Some help with Canopus ADVC100 please

[Flying G]

Hello

I bought one of these converters and wonder if someone could answer a couple of basic questions please regarding my attempts to get VHS footage onto my hard drive.
I have an S-Video lead and a two phono audio lead from the VHS recorder to the front of the ADVC100. I have the Firewire lead coming out of the front also and straight into a Firewire connection on my soundcard. I can get the picture up in Uleads DVD Movie Factory 3 but no sound unless, as I have done, run another audio phono lead from the back of the ADVC100 to a 3.5mm also on my soundcard. Is this correct?
I thought the Firewire DV lead should do all that.

Also somewhere along the line my 6.1 surround speaker set has blown(?) leaving me with one speaker only working. If I try and capture after 30 seconds or so, a high pitched tone takes over almost completely from the video sound and on playback there is no sound at all apart from the tone again.
I really have no idea whether it is coincidence or if I had the volume too high when I started the capture and I have now ruined the speakers.
I don't want to blow more money on new speakers and the same thing happens again.

Any thoughts or finger pointing and laughing, would be appreciated as the manual I thought was fairly easy to follow!

Graham

[thecoalman]

The audio and video comes over the firewire, this is one of the great things about the Canopus because the audio and video is locked practcally eliminating the possibility of the A/V going out of sync.

I don't know if this makes a difference but there should be a firewire connection on the back (I have the 110, they should be the same). Try that, make sure you disconnect all output jacks besides the firewire. So what you should have is s-video or yellow RCA video cable connected to the front and the red and white audio connected to the front. On the back should be just the firewire.

Are you sure you don't have audio? Is it possible that it's working and because of your speaker troubles you just can't hear it? Can you try it on another computer? I'm guessing what your experiencing is a system issue related to your soundcard.

I'd also suggest getting a regular PCI firewire card, there cheap and easy to install. Although it should work on your soundcard I had nothing but trouble with a DV cam when it was connected to the firewire port on my soundcard. It kept disconnecting.

[jimmalenko]

If you're capturing material and then on playback there's no audio, I'm pretty sure it's because you're capturing to Type 1 DV AVI instead of type 2 DV AVI. AFAIK only Type 2 DV AVI has video and audio through the firewire cable. Type 1 requires a separate lead, as you have found.

I too am a little skeptical about firewire ports on soundcards.

[Flying G]

Thankyou for your advice guys.
Although there is a Firewire connection on the back I think the lead supplied has a four 4 pin on one end and a 6 pin on the other, so I don't think I can reverse them.
Unfortunately I don't have another PC, but will try your suggestions.
I have just been to the place I bought the PC to inquire about new speakers. They suggested that the Audigy soundcard drivers should be re-installed as it seems Audigy cards can have these weird turns.

One of the test captures I did, replayed in the Ulead program window with sound, but when I played the mpg back outside the program there was no sound.
I then tried to play a wav file which had no sound, bar the high pitched tone, so I guess this maybe looking like a soundcard problem.
Could be speakers of course as only one of the six and the bass box work when I get any sound.

Lots of thing to try - Thanks again.

Graham

[jimmalenko]

I have the same setup, with yellow (composite) video and red & white (RCA) audio going into the front, with a 4 pin firewire coming out of the front and into my PC, so there's no dramas there in terms of connections.

[Flying G]

Have just downloaded and tried the new soundcard drivers.
All speakers are back bar one, which gives me somewhere to start from at least.
Will try sometime today to capture again.
Cheers
Graham

[redwudz]

The six pin and four pin Firewire is basically the same. The six pin Firewire just includes power wires for operating some external devices. I use a six pin cable and the supplied adapter that plugs into the rear SVHS socket (I don't have SVHS) to keep all the input and output cables on the back of the unit. Looks better-works the same.

[Flying G]

Well it seems to have worked! The video I am doing is old and the sound breaks up at the end of the clip. There was spitting and spluttering noises for 30 seconds or so until it settled down. I hope this is due to the poor video sound.
I have ended up with the the S-VHS, phono leads and DV lead all on the front and nothing from the back.
Do I have to set any volume control anywhere whilst capturing?
Otherwise I think I'm there.
Cheers
Graham

[Flying G]

Spoke too soon.
When capturing the sound stutters for awhile and then is okay and then stutters some more.
This is not so evident when playing the mpg back outside of Ulead.

[Robert Simandl]

Sounds like it might be a problem with your Ulead software. You might try capturing with WinDV, and then using Ulead to convert the captured avi file.

I use WinDV for my capturing, TMPGEnc to convert to mpeg-2, then TMPGEnc DVD Author for my VHS-to-DVD needs.

[Flying G]

Thanks Robert. Willing to give anything a try. The finished mpeg does not stutter at all, so I think its worth trying WinDV to just see.
Graham

[rhegedus]

Try this set-up:



Taken from this thread:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=739835#739835

[sammie]

The poster on the 4 vs. 6 pin is right, the other pins are for power and are not needed for a 4 device with it's own powersupply such as the ADVC100. I've used both without a problem.

My bet is the capture program, and then use Type II DV. Use WINDV or DVIO, both free in the tools section.

It also sounds like you still have some sound card issues. You might want to try going in and deleting the soundcard from your system hardware profile. Make sure you have the new drivers loaded, or the disk ready (follow the directions in the read me file to be sure which). Then re-boot the computer. The soundcard will be detected and hopefully all the right drivers will load.

[Capmaster]

Rob,

You sure those are composite cables coming out of the ADVC100? They look suspiciously like BNC component RGB

[budz]

It's best to use a PCI FIREWIRE CARD instead of one from your sound card. If you check the canopus forum you'll see that using a PCI FIREWIRE CARD has less compatiblity issues. Try using SCENALYZER to capture.

[thecoalman]

I'm pretty sure it's because you're capturing to Type 1 DV AVI instead of type 2 DV AVI. AFAIK only Type 2 DV AVI has video and audio through the firewire cable. Type 1 requires a separate lead, as you have found.

I cap in Type 1 all the time, from my understanding the only reason to choose type 2 is if your software doesn't support type 1.

[jimmalenko]

I'm pretty sure it's because you're capturing to Type 1 DV AVI instead of type 2 DV AVI. AFAIK only Type 2 DV AVI has video and audio through the firewire cable. Type 1 requires a separate lead, as you have found.

I cap in Type 1 all the time, from my understanding the only reason to choose type 2 is if your software doesn't support type 1.

I stand corrected

[thecoalman]

I stand corrected

LS got me on another thread, I had to make myself feel good again

Almost forgot.... I know VS8 does type 1 and I'm pretty sure it does type 2. If your capturing using VS8 this isn't an issue as it will only capture in what it can use which is probably both, I know the capture component in Media Studio Pro supports both.