Canopus ADVC-100 Questions...

[monoxide77]

I have never used this product but I think I'm going to buy it. First I have a few questions to clarify some things.
1. Someone mentioned that after the capture, the video actually looks sharper than the source. Is this true and if so, how is this possible?
2. Does it actually capture at DVD resolution?
3. Does anybody have any sample clips of something they've captured with this device?

[Anonymous65]

The ADVC-100 is a high quality audio and video digitizer. It captures the analog video to 720x480 24 bit video (over 200Mb/sec) and captures audio uncompressed DV standards. When someone says the video looks sharper after capture means that the device has a mid to upper video frequency boost. this is OK for high quality video, but low quality video might look a bit nosy with this extra boost. However, I'm pretty sure the video frequency responce of the ADVC-100 is quite flat. In contrast to other cheap video capture devices, which usually have a high end roll-off. A warning about the ADVC-100, it does NOT compress the video 5:1 (DV fomat) in the box itself, it is done my your PC using a DV codec you have to buy in addition to the ADVC-100. So, you will need a powerfull PC to handle 720x480 24 bit video without dropping frames!

[ajp]

First of all, the ADVC-100 does indeed COMPRESS TO DV IN HARDWARE. The stream reaching your harddrive is already compress by the ADVC-100 using the Canopus codec! CPU usage is very very low, harddrive activity will be higher though since DV files become quite big. NO COMPRESSING IS DONE IN SOFTWARE!

About the sharpness, I'd say it's about the same. Looks pretty much as the original. Looks the same when played back to TV and it's difficult to judge on the computer screen because it depends on how you play it back and which codec you use. It does look very good though! The cleaner the source the better of course...

[Anonymous65]

Well, the ADVC-100 I bought from Canopus DOES NOT compress the video in any form, it outputs 200Mb/sec 24 bit uncompressed video via the firewire. You might want to contact Canopus if you think your unit does hardware compression, because my unit did not. This is the reason why I returned the unit.

[ajp]

Well I'm pretty sure mine does! How do you know it outputs 200Mb/s? Do the files get that big? Which program did you use to capture??? My CPU usage is close to zero when capturing...

According to Canopus they have their own hardware codec that compresses the video, a codec which is know for it's quality. I'm almost 100% sure about this...

I'll see if I can find something on Canopus on this so I can prove that I'm right... For one thing the product specs say "Custom hardware Codec chip (original Canopus algorithm) "

[Anonymous65]

Yes, I got "fooled" by the claim of special Canopus hardware encoder. However, the specs for the unit says the output is 200Mb/sec, which is not DV video. I had a 800Mhz PC at the time, and it totally chocked on capturing using the Microsoft DV codec to capture. I contacted tech support, and that is when I was told the unit did not hardware compress the video to DV. He even claimed DV video is not good enough for editing, only uncompressed 24 bit is, which is what the unit outputs.
However, I just wrote a new message to tech support asking the same question again. We'll see what they say this time. I would like to confirm once and for all what the ADVC-100 unit does.

[ajp]

200Mbps is the specs of the digital inputs and not the bitrate of the captured video...

Digital Video in/out
> 6pin S200 (200Mbps), 4pin S200 (200Mbps)

Which program did you use to capture? The programs I've tried doesn't compress the incoming video when set to DV input, they just expect to get DV format and it works fine. The ADVC-100 doesn't have a driver or anything so there's nothing that compresses the video in software....

It would be strange if the unit doesn't capture DV since it's called ADVC-100 which stands for Advanced DV Converter...

[Anonymous65]

I believe I used the program Screen Analyzer to capture the stream from the firewire port. I had to select a DV codec to save the video in DV fomat, otherwise it saved it in 24 bit color format.

[monoxide77]

the whole reason i want the ADVC-100 is because i was under the impression that the compression was hardware based. what if you paired it with a DV capture card?

