[tr]

hello everyone!

i'm thinking of finally breaking down and buying a analog to DV converter, and was curious to hear the comments of those that own and use these devices, like Formac Studio, Dazzle DV-Hollywood Bridge, Miglia Director's Cut Take 1 or Take 2, etc.

i've been using a Canopus ADV-100 at work (but on a PC). i tested it briefly on my G4 (just to see if it worked) but have not worked extensively with it on a mac. i checked to see if it worked on my mac, because i was having problems with it at work, running on XP. it's been acting kinda flaky under XP: it switches from analog input to digital randomly, video thru doesn't work some times, many times it needs a power off/on cycle to get it working right again. so i don't know of this is an XP thing, or if, over time, it will act kinda flaky on the mac.

so i'm interested in what other people have to say about the other converters on the market, as i have no experience with the other devices.


thanks guys,


tr

[Ganesha]

I have a Formac Studio.

I've been very happy with it, as it produces good quality captures. A few minor issues:

1) Having to use the Formac software to set the input source before using iMovie/FCP.

2) Sound will sometimes fall out of sync after a large noise spike or pop.

[bighill]

I have the dazzle. Works great!! No software, nothing. Just plug the sucker in. The picture quality is amazing when importing using svideo. No difference in quality from source. I notice a difference (drop in quality) when using analog cables though.

[fulmer]

dazzle is good. haven't tried the s-video inputs yet, but will one day.

[lucylawless]

I also have the Dazzle and no complaints, though a few comments:

1) I've seen it suggested that you spring for a cheap digital camera, which will have this capability plus the non-trivial ability to record live video. I might have done this if I had though about it before buying the Dazzle

2) No TV tuner. this means I have to use a VCR, which has stereo audio, but no S-Video, although I can't detect a difference in quality between the following two routes, both are excellent. (A) broadcast -> vcr -> RCA cables -> Dazzle, or (B) DirecTV -> TiVo -> S-Video cable -> Dazzle

3) When using iMovie, the Dazzle would often switch itself from A->D to Passthrough about 2.5 minutes into recording. This was a major pain in the ass, considering comment 4. I upgraded to BTV Carbon ($20) because of this and because BTV has good customer support and many features including Applescript support and any file-size option I could think of

4) This is more an issue with DV in general, but VHS capturing is out of the question for me, unless it's content that is unavailable any other way. Apparently VHS has extreme video noise that is hidden by the slow refresh of TV pixels. But it's instant death for video compression, and it doesn't look good at all on a computer monitor

So those are just some things to think about. I'm very happy with the Dazzle's performance, especially once I dropped iMovie

[Kenneth]

Originally posted by Ganesha:
I have a Formac Studio.

I've been very happy with it, as it produces good quality captures. A few minor issues:

1) Having to use the Formac software to set the input source before using iMovie/FCP.

2) Sound will sometimes fall out of sync after a large noise spike or pop.

I am also the Formac Studio DV/TV owner since Feb/02, but I have trouble importing audio to my iMac Rev. A. The audio on the left side is fine, but the voulme on the right side is very low to silent. How can I fix it. Thanks. I'm using 10.1.5 with the new Tevion v1.2 and BTV 5.4.1

Kenneth

[lucylawless]

did you check your cables?

[Kenneth]

I was using the RCA Y-connector (red for the right and white for the left), I did plug both connectors really hard.

[OwlBoy]

I have found the Sony ones to be buggy with iMovie. Cuaseing it to freeze / create corrupt DV streams. (in OS 9)

-Owl

[lucylawless]

Originally posted by Kenneth:
I was using the RCA Y-connector (red for the right and white for the left), I did plug both connectors really hard.

what happens when you switch the left and right? What happens when you play it back with different speakers? What happens when you capture with imovie, or switch OS's with BTV?

[fulmer]

Originally posted by lucylawless:
I also have the Dazzle and no complaints, though a few comments:

1) I've seen it suggested that you spring for a cheap digital camera, which will have this capability plus the non-trivial ability to record live video. I might have done this if I had though about it before buying the Dazzle

I've recorded live with the dazzle. our AV runs satellite box>>VCR>>TV. I take the latter AV connectors and hook them into dazzle. it displays fine in imovie, and I can 'import' from there.

[Kenneth]

Originally posted by lucylawless:
what happens when you switch the left and right? What happens when you play it back with different speakers? What happens when you capture with imovie, or switch OS's with BTV?

I tried to switch the cable , but no different. I used the iMac built-in speakers as well as a earbud plugged into one of the headphone port, the sound is still coming out from the left side only. I email Formac and still waiting for reply. I'm think of my RCA T-connector cable may be the cause, but I have only one audio on hand, so I can't do anything about it now. I tried it on iMovie (OS X) and FCP 3 too.

