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  1. Member
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    Long story short - I picked one of these up a while back with the intention of backing up my old vhs tapes. And being the genius that I am, I tossed all of the cables that came with it after thinking I had set them aside.

    Currently, I'm running a desktop with Windows 10 64bit, a Avermedia CE310B capture card, and wanted to put the A/V Link to use. Does anyone have any recommendations for a power cord that will work for this? All I could find online was its 5vdc, and looking at prior units sold on ebay, it came with a DVE 3103 unit (which doesn't help a lot lol).

    Any help is much appreciated, and apologies if this isn't the correct forum. Glad to be a part of the community
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  2. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Just find out the polarity and the working amperage, Any power adapter with the right barrel size and hole that meets those requirements should work fine, This seems like a good candidate but don't take my word for it:
    https://www.amazon.com/UPBRIGHT-ADS-Tech-Xpress-Video/dp/B01ALBEJS6
    Last edited by dellsam34; 28th Aug 2022 at 23:58.
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    Originally Posted by Phroztee View Post
    Long story short - I picked one of these up a while back with the intention of backing up my old vhs tapes. And being the genius that I am, I tossed all of the cables that came with it after thinking I had set them aside.

    Currently, I'm running a desktop with Windows 10 64bit, a Avermedia CE310B capture card, and wanted to put the A/V Link to use. Does anyone have any recommendations for a power cord that will work for this? All I could find online was its 5vdc, and looking at prior units sold on ebay, it came with a DVE 3103 unit (which doesn't help a lot lol).

    Any help is much appreciated, and apologies if this isn't the correct forum. Glad to be a part of the community
    see here page 131 - https://manualzz.com/doc/en/1407214/ads-technologies-pyro-a-v-link-user-manual
    try calling technical support.
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  4. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    I don't even think the company is still in business and even if it is they will not support a device that was made 20 years ago.
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  5. Member
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    DVE DSR-0051-03

    "WARNING !!!!!" be very careful to "READ" the actual label of the adapter, the DVE DSR-0051-07 is a common mistake and its a different Voltage.

    The 3003 is (I think) a style code for the arrangement of the Prongs and shape of the case, there are other ones, but this one specifically has a "Fuse" inside which is why it has a screw in the case.. though I have never tried to repair one.

    This is a "low noise" adapter.. and small to reduce RF .. other generic adapters.. will introduce interference in the picture.

    ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link

    Were a "Family" of hardware capture codecs, compressed to the DV 4:1:1 spec over firewire (IEEE1394)

    API550 Rev A,B,C,D,E (version before 'C' had problems that required a return to factory for upgrade)
    API555

    API557
    API558

    There were two major model changes besides firmware differences, the API550 and API55 were one model type, the API557 and API558 were the second model type

    They were cheap and inexpensive compared to the Canopus and other brands like Director Take 2, and mostly for consumer camcorder capture, whether the camcorder had a firewire 4 pin output, or only a composite output. They also had S-Video and Component inputs and outputs.

    The 'era' these were used Non-Linear editing was new and home computers were kind of expensive.. so there was kind of a toy feeling to them.

    But Both Apple and Microsoft adopted the DV1 and DV2 specification from the early 1990's as their official editing standard and built it into OSX and Windows for iMove and MovieMaker. So it was kind of "easy" to hook up a generic IEEE1394 or iLink device to a Mac or PC and capture video into .mov or .avi files

    I owned a Pyro back in the day, it came with Adobe Premiere Elements and was kind of 'low powered' and unstable for capturing from VHS.

    VHS is pure analog and has no timecode, so dropped video frames or audio samples can get missed and then de-synchronized causing Lip sync problems.

    The Pyro has "no" frame synchronizer, so it can't make a decision about what to do if it detects missed/corrupt video frames or audio samples.. generally software will offer the choice to "abort" if it detects missing video or audio even for a split second.. but if you force it to continue, the software will reset the device and re-start the capture and sort of patch the streams together..and you get lip sync problems.

    Today the decisions made back in OSX and Windows XP days.. have left relics of the IEEE1394 capture drivers in the operating systems.. so generally if you hook up a firewire device.. it will get adopted by the latest device driver in OSX or XP, Vista, 7, 8.1, 10 and then a DV tape driver will glob on to the device as a pseudo VTR tape deck.. and iMovie or MovieMaker will let you capture video.. if you turn off "deck control".. if you don't turn off "deck control" the program will wait for the deck to respond to a "Start command" from the Mac or PC forever.

