Canopus advc 100 on a recent Laptop

[mohamed]

Hello,

I have a Canopus advc 100 that we used to connect to an old Macbook pro via ieee 1394-> Firewire 400 then with a convertor Firewire 400 -> Firewire 800.

The issue is that I only have a new Dell Latitude (no slot for external pcie capture card) and I can borrow a macbook air from a friend (with thunderbold 2).

I Would like to ask if there is any cheap convertors/cables I can buy to use the canopus with any of my recent Laptops? Here are the possibilty I thought of:

1- Using an ieee 1394 to USB but this won't work since the laptop is still missing a capture card that can read the stream!

2- Buy apple's firewire 800 to thunderbolt 2 adapter (I know it works for Hardrives but can someone please confirm if will work? Does the macbook air have the required Hardware for a dv stream or will it be like the useless usb convertor?)

Is there anyway to keep using my Canopus advc 100 with any of these recent Laptops? I have one of these 7-9$ Easycap usb, the quality is ok but not so good.
The canopus offers a very good quality that's Why I'm so keen on using it.

Should I simply give and buy another equipement with usb support? If yes can anyone suggest something that is as good as the canopus? I came accross pinnacle moviebox and dazzle, are those any good? Or should I go for something like Ezcap?

Hope someone can help me
Thanks in advance

[Brad]

Yes, you can chain adapters together to do it on a modern Mac:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/382905-Mini-DV-transfer-using-Thunderbolt-3#post2480697
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/376991-No-Firewire-Port-Apple-Thunderbolt-to-FireW...pter-MD464LL-A
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/377500-New-computer-old-firewire-tech#post2437075
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15QjTTF8_I

On Windows, there is one option to convert Firewire to USB for DV sources. I forget which OS is the maximum supported by latest drivers.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/380541-Where-can-I-get-USB-3-0-to-Firewire-400-con...=1#post2460123

[mohamed]

Thanks a lot for your reply!

[/INDENT]On Windows, there is one option to convert Firewire to USB for DV sources. I forget which OS is the maximum supported by latest drivers.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/380541-Where-can-I-get-USB-3-0-to-Firewire-400-con...=1#post2460123

As for doing it using a pc, as I understand from your link, the solution is to use pinnacle moviebox to convert the DV stream from firewire to usb (VCR -> Canopus with firewire cable-> pinnacle -> pc). But in that case, shouldn't I simply use it with my VCR directly? VCR -> pinnacle -> PC? Will the quality of the pinnacle be as good as the canopus?

I'm simply trying to digitize a couple of VHS tapes that I didn't digitize back when I had access to the Macbook pro but quality is so important. I need High quality/uncompressed streams because I will filter them later with avisynth and I want to avoid quality loss as much as possible.

Thanks in advance

[dellsam34]

DV is not better than USB capture, The reason why the easycrap didn't look good is because it is crap and you used it with its own application instead of say Vdub, DV is a lossy capture with half the chroma resolution is gone, VHS is already very low on chroma resolution around 30 lines, half of that you get about 15 lines.

Pinnacle boxes are good if you can find the driver for them, But some of them such as the USB-500 can be used for both capturing in USB mode and in DV mode as shown in the diagram below:

[Brad]

^ Good info there about the 500-USB. So Pinnacle made at least two devices for this purpose.


If you truly want highest quality, there are plenty of posts around about that. If by "a couple of VHS tapes" you really do mean less than 5, it probably makes more sense to find a high-quality service than to buy hardware. Just don't be fooled by all the low-quality services out there (most).

The Canopus cannot output uncompressed.

On the flipside, the Pinnacle Moviebox's analog video decoder chip (or the chip found in any other device) may be worse (or better) for any particular VHS tape input to it.

If you pursue the "uncompressed" route, you should actually capture using a lossless codec (Ut Video Codec Suite, MagicYUV; older ones like Huffyuv and Lagarith may be preferable on older capture computers).

For quality, the VCR is actually more important than the capture device.

Quoting this post: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395788-Should-i-change-my-VCR#post2571885

Sorry regulars, but reposting this yet again.

OP, read and thoroughly digest the info in these links, then come with further questions.

"Sorry to be a broken record, but read these links which answers your questions:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/editorials/digital-video/professional-analog-workflow.htm

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/1567-vcr-buying-guide.html

For equipment, read this http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/marketplace/8057-sale-complete-workflow.html and contact lordsmurf for a guaranteed quality workflow. Trying to piece together your own workflow is hit and miss, especially today."

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/395105-Getting-back-into-Capturing-Setup-Advice

[mohamed]

@dellsam34, thanks for your answer!
Yes you're totally right. The tapes that we digitized earlier had some serious chroma bleeding! I tried to solve it as much as I could with avisynth to reach a "watchable" quality, but still it's far from being good enough.

And yes I actually didn't try the easycap with virtual dub just their software... I will give it a try and see!

@vaporeon800, yes I looked a bit and found that pinnacle actually has a couple of different devices, and their lastest one is called dazzle.

Thanks for qutoing this post, I will have a look at those links

The number of tapes I need to digitize is around ~20, I once asked a service here where I live, but they either charge ridicoulous fees, or they're not flexible enough to give me the raw output of the capture device so I can encode it myself.

I guess the VCR I'm using is a good one, I will google the reviews a bit more once I'm home. I don't the model number atm. But it was choosen by friend who got it from Japan and she ended up giving it to me. AFAIK, she did a lot of research back then before buying because she needed to digitize some tapes as well.

I have read some of the available topics here and on digitalfaq, but I just thought I might ask since a lot of devices are discontinued now or can't easily work with our recent laptops. The only usb devices I found so far are the onces form dazzle/pinnacle and ezcap, but I don't know if they're good.

Also I saw a lot of posts suggesting to use a TBC, but I could not find any affordable used ones, so I guess I might just try to do it without those tbc devices.