Kenneth

[Joost]

Originally posted by tr:
hello everyone!

i've been using a Canopus ADV-100 at work (but on a PC). i tested it briefly on my G4 (just to see if it worked) but have not worked extensively with it on a mac. i checked to see if it worked on my mac, because i was having problems with it at work, running on XP. it's been acting kinda flaky under XP: it switches from analog input to digital randomly, video thru doesn't work some times, many times it needs a power off/on cycle to get it working right again. so i don't know of this is an XP thing, or if, over time, it will act kinda flaky on the mac.

tr

I know you're after views on other converters, but let me chip in with an endorsement of the Canopus ADV-100 on the Mac. I've been using one, with no issues whatsoever, on an iMac (DV SE 400 and, more recently, a flat-panel 800) for about six months.

The picture quality is very impressive, even from VHS source. It also seems to work just fine with B&W footage, which I understand some converters have problems with. And it handles both PAL and NTSC material flawlessly.

Put your problems down to flaky PC hardware/XP...

[icruise]

Yes, your problems on XP are probably due to XP, or possibly to a faulty unit from Canopus, but in general the ADV-100 has been very well reviewed. I just bought one and although I haven't had a chance to use it that much, it has worked fine. One thing I like about it is that is has locked audio, preventing the lip-sync problems that some converters have.

[lucylawless]

that's true, I think my dazzle is out of sync by about a 20th of a second. It usually doesn't make much of a difference, but if/when it matters I use a sweet little app called QTMutator to fix it before compression/export/whatever I do with the video

and fulmer, I was talking about how you can take your own movies with a video camera, as opposed to recording tv

[Eug]

Out of interest's sake, how many of you have tried using the video input on a Canon or Sony miniDV camcorder? They will do analogue to Firewire digital conversion for capture.

The picture quality is amazing when importing using svideo. No difference in quality from source. I notice a difference (drop in quality) when using analog cables though.

??? S-video is analogue. Do you mean "composite" instead of "analog"?

[tr]

Originally posted by Icruise:
Yes, your problems on XP are probably due to XP, or possibly to a faulty unit from Canopus, but in general the ADV-100 has been very well reviewed. I just bought one and although I haven't had a chance to use it that much, it has worked fine. One thing I like about it is that is has locked audio, preventing the lip-sync problems that some converters have.

oh, yeah, i'm convinced that the problems are XP related, and not the canopus now. and the locked audio was a main selling point on why we got one for work; we were going to capture long video segments, and wanted to make sure audio was synced. i mean, the really short time i used it on my mac for testing, it worked great. plugged it in, iMovie/FCP recognized it right off the bat, captured with no problems. now, XP, that's a whole other story. for anyone who's used XP, what's with all the freakin' help wizards? i mean, every freakin' time you plug in a peripheral, it asks you what you want to do with it? i hate XP...



for those of you who chimed in about using a digital video camera as a pass-through, could you tell me what specific brands or models allow this? some people say all sony models allow this, is this true?


tr

[Eug]

for those of you who chimed in about using a digital video camera as a pass-through, could you tell me what specific brands or models allow this? some people say all sony models allow this, is this true?

Well, the only models I looked at were Sony and Canon. I looked at about 5 or 6 specific models and all had the pass-thru, but both Sony and Canon make tons of models. I dunno if the lowest models have this feature.

I haven't tested it though, since in the end I decided to spend the coin on a set-top DVD-RAM/-R recorder instead.

[saru boy]

Originally posted by Eug:
Well, the only models I looked at were Sony and Canon. I looked at about 5 or 6 specific models and all had the pass-thru, but both Sony and Canon make tons of models. I dunno if the lowest models have this feature.

Not all Sony dv camcorders have full pass through. I have a DCR-PC100 and it can take video from the computer (by way of the firewire connection) and output it to a tv or vcr (through the s-video/rca plugs) but it can't pass through from an external video source to the computer.

Also, I bought an ADVC-100 this January and it's worked pretty well. The only issues are that iMovie would not recognize the converter (I'd get the spinning beach ball until I turned off the power on the converter). Recently however, I rarely run into the problem. Pretty much the moment I turn on the ADVC-100, iMovie switches to camera mode and is ready to record from the converter.

[Jerman]

My DCR-TRV25 (Sony) supports analog capture. I have not used it hardly at all, though, so I do not know exactly how great it is, but from what I can tell it does a good job.

[michael127]

Eug...I've got some questions about this:
"Out of interest's sake, how many of you have tried using the video input on a Canon or Sony miniDV camcorder? They will do analogue to Firewire digital conversion for capture."

About the sony/canon DV cams...

If I have VHS tapes that I want to be converted to DV format...this is possible if you have a certain sony or canon DV cam that has video in?

Can you please explain how this works? (like, what cables, how to do it, etc.)

thanks.