    Deck control.. was useful with "some" camcorders because IEEE1394 or i.Link could "Send" simple start stop commands over the same IEEE1394, i.Link, firewire cable. Most consumer VCRs don't have IEEE1394, i.Link or firewire.. so "deck control" is meaningless. You have to start and stop the VCR yourself.

    DV was never really "meant" for capturing TV programs.. it was meant for capturing shorter length "clips" and transferring camcorder video from digital tape to a PC for editing. And if necessary capturing from absolutely "perfect" analog video, like from a broadcast deck, which actually had time codes.. and could insert "fake" video frames or audio samples, like blank screens, or "loss of signal images" or repeating the last good frame, white noise, ect...

    Today there are standalone "frame synchronizers" and "old used DVD recorders with pass-thru".. that can do the same thing, even if the DVD recorder DVD burners no longer work.

    Broadcast frame synchronizers cost a lot of money, new old or inbetween.. mere mortals.. do not get their hands on frame synchronizers very often, and its often a story of Greek tragedy proportions.

    Old used DVD recorders.. people sort of get.. working.. and use those to pre-process the signal before it gets to something like the Pyro.. but then you start asking.. why are you doing DV (4:1:1) capture?

    DVD used a different compression scheme, MPEG-2 (4:2:2) which was consumer Home Theater grade.. it was not made for editing.. but was generally fine for watching up until HDTV or raw YPrPb (Component) capture became more common.

    Windows XP was the generation of DV and the Camcorder

    Windows Vista, 7, 8.1 were the generations of DVD and MPEG2, and mainstream TV program recording

    Apple left the consumer in the lurch with FinalCut Pro X and never looked back.. they left the old stuff in place until OSX 13, and then left Intel for M1 .. so it was always a broadcasters platform.. unless you went to HDMI or SDI capture standards.. which for a long time was far beyond what most people could afford.

    Microsoft was all over the place.. many TV capture cards came and went, raw YPrPb (4:2:2 YUV) became more common and practical, and H.264 is here and firmly entrenched.. and H.265 is pseudo.. wibbly wobbly here.. not here.. "hello no".. will never be accepted. Its mostly up to the whims of YouTube and Twitch and the current twenty year old (or younger) influencers and daily streamers.

    Mostly there is a solution for every OS and every taste today, some of it depends on your budget and tolerance for opinions or old gear.. or simplicity.

    You can make a Pyro work.. but its around a 20 year old technology using a 30 year old video capture spec.. and it will play on most things.. but the quality will be low and the files huge compared to other compressed formats.. and the Pyro captures a low grade compressed format.

    If you want to know what Apple did after they gave up on DV.. they did not go to MPEG-2.. they went straight to H.264 in a .mov container.. judging that superior to Microsoft's approach of " embrace all standards ". Since there was not only one H.264 spec.. Apple invented their own and called it the Apple Animation Codec.. later they kept inventing their own Codec specifications and invented Apple ProRes and forbid Microsoft "legally" from using it to capture on the Windows platform.. by then the on again.. off again.. Apple Microsoft romance/divorce/romance was on the rocks again. - Adobe brokered a deal much later.. but its debatable if its the "same" ProRes spec.. or a work-a-like just different enough to keep them out of legal hot water.

    So if Apple can be said to be "objective" or to have expensive if discriminating tastes.. they thought H.264 was better than MPEG-2 (H.262).. H.264 was also judged.. spec'd.. to be easier to edit than MPEG-2. But mostly since MPEG-2 was designed for "viewing" not editing and H.264 had more "profiles" or flavors that could change the GOP length (Group of Pictures) and fiddeling with it, choosing it.. the right way.. would make it easier to edit. (Which is what Apple did..)

    Today most Game capture boxes "encode" to H.264 and YouTube prefers flavors of H.264.. and then re-encodes it.. insanity and much nashing of teeth ensued.. and people are still in therapy to this day.

    The key thing about Game capture boxes is they expect absolute perfect signals, prefer HDMI and have no tolerance for dropped frames or audio samples.. they just abort and quit.. very low effort.. very simplistic. In theory a frame sync would help.. and for VHS or Beta, VCR playback.. a time base corrector to help with horizontal jitter, top curl and wavey swim lanes from noise and varying playback stress on the tape by the mechanics of the old machine doing the playback.
    Last edited by jwillis84; 31st Aug 2022 at 18:39.
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    Apple - The Lost City of MPEG-2

    Apple did not sit out the TV recording wars entirely.. more so.. they ceded the market place to companies like Miglia or Elgato (makers of EyeTV).

    But rather than embracing and extending the QuickTime platform (which was Apples take on Microsoft DirectX, or vice versa).. EyeTV struck out and created their own capture and hardware/software capture and playback ecosystem with Apples tacit blessing.

