any experience with video converters?

Started by japanesebaby, December 06, 2005, 11:22:49

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lostflower4

Just a few quick notes while I catch up on some work here. I really can't express how much time I've wasted with these video issues. Probably days and days if you put it all together, and with no results! :cry:

Yes, I'm well aware that I'm calling your unit by the wrong name. I was going to edit my post, but then you replied. ACEDVio is stuck in my mind for some reason!

After much frustration, I think I've figured out how to use Edius. I was playing around with the filters. I simply wanted to find a good noise reduction tool, and no luck at all! I did however find a filter that can add noise to the picture and another to make it blurry. Oh, and one that makes the picture green. So I guess you could say I know how to make my videos crappier with this software! :oops:

What are the people who design this stuff thinking? I definitely need to call Canopus tomorrow and discuss many things with them! :!:

japanesebaby

now i bet you are going "love" this:
just finished an simply-too-many-hours long session with Final cut pro 4 and ADVC110, and just guess what the outcome was? yes: CRASH! so nice... everything seemed to behave very well just as long as i didn't try capturing anything with FCP. i thought i did everything right as best i could for the capture, i didn't have too much space on my hard drive but surely enough for some test clips (about 10 GB at least). before i started the program also confirmed me that this would be enough for about 30 minutes, but what happened then was that two seconds after clicking 'import' i got a message that my hard drive is full & then it all froze!  :(  somehow it always managed to produce an appr. 10 GB file in a few seconds and after that: crash... after the first crash i did some corrections because i thought i knew what i did wrong the first time but that didn't help at all - actually it was almost on the contrary, since for a moment i got my computer really messed up  :smt087
well, maybe it would have been all too easy if it had worked just like that,  and i was of course prepared that things might go wrong - simply because we know what the origins of my FCP were, but still it was a disappointment. i'll try to look for some answers to this but i'm afraid that i have to ditch at least that particular copy of FCP and maybe try to get another one...
so far Dvd studio pro 3 still looks ok, but i am really annoyed if i cannot get FCP to work since i cannot use the Dvd studio pro's MPEG-2 encoder without FCP  :cry:   :smt090  

well i'll look into all this again tomorrow, right now i am a bit too annoyed to continue (yes you're absolutely right: because one could spend all these ours wasted on this struggle for instance on simply enjoying the very tapes that one is trying to figure out how to transfer... it just makes no sense at all sometimes...)


about limewire in general: yes there're so much fakes etc around (just guess how many of the serial #/password files i downloaded were... hmmm... let's say something completely different  :roll: ) but what comes to the fear of viruses, i guess mac is again a blessing since one really hasn't have to worry about that (at least not yet & i hope it would stay so). it looks like the people who design viruses really aim their effort on microsoft or then there's simply something else in the systems that just make pcs much more preferable.

(hey those Edius' filters sound really revolutionary! they should get an award or something! :wink: )
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

japanesebaby

well decided to come back with some good news: got FCP capturing working after all after some more work :D
now it runs beautifully with the canopus unit BUT: strangely the capture i made earlier with my iMovie HD looks better than the one i get with FCP 4! while i was wondering this i only just completely realized something that i should have noticed in the beginning, which is that files captured with iMovie are really encoded differently than those captured with FCP (the first one uses DV, the latter one Quicktime). so this is why i cannot for instance open my iMovie HD projects in FCP 4, but i need an update to FCP 4.5 HD at least to be able to do that. and even if i didn't need the iMovie/FCP compatibility i still really wouldn't mind the extra quality that HD might bring - so i guess it's back to limewire.... ppfff!   :smt108
but at least i've gotten somewhere now (maybe?).

(about the noise reduction filters: i went through the rather impressive & endless lists of FCP video filters a couple of times only to notice that no video noise reduction was included... the one called 'noise reduction filter' is really for audio only. i thought this to be totally strange at first but then i found out that the video noise filter does exist but it's included with the Compressor application, not with the main body of FCP - so it is there for sure.)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Ahhh... I'm so exhausted now, so I need to keep this short before I fall asleep. Should I be surprised that both of us continue to encounter problems in our endeavors? I'm not so sure. I think I'm permanently branded for bad luck, but I just hope it's only beginner's bad luck for you! And it was strange to hear that you discovered you were capturing in MOV format. That's terrible! :oops:

The only format you ever want to capture with the ADVC110 is the Canopus DV codec. That's what the unit's designed for, and anything else will not take full advantage of the "special" Canopus technology. Believe me, it's a bit hard to for me to say positive things about Canopus at the moment. :oops:  

Canopus is still "on holiday", so I have yet to speak with anyone. They reopen tomorrow, so let's see what lies ahead. However, I did give Pioneer a call, and wow, they are definitely a bunch of geniuses. First of all, the guy seemed boggled when I mentioned the model number of the DVD player. Then I asked him about the audio formats it records in. He said, "It uses 2-channel stereo." I said "Yes, but what format?" ... "Well, it's 2-channel stereo." I was already getting agitated. I told him I read that it generally uses Dolby Digital except in the "fine" mode. He said, "No, I can assure you that it does not record to Dolby Digital; however, it can play Dolby streams."

