Home DVD Recorder Questions

[Hounddog]

Hi, after researching various anolog capture devices, both internal and external for my computer I have found that the Canopus ADVC units came the highest recomended. They have the 50 + 55, and the 100. The 55 + 100 are external units and the 50 is a PCI card. The 50 series only converts anolog to digital, and the 100 goes both ways.

Canopus also has a ADVC 300 ( as well as other higher end units ) I called Canopus and talked with them, and found that the ADVC 300 has a Time Base Corrector, with other filtering abilities. The TBC is needed to help with the jitter in older worn out VHS tapes.

OK with that said, I started looking at stand alone home DVD-VHS combos with the TBC built into it. This is going to be on a hobby level for me.

From what I have found, I am leaning toward the Sony RDG GX7 unit for a few reasons. First it can be bought for about $300, which is about $150 less than the Canopus ADVC 300 unit, as well as it gives me another DVD player, and VHS recorder. The Sony GX7 also has some other nice features.

From what I have read I need to burn the orginal DVD on the Sony, then do my editing on my computer and then burn another disk. I have also read that the Sony has wea bit of a problem with the RW disks. I figure that is not a big deal, as even the mid range quality R disk are about .50 each. I figure that is a minor thing if you are looking at speanding $300 to get the unit in the first place. Keep in mind I am on a hobbist level.

Is this the way to go ? Please keep in mind that some of the tapes are 20 years old to begain with. I know.....garbage in = garbage out, but I understand that this unit will help clean up some of that garbage.

I am looking for input from other Sony users as well as users of other units with the TBC.

How does the Sony GX7 stand up to separate VHS and DVD recorders ? Then would I need a seporate TBC unit to be a Go-Between ? Or would that be built in one of the separate units ? Can both of these separates unit be bought for the $300 price range ?

Thank You for your replies, good or bad.

Hounddog

[bugster]

I can't comment on the Sony, but I will say this.

Standalone DVD recorder. Pros: Simple, quick, effective. Cons: limited, restrictive, difficult to edit

ADVC 100 (or similiar). Pros: High quality, flexible, allows easy editing and post processing. Cons: Slower, more complex and time intensive procedures required for best results.

Basicall a PC based capture device gives you much more flexibility than a standalone unit. Capturing to an avi format (such as DV Avi that Canopus ADVC100 gives) allows you much greater eas and flexibility of editing and post processing (filters etc) than when your material is in mpeg-2 format.

If you want quick simple captures and just a bit of cut and splice type editing then a standalone DVD recorder as a capture device may be appropriate.

If the standalone you are considering is a combined VCR/DVD recorder and some of your original source tapes are commercial ones you need to consider the effects of Macrovision, probably not possible to remove in this case.