ADVC-100 and sporadic artefacts

[DLister]

Hey guys. I am using an ADVC-100 to capture analog video from old (still high quality) VHS, which I then save with Windows Movie Maker ver. 1.1.2427.1. Sometimes the avi will be clean and artefactless, but other times it will have a variety of aretfacts -- fuzzy, moving graininess around edges and aliasing around edges with high contrast. On captures where I get these artefacts the motion feels slightly jittery sometimes, and sometimes looks like it is being viewed through a dirty pane of glass, with artefact "smudges" holding still while the motion occurs beyond. The strange part is that if I simply recapture the video from the tape, sometimes this problem will simply disappear with my having made no changes. Unfortunately I have no idea what is causing these problems or why they sometimes disappear on their own. Does this sound like a problem with the Canopus dv codec? Could the Windows Movie Maker software or WindowsXP be the culprit, or is the ADVC doing all the work which Windows merely saves exactly as it was received. I'd apprecaite any light that could be shed on this. I'm at a loss, and it happens all the time.

Thanks,
Jerry

[rcb]

several suggestions:

1) upgrade your WMM to ver 2.0 - it's free from M$.

2) re-check your lead connections (source>advc100>computer) to make sure they are well seated.

3) "excersize" your vhs tapes by doing a reel to reel fast forward and rewind prior to capping.... will sometimes help.

4) monitor your cpu load via task manager during capping. If you are maxing out your cpu to 100%, shut down all background tasks you csn.

5) Take a look at ScenalyzerLive as a capping app - trialware ($30), but does well with the advc100.

6) Use media player classic for computer playback checks.