best choice in terms of price and quality. I'm probably going to have to get one myself if I want to grab stuff off my satellite.

[Metaluna]

Glad to see you finally interested. ..heard price is down to $250 now, if you
shop around, that is.

Oh, I've been interested, believe it. I was kinda hoping I could find something that would capture direct to mpeg-2, but was not an integrated video card (ie an ATI AIW), and I'm not liking my choices - the good ones are way too expensive, and the only (relatively) cheap good ones are the ATIs... but I want to keep my cards separate.

You should also look into the All-In-Wonder VE then...it has the same capture hardware as the 9000-series All-In-Wonders (e.g. the latest Theatre 200 capture chip), but is a PCI card so you don't have to replace your AGP video card. It does have a low-end video card built into it too (I think it's a Radeon 7500) but you don't have to use it. I've seen them online for about $120.

The nice thing about the AIW's compared to some of the other MPEG capture cards is that you don't have to always capture to MPEG2. I think you can also capture to AVI.

[dwill123]

Oh, I've been interested, believe it. I was kinda hoping I could find something that would capture direct to mpeg-2, but was not an integrated video card (ie an ATI AIW), and I'm not liking my choices - the good ones are way too expensive, and the only (relatively) cheap good ones are the ATIs... but I want to keep my cards separate.

Not a hardware solution but doesn't MSP 7 capture to mpeg-2? Does this work or is it just more maketing hype?

[housepig]

Not a hardware solution but doesn't MSP 7 capture to mpeg-2? Does this work or is it just more maketing hype?

I can actually capture direct to mpeg-2 from my current card, but it's all software based encoding, and I don't like the quality with the software I've tried (NeoDVD, PowerVCR or WinDVD Recorder).

If I go for a direct-to-mpeg2, I want it to be hardware encoding. I'll check out the ATI VE series, though...

Another question for the ADVC owners - how easy is it to transfer from a digital file back out to a VHS? Let's say I want to send a home movie to Aunt Millie, who doesn't have a DVD player, is it a giant pain or is it easy?

[vcddude]

BEWARE OF NEW DELL MACHINES when considering the ADVC100. I just bought a new Dell PC 4600C with integrated Firewire and turned it on for the first time last night, only to discover that it simply will not recognize the ADVC100. Running WinXP SP1.

I have seen information about the ADVC100 being incompatible with some Texas Instruments-based Firewire cards so I did an experiment. I went out and purchased a PCMCIA-based Firewire card for my Dell Inspiron 1100 (also running WinXP SP1) to see if my laptop would recognize the ADVC100. I popped the Firewire card in and discovered that it too is a Texas Instruments card!!! However, using this card, the laptop succesfully recognized the ADVC100 device.

I then called Canopus tech support -- they said that the NEW Dell machines (e.g. shipped this month) appear to have an as yet unidentified software conflict that prevents WinXP SP1 from recognizing the ADVC100. The solution: Do a clean reinstall of WinXP SP1 utilizing the dell-provided CD. I will try this tonight -- not a problem for me because Dell installs all kinds of crap software that I don't need anyway.

The summary here is that tech support said that the "ADVC100 incompatibility issue with Texas Instruments cards" issue is a myth -- people today are seeing software conflicts with newer PCs (typically Dell) and the solution is to wipe the drive and reinstall WinXP SP1.

Thanks,
vcddude

[Solarjetman]

how easy is it to transfer from a digital file back out to a VHS?

Its very simple. You output it just like you would output to a digital video camera. So most programs should work (though DVIO crashes on output for me but works on input). The interface on the unit is nothing more than a single button that toggles between anolog and digital input. Just toggle it to digital input and you can output a DV file to a VCR via either S-video or composite.

Also, one advantage I like about the ADVC-100 is you can view what you are capturing on a TV while you are capturing it on you computer. No more little 2 inch preview windows.

[vcddude]

Hi,

I just verified that if you have problems getting a newer Dell machine to recognize the ADVC100, do a clean reinstall (including wiping the disk) of WinXP. That fixes the problem! Note that the Dell WinXP Reinstallation disk is just that -- it only reinstalls WinXP so you don't need to load all the other bundled crap.

Kevin

[Mrdogno8]

Thanks for all advice/tips etc. Have already tried most, but still no joy. Will have to consider taking it back as still under warranty.