Report on Canopus ADVC-55

[Frobozz]

Today I received the Canopus ADVC-55 analog to digital video converter. I know there are lots of favorable comments about the Canopus ADVC100 here but I thought someone might want to know a little about this lower-cost model.

It is just 3" wide, 5" long and 3/4" thick. It weighs almost nothing. Aside from its small size, what's cool about this is it is Firewire Bus powered. It comes with a Firewire cable. It only converts analog to digital; it does not output video back to tape. It has SVHS and video connectors and the audio jacks are RCA rather than stereo miniplug.

Toast 6 recognizes the box as a "camera" for direct capture into Toast. Naturally, it imports directly into iMovie as well. I also used Vidi which is a nifty freeware video capture application that allows programming start and stop times and can be set to automatically split files into sizes that work with iMovie.

I saw no problems with the captured video.

If you don't have a DV camcorder and want to capture analog to DV, I certainly recommend this easy-to-use little box.

[WiseWeasel]

Sounds like a nice little box. I think you meant S-Video, not SVHS. How's the video quality? How much was it? I paid about $250 for my ADVC100, it has very nice quality, and I have no complaints (unlike the ultra-crappy Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge it replaced).

[Frobozz]

I think you meant S-Video, not SVHS. How's the video quality? How much was it?.

Yep, S-Video it is. I think the box retails for about $250 and I got it for $200. The video looks great to me. I'll post back if I see any flaws. I want to test it out on some differing-quality sources and also see how the resulting DVD using Toast or iDVD compares with the results I was getting with my ADS USB Instant DVD for Mac. I've lost interest in the ADS box because it really wasn't saving that much time for what I was giving up compared with using DV as my source.

The ADVC-100 has audio lock and the ADVC-55 does not. I'll also let you know if this results in any audio sync problems. So far it does not.

My brother bought the Dazzle. It is now in a dump somewhere near Nashville. He was able to get it to work at times by first putting it in his freezer. By the way, I don't feel any notable heat on the ADVC-55 case. It has no fan and is totally silent (unlike the ADS box).

[WiseWeasel]

Yeah, the ADVC100 runs cool too, and the locked audio feature is a plus. Let us know if you encounter any synch issues. The Dazzle unit was incredibly unreliable, and it actually fried 3 of my FireWire ports (one internal, one on a PCI card. and one on my PowerBook, which was thankfully still under warranty and had to get the motherboard replaced); they are to be avoided like the plague. Their customer support is nonexistent. The ADVC100 has been completely reliable, a real pleasure after the torture the Dazzle put me through.