[ajp]

Never heard of it? URL? I use Scenalyzer live mostly and it lets you chose which type of DV (1/2/canopus etc) but only DV format...

Did you try another program? Maybe this program only sees the video and doesn't care if it's already in DV format and compresses the video itself with the chosen codec??? Kind of like when I tell DVD Workshop to capture directly in mpeg2....

monoxide77,

you only need a Firewire card to connect the ADVC-100. There is a model called ADVC-1394 which is a PCI card too and ADVC-50 which is something in between. It compresses in hardware, at least mine does on my machine. I use it almost everyday...

[nimco]

Hi everybody,

I will make an experement to clear-up this question.
I just ordered ADVC-100, FireWire card and ScenalyzerLive softw. for my PIII 600Mhz. I will have them in a couple days. I will install just a FireWire card drivers. And will start capturing. It will be NO software on my PC for DV encoding. According to Skittelsen I should have on my HD huge file which will be created by 200Mbps 24bit videostreem. However if I will have on my HD AVI as DV format file it must be very poor quality due to my slow PC. Also I will monitor CPU load. The second thing, I will connect an Oscilloscope accross to FireWire card inputs (those two comm lines). And I shoul easily recognize what is the data transfer bitrate, is it 200Mbps
or much slower, something arround 28Mbps.

Please correct my if I am wrong.

nimco

[ajp]

Just checked my CPU usage while capturing DV using Scenalyzer, 2-10% on my P4-2.53. Most of this is probably disk activity...

[Toogy]

Ok, to clear things up here. I capture 2 hours of footage and the file that is on my hard drive is 22-23 GB. That is DV format. I capture real time, CPU usage very low, no dropped frames.
If it was uncompressed the files would be HUGE!!!!!!
I am using vegas video 3.0 to do the capturing.

[dgraham]

I run a PIII 600Mhz, a pyro 1394 card, and the Canopus ADVC-100. I use scenalyzer to do the capture (great program). I have a 40 gb scsi disk that i capture to. I have never dropped a frame. As long as your hard disk is quick enough, a PII-600 will do the job fine.

I love my advc-100. I especially like how you can shut off the macrovision (although I'd never do anything like that )

[ajp]

Finally, people who agree with me... where were you guys?

[nimco]

Dgraham,

What do you think, do I have quick enough 7200rpm hard disk connected to ATA66 PCI card or I need something faster. Should I capture with the Scenalyzer DV files as type 2 AVI,if I like use use my VirtualDub.
And what is the sequence for capturing PAL and convert them to NTSC?

nimco

[monoxide77]

this is from Canopus' website:
KEY BENEFITS:
High Quality (original hardware design, co-developed with NEC
> Custom hardware Codec chip (original Canopus algorithm)
> Locked Audio Support (capture long clips w/perfect audio sync)
> Analog output of NTSC color bars for reference signal)
> 4-pin DV jack on front; 6-pin FireWire jack on back
> Analog input connector on front
> Analog output connector on back

[The village idiot]

Sorry, I feel lazy so I'll just give you the link.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=111740&highlight=firewire

Works great, I even edit and output to a DV file with that machine, using EditStudio. Slow as molassas (sp) in January, but it will get the job done. I know it isn't an ADVC-xx but it will give some light into minimum specs.

[dgraham]

One more thing now that I'm sitting in front of my home pc:

I'm looking at a 4 minute clip of Blindside performing on Conan O'Brien a few weeks ago that I captured through my advc-100 using scenalyzer live. Here are the properties:

file size: (871 MB) 913,705,252 bytes
duration: 4 min 1 sec.
bitrate: 1536 kbps
audio sample size: 16 bit
audio format: pcm

So, 4 minutes - 871 Mb. You guys do the math.

I have scenalyzer live capture type 2 files 'cause that's what Adobe Premiere wants. Don't know about virtualdub.

Hope this helps someone. Sorry I don't know squat about PAL.