Questions for ADVC-100 owners

[rallynavvie]

I've got a Dazzle Hollywood DV bridge currently which gets occasional use (not much of my source is analog anymore) but I've been having intermittent problems with it not working well from my VCR. I found some reviews on this site from people having the same problem. I also found that the Canopus card is highly recommended. But I had some questions that weren't immediately apparent from the info on their website about the ADVC-100. I can use my Dazzle bridge to convert from an analog source to DV as well as vice-versa (so I can record to VHS or output to a preview monitor), does the Canopus card do this as well? Everything there says "best analog to DV converter available" but nothing about digital to analog. I would assume it does as it has analog and digital inputs/outputs on the front and back of the unit. The audio locking feature sounds pretty great too. Anyone use both cards and have some pros/cons between the the two?

I don't want to have to shell out an appendage or two for a DSR-25 for an end-all to analog-DV-analog

~Garrett

[trillium]

Unfortunately I can't give you a comparison between the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge and the Canopus. When I was first shopping around, I read what I could about all the different devices used for capturing and decided based on that to go straight for the ADVC-100.

I think the following link explains it all when getting a "visual" of what the ADVC-100 is capable of:http://www.canopus.com/US/products/advc-100/pt_advc-100.asp#key%20benefits and while I haven't had experience with the DV -> out, I can imagine (and would hope) it would offer the best quality out there.

The audio locking feature works well, I've captured about 4 hours worth of DV video without any loss of sync so far. The only loss of audio sync that occurred was my own stupid fault when I encoded audio seperately from video and forgot to offset it by the 2 seconds I had clipped

p.s. While you are at the Canopus site take a look at their user forums in the ADVC area. Many people go there as a first step asking for advice on what the best solution would be or for comparison...

[pb]

The ADVC100 does convert DV to analogue, and as stated vice versa. It will capture(file transfer really) DV from DV cameras etc too. It will do both PAL and NTSC (selected by dip switches). The audio is locked and quality great. I only ever tried two analogue capture cards and gave up in disgust.

The ADVC100 can also be used by itself to capture analogue to DV through a DV Camera (I have not tried this but read on another forum some where). It really is simple to use and produces great quality. I have used IuVCR to schedule captures from a VCR tuner etc.

As said before, the Canopus web site is very good.