ADVC-100 Help Requested (Again)

[EwanG]

OK, I am getting thoroughly flustered, and would like to see if I can get some (more) help from the group.

Setup starts with an older Sony Laptop with a busted screen but otherwise in good shape. System is a 500 MhZ PIII with 192 megs of RAM running XP Pro. Internal HD is in two partitions, a C partition with 500 megs free, and an M partition (long story) with 17 Gigs free. My "guess' is that the internal HD is an older 5400 RPM drive.

Machine has two items hooked up to the i.link (firewire) port. The first is an 80 Gig Maxtor HD rated to be 7200 rpm and with 65 Gigs free. The other is a Canopus ADVC-100.

I am trying to do my captures on this machine since I can then let captures run while I'm doing other work on my other machine. I thought about setting things up the other way around - but with the busted screen that would be difficult. Because of XP Pro I can do a Remote System connection to this machine and so don't miss the internal screen (much). Idea is to do the captures to the external HD for space and speed reasons.

First thought was to use VirtualDub to capture/edit. Can't seem to do either with a DV device.

Next thought was to use Windows Movie Maker. It won't let you run it in a Terminal/Remote session. Interesting restriction...

I then tried the Video program that came with my DVD burner (ArcSoft ShowBiz). I can't seem to find a capture setting that doesn't cause little sound "glitches" as the ADVC adjusts to keep the sound and video in sync with the slower system capture. Also have been unable to find a way to get ShowBiz to use a scratch disk other than C (bad!).

I have found two tools that will do a capture - DVIO and DVApp. DVApp also includes a preview mode which makes life a little simpler and lets you choose between Type 1 and Type 2 DV. However, I can only seem to get a good capture in 360x480 mode - otherwise I get that sound "glitch". I could live with the size, except that VirtualDub won't edit either type of DV file, even after I DL'd and installed the DV Codec that Canopus has on their site. The ShowBiz program will work with that file, but I can't find a way to do "fine" control of setting the edit points. So trying to set the start and stop on a one hour file is next to impossible.

What I've ended up doing so far is to do the capture using DVApp, then "convert" to MPEG-2 using ShowBiz, then edit and final convert to MS MPEG-4 V2 using Vidomi.

Please tell me there's an easier way that won't cost me several hundred dollars!

Thanks,
Ewan

[TBoneit]

a. Older & Many newer laptops have 4500 rpm drives slower uses less power for battery life.

b. Sony has a VGA port on the Back usually, why not plug monitor to that via a switch?

c. You could try windows MM if you put use option b. above.

d. Get the Scenalyzer Live trial version from the tools menu at left, and run it. It has a test in it that will tell you capture abilty of drive... on my system it showed 10+ time the required rate for drop free captures.

I reg'd Scenealyzer Live because of the neat preview capabilty and ability to pre-edit while capturing, using the pause button it has when capturing.

Good Luck
Roger

[flaninacupboard]

first thing, i use dvapp, and when i capture, the preview has broken sound. however, the actual capture is perfect.
TMPGenc will work with DV AVI, and the newer versions (2.59 and up) let you do simple editing in the source range, you select a start frame and an end frame and you can chop it out, perfect for removing adverts. you can then output to MPEG, or whatver codec you like (use file - output to file - AVI and choose whatever you like.)

[rob1]

I use dvio to capture from the Canopus and pull it into VirtualDub no problem. (Actually, I use VirtualDubMod, but I think it will work with VD too.) If I'm just editing out commercials, I use direct stream copy- no worries with compression- and save a temp file to feed to CCE. If I'm using filters, I re-compress using the Panosonic DV (chosen due to reading info from http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33526).

I'm not sure why I've had no problems, because I know others have. But it is possible to pull Canopus converted DV into VD if you capture with Dvio and then edit as you choose.

[yg1968]

You need to install another DV codec. The Canopus DV codec only gets used with Canopus software. Try the Panasonic DV codec. You will then be able to use Vdub for converting to mpeg-4. Capture in type 2 DV.

I doubt that you are actually capturing DV at 360x420. You have no choice but to capture DV at 720x480. You are possibly playing it back at less than full resolution but the file is still 720x480.