Using Pass-Thru DV conversion to capture... too crazy?

[jg0001]

After getting tired of wasting hours of time and ending up with poor results, I've found a method that always gets me nice captures, but with a few more steps.

I use my mini-DV camcorder as a pass-thru to convert my cable box's S-Video & audio outs to my PC's FireWire in. I take the video in using Scenalyzer which is a champ at keeping audio/video locked on analog sources (even though it sees it as DV, the analog source has plagued my ability to import with Studio in the past). Sure, the resulting files are 13GB per hour, but I have a lot of space for temporary storage. I can then take the DV-AVI file into Studio 9, cut out what I don't want, and resave the DV-AVI file. This editted copy next goes to TMPGenc Plus where I can convert to either DVD quality or VCD without ANY worries about audio sync nor any worries about weak quality.

I'm now considering an ADVC-100 or 300 in place of constantly using my mini-DV camera. Any thoughts?

I have had five different TV Tuner cards (some at work, some at home) and have never been truly happy with any of them. My favorite for WATCHING TV is the Creative Digital VCR, but I can never convert more than 20 minutes of its non-DVD compliant MPEG2 files without losing sync. I just got a new ATI TV Wonder Pro, Remote Control Edition, but MMC 8.9 won't install and 8.8 is AWFUL when I record. I end up hearing two copies of the audio (it records only one) while recording and the audio has frequent pops or clicks that are just loud enough to be heard and annoying. I had a Pinnacle TV card, but if you try to do anything else with the PC at the same time (Pentium 4 with 512 ram) it loses sync as you watch it.

[Faustus]

Not crazy at all. I use a Sony DV converter that converts my Analog signals to DV via Firewire. Perfect everytime. Sadly the specific box isn't made anymore. Sounds like you've hit on a good solution as long as you dont mind having to encode manually.

[jg0001]

Does anyone just use a Canopus ADVC-100 or 300 as a permanent replacement for pass-thru to capture LIVE TV (I'm not referring to VCR tapes here)?

[MrMungus]

Does anyone just use a Canopus ADVC-100 or 300 as a permanent replacement for pass-thru to capture LIVE TV (I'm not referring to VCR tapes here)?

Sure, why wouldn't you use it that way?

[redwudz]

I have used my ADVC-100 for live TV capture and it works fine. I have a VCR hooked to the input. The rest of your proceedure sounds good, especially if you are satisfied with the results. I have been expirmenting with the MainConcept encoder and capturing MPG2 in realtime. Still need some fine tuning, but the results are good so far. This is probably not the best method if you plan to do editing, but it does eliminate a few steps (At a lower quality) if you just want to copy a video source.