recording a Nature program this weekend on DVD.

[tab75-13]

Hi all,

I have a very naïve question to ask once again. I have a Dac 100 and I am attempting to take a feed out of my scientific american cable box by using RCA video and audio cables, connecting them to my DAC 100 and then running firewire to my PB G4 from it, hoping to record a tv feed. But although iMovie detects a "camera" connected when it senses the firewire connected to it and supposedly playing as well, I am not able to see anything on the iMovie blue screen. Do I absolutely need to purchase some sort of tv recording software such as eyetv? I thought there might be some way to do this this way, but again I am surely naïve in this. Any directions would be most appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance,

T

p.s. I am sure I have asked a similar question before, so please overlook any redundance. thx.

[Domy]

Hi,

I have a ADVC 100 which I have connected to my cable box and my mac. Everytime I turn it on I get a blue screen in iMovie. To get the cable box feed I need to switch the input select button from digital in to analog in. The input select button in on top of the front of the unit.

I hope this helps.

Domy

[tab75-13]

I tried to do that as well, but I got no video. Mine though is not a ADVC-100 but a DAC 100. How was your ADVC connected to the cable box? I connected it via RCA cable ou from the cable box, but I am not sure if any video or audio was actually being sent along those cables. I have digital cable, or so Time Warner charges me for it, so I didn't think that changing the source to analog would do anything, and when I did change to analog video, although iMovie indicated camera playing and the import button was blued, I was still never able to see a video when I clicked on those. Perhaps it's because what the cable defines as digital cable doesn't carry DV, digital video, the kind that iMovie deals in.

I am willing to invest in Eye TV, but in addition to buying the software it seems I have to buy a hardware device such as Hybrid Tv as well from them. Is that right? Does anyone know? Where can I buy this hardware device? I have an APple store in town. Will they carry it?

I would really like to be able to do this little experiment on the cheap, however. I'd appreciate your input.

Thanks,

T

[Domy]

Yes I think that with Eye TV you have to buy a hardware device such as Hybrid Tv as well. The ADVC 100 is also a hardware device. You don't need any software for it though. You connect it to your computer as you would a camcorder.

I have a satellite dish (digital output) but can receive its signal through the analog input only. The digital input is used for DV sources. I have also my VCR connected to the ADVC through RCA cables for audio and video. The video signal of the cable box is send through a S-Video cable. The VCR is also connected to the cable box. This way I can record VHS tapes onto my computer. This also mean, however, that the VCR has to be on if I want to have audio when recording from the cable box. It also means that when I want to record from my VCR I have to unplug the S-Video cable. It has to do with the priority ordrer of the input connectors.

Could thls be the problem. Is your DAC 100 connected to any other video source?

Domy

[tab75-13]

Thanks for all your help Domy,

It did seem to have to do with pushing those buttons that change from AV to DV. But the converted box is unreliable; sometimes it says it is exporting in AV, but nothing plays in iMovie, even though it indicates that a camera is playing. I had to "reboot" this box to get a video signal and change the source to AV, since it seemed to be fixed earlier. I missed recording the majority of the program tonight because of the last minute difficulty of not seeing the video in iMovieHD. Something strange I hadn't seen with iMovie though was that the imported clip seemed not to stop. It has been a while since I made a project in iMovie, but the last time the clips seemed to break at every five or even less minutes increments. Any thoughts on why the one clip I was able to import near the end of the program lasted 20+ minutes? I am going to try to import another program this week and hopefully will not encounter the same difficulties I did tonight.

Thanks again for all of your help for tolerating my incomprehensible message(s).

T