    Miglia like ATI brokered some combo products, they bundled hardware with EyeTV software.. but then went off on their own for a while..

    Hauppauge had a go at Apple bundling with their TV capture software bundles

    And ATI bundled the TV Wonder with EyeTV for a while, and then commissioned the 'rare' ATI TVPortal software which was native to ppc and also ran under Rosetta on Intel platforms.

    The general gist though, was like Windows Media Center on the Microsoft platform.. TV recording coalesced around hardware H.262-TS compression streams.. except for one notable company.. NEC/Renesas.. who went OP and produced hardware compressed H.262-PS natively, but that is a story for another day.

    Elgato with EyeTV on Apple products dominated and survives mostly to this day... for over the air broadcast recording.. and has slowly moved on to Game capture and Streaming.. being a favorite of many YouTubers producing live content.

    Legacy Apple capture products are usually either DV, HDV, Apple Animation Codec, or ProRes .. or capture raw YPrPb and then edit and crunch it down using an offboard hardware codec to offload the task of reducing huge edit files into rendered "drawings" or "consumables" for playback.. storing the original source files in huge lossless compressed formats like Apple ProRes.

    Working with raw YUV (YPrPb) of 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 has come round to consumers.. but its still an expensive effort.. simply because the files captured are so large.. so much like the professionals in 'them olden days' .. prosumers will capture in YUV using something like VideoGlide on Mac or VirtualDub on Windows with a capture device with a good video decoder.. and a good VCR and some sort of boxes in between to time correct and frame sync correct unstable signals.

    With ever larger TVs and Displays.. and ever newer playback devices.. we keep looking back at the old codecs and method to transfer old recordings and wanting to revisit or do it it better again. Everyone gets buyer regret.. and feels like they did it wrong the first time. But really its a matter of diminishing returns. The old tapes get older.. the signal degrades.. the playback devices degrade.. our eyes degrade.. and you just have to decide when enough is enough.

    I rather like to think of it like a retaining wall.. against age.. against time.. it only has to hold back entropy for so long.. and then it all belongs to history. If your worried about future regrets.. simply hold on to the original tapes, the original sources.. and maybe some new method will get popular or invented in the future.
    Last edited by jwillis84; 31st Aug 2022 at 19:33.
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  7. Member
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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    I don't even think the company is still in business and even if it is they will not support a device that was made 20 years ago.
    Peak ADS Tech was about 2008 at the turn of Vista/7

    After that they seemed to disappear virtually over night.

    There was an economic down turn around then, and in February of 2009 North American (US anyway) transitioned away from Analog NTSC broadcasting to MPEG2-TS (H.262-TS) over the air broadcasting. So a lot of things got shook up in the market all at once.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20080730055623/http://www.adstech.com/products/intro/products.asp



    The IEEE1394/firewire Pyros were succeeded by the SDI Pyros, but they like Blackmagic only offered "one" Analog to Digitial to SDI converter. They were clearly trying to capitalized on the move to SDI and the broadcast market. They "spun off" a whole new website and apparently a company and those page links left the old ADS Tech site quickly.

    The consumer DV Pyros basically "froze" in place with no new updates.. but since Vista and 7 supported IEEE1394 anyway.. those who used them were good up until about 2012 or 2014.

    People back then were more concerned with migrating DV video to MPEG-2 and burning that to DVD.

    The Codecs for consumer DV and MPEG-2-PS aligned the sampling regions for 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 to make the conversions computationally easy.. it was sort of by design.. in anticipation for upgrading (or compressing further DV editing copy) to MPEG2 when it became computationally and economically feasible.. anticipating no new DV would be created.. but that some sources were only available as DV sources.

    This was of course not the case with professional DV or PAL DV.. but that was a whole different thing.

    The DVDXpress 2 was "interesting" because it was the "last" consumer grade device offered that had a device driver written for Windows Vista and Windows 7 in 64 bit.. but it wasn't properly signed. It used the "now" Micronas owned GO007SB pre-compression chip that was in many Dazzles USB capture dongles at that time.. but it wasn't signed right and Windows 7 balks at it greatly. Disabling and test signing you can get it to work on Windows 7 x64 but its a lot of work.

    If they had survived.

    The DVDX2 probably would have become some type of Windows Media Center capture device.. but it had no tuner.. so it would have needed custom capture software. They had CapWiz .. but it was in beta.. and I guess the market just collapsed.
    Last edited by jwillis84; 12th Oct 2022 at 12:17.
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