I then explained to him how I had just read the manual and I was sure that he was wrong. He then said, "Well, I don't doubt you." Arrghh. :x  So I knew this was going to be fruitless. My forthcoming question would not be answered. "So... What bitrate does it record in?" A long pause ?"Bitrate? Please hold." 5 minutes later... " I wasn't able to find that information, but I see here that it records in 2-channel stereo, just look on page 9". I asked him if there was anyone else I could speak to that knew more than him. He replied, "There are other representatives I can transfer you to, but I can't guarantee they will provide you with a satisfactory answer." I was tired of waiting and my hopes of getting my answer were low, so I just politely told him no thank you.

I made a post on videohelp.com, and someone confirmed to me that the audio bitrate is 256 kbps for Dolby Digital. Was that so hard??? What a great first impression from Pioneer! :roll: I don't know though, I still have a good feeling about the unit itself. I'm used to people being ignorant about everything, and it seems you've had much of the same experience. I'm really leaning towards giving it a try. And hey, I can always take it back!

As for your problems, you're still a lot earlier in the game compared to me. I'd just keep trying new programs or versions, and hopefully something will click. Don't let me bring your confidence down. I'm prone to disaster with these things, so don't confuse that with your own situations :-D

Maybe you will have some good luck between now and the next time we speak. But I can't stay awake any longer. It's been a LONG day. :smt104

As always, best of luck. But maybe I'm not the right person to be offering that. :?

japanesebaby

hooray for those pioneer geniuses!  :roll: such amazing professionality!
it's crazy: either you get that sort of nonsense & i don't knows from people who SHOULD know what they are selling or then you are being told off like i just was on the Apple discussion forum (just as a was starting to think it's a good forum - now i think they s*ck). i asked about the possible reasons behind the quality differences i've noticed on my iMovie & FCP captures and about the actual capturing formats and i was literally being told 'now ilsten closely: this program is not for diletanttes' & 'this program demands greater understanding!', all in CAPITAL LETTERS. geez, thanks a lot... but oh it was all my fault because forgot to stick to some solutions meant for "our purposes"  :smt082
it's crazy because one knows that there are people who clearly could give me some advice but i'm somehow stepping on their shoes at the same time - hmm i guess they must have gotten all their knowledge as a birth-right then  :evil:

but back to the facts: about the capturing format in FCP, i've found out a few things (now just simply skip this mac-section if it bores you!  :wink: ). anyway, iMovie captures in DV and FCP does basically the same thing BUT it takes the DV stream and separates the audio and video into individual streams in real time. so it doesn't capture in .mov as i thought (which would have been crazy for a program like that really), but the decrease in video quality that i noticed may be caused by a bunch of other things: first of all, separating the streams is a rather heavy operation and it could be a reason why my G4 cannot actually keep up all the time, causing it to crash with certain settings, and it might also start dropping frames etc (this is very annoying since if one looks at the actual technical requirements of FCP by Apple then my computer should perform well enough, but the reality might once again be a bit too different...) .
but there are other possible explanations too: it could also be that what i see on my computer screen isn't exactly what i get in capture since i see only the playback image of the capture - if the computer's performance abilities are on the limit the quality of the playback can be lowered in favor of other things. so it's maybe better to keep the playback in max. average in order to get the best results - and then i'd actually need another monitor hooked to the converter to monitor the actual incoming video/audio stream in real time... and that's somthing that i don't have at the moment, and even my TV is not up to the task since it's way too old unfortunately.
so it's all rather complicated and i think i just have to do some test discs, both short and long ones to see how it does. and since my new external drive seems to be delayed forever (thanks to mehappening to buy it from a seller who seems to be unable to deliver what he promises) i can do nothing at the moment.

but in any case i still fear that what i said earlier about FCP being unnecessarily heavy tool for what i'm doing might be true. and this all unfortunately predicts bad for my still uninstalled Final Cut Studio 5 package - if it doesn't have a possibility to some sort of partial installation only then i probably won't be able to run it without problems (but i also read a few reports that apple's old version of the FCP Compressor is better than the new one - so maybe it's not a problem as long as my computer manages to keep up with the old one...)

but some good points/finds about FCP too:
- i did some short test clips with FCP's QuicktimeMPEG-2 encoder and i think it looks very good. and luckily i've also found a way to import my iMovie captures straight to FCP (actually the manual said that it won't work but it looks like one can override it). so if FCP fails me as a capturing program i could probably do the capturing with iMovie and still be able to use FCP in editing & take advantage of the MPEG-2 encoder. the only drawback is that this adds one more step in the chain & makes the already pretty long process even longer...  :smt085
i'll just have to try to stick with what i have now and make the best of it somehow i guess.
anyway i am continually taking too much of your precious time with this crazy thread!  :D   (sorry   :roll: )

i hope you are feeling better  :smt006  talk to you again
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

I'm much more rested now, thank you. I called Canopus today. Figuring it would do no good to further talk to the tech department, I called the sales line instead. Sometimes the hold times for support can be excruciating! And there's this British guy who has this schpiel about Edius. I think I've heard it about 1,000 times, no exaggeration. It could drive me to kill someone, I think. :smt096 So anyway, I opted to call sales and got through right away. I talked to a really nice guy who I've spoken with several times before. He's quite smart, and I'm sure he would make a good tech support representaive. He informed me that the MVR-D4000 (the "million dollar machine") does not do noise reduction or record in uncompressed PCM audio. Phew, I was afraid I was going to go into debt just because my stupid D2200 didn't work. So probably a good thing in the full scope of things.

I then brought up the question about noise reduction in Edius. He said that it "should be in there". Apparently he only works with DV material, so noise is never an issue for him. I encouraged him to look again, and surely enough it wasn't there. He couldn't believe it either. I told him I was considering an AVI card, but I didn't like the idea of having to edit, then create a new AVI, and finally make my MPEG. Too much work for a person who has spent too much accomplishing nothing over the months! :(

He said, "Have you considered the ADVC-300? It has noise reduction." "No kidding?" I said. He assured me that it's true, and that it also has a built-in time base corrector (TBC). I don't think I've brought that up here. A TBC can do wonderful things, such as stabilizing the picture picture and breaking copyright protection. There was one built into both my MVR-D2200 and MPEG Pro units, and I didn't want to part with this feature. I actually own an expensive standalone TBC, but my experiments show that it degrades the picture a bit. I think this is because it's just another loop in the signal chain (more cables, etc.) I've been holding on to it for a while, not knowing what to do with it. But once I'm sure I don't need it, I'd love to sell it. I've spent way too much money on everything! :oops:

So... Built-in noise reduction and a digital time base corrector? This is too good to be true, right? After all, don't the ADVC's require that another card be in your PC? No! That was an older setup, he explained, and I simply need to connect it to a firewire port. Good thing I bought a firewire card a few months back. :wink:

And to top it off, it can be toggled to select between IRE 0 and 7.5 black levels. This isn't something you need to worry about unless you start working with American tapes, but it's important for my purposes. What does this all boil down to? I can capture a DV AVI and NOT have to edit it. This saves me from creating another big file and a lot of time as well. All I have to do is convert it to MPEG-2 and import it into my trusty authoring program. Been there, done that. 8)

This is the MPEG-2 converter I plan to use:

http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/productview.aspx?pid=9

Nice price, eh? Well, let's just say that I got the "LimeWire discount" on this one. :lol: A lot of studios use this, and it is incredibly fast. The only thing is that I seldom had a use for it. It only converts AVI and MOV, so on occasion I used it for DivX conversion. I tried using it with some of ATI AVI captures, but we all know about ATI... :roll:

I'm pretty sure I can record with the digital input on my sound card when capturing laserdisc too. Another step and hassle saved. And the captured audio is always uncompressed, so I can do as I choose with it at a later time, not what format the recorder tells me it has to be in!

To sum up my side of this, I just sent back my MVR-D2200 today, and I'm ordering the ADVC-300 tomorrow. I think I may have found my solution. The only thing is... Will it work??? There's no reason it shouldn't, but you know how things go for me. :smt011 And you know, I was soooo close to deciding on the Pioneer standalone. But as you know, I'd like to stay in the computer domain if possible. Maybe it is possible after all!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little PC-related rant there. I've also got to thinking that it does seem a bit pointless to do all this conversion when we simply could watch the tapes. Of course there are advantages to having everything on a nice shiny little disc, but where does one draw the line? I can't count how many times I've watched some of my videos while trying to make a good capture, especially my laserdiscs. Show, Orange, Play Out... I really haven't had the desire to watch them in months. I think I've seen them enough to last a lifetime. Hopefully my attitude will change if I can get a system going and make better versions. As I've suggested, my Play Out transfer isn't really that bad, but there are flaws, and I'm perfectionist!

Back to your setup... I think I would recommend making an exchange for the ADVC-300. It would probably save you a lot of hassle in the long run. I know it's more expensive, but it might solve some problems. A personal preference, I guess. It's not really my position to tell you, "Hey, spend more money."

About your crashing issues, I'm rather puzzled. I don't see how "splitting" the audio and video streams would cause more strain. I'm not actually sure there is any so-called splitting going on. The streams are coming in independently, and I believe it's just a capture program that combines them. If anything, I think putting them together would cause more strain. And I don't think you need a really fast computer to be doing the capturing. The ADVC unit uses a hardware chip that does the encoding, so the strain should be on the box itself, and not the computer. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it something doesn't seem quite right.

Previewing can pull on the CPU, so that's something to consider. With the programs I've used, I would always disable the preview/overlay mode when possible. No point it taking any chances. Of course you need to make sure everything is set up and adjusted correctly before you turn it off! Unfortunately, I don't know how your Apple stuff works, so I fear I may not be of great help here. I'd just keep on trying different things. :oops:

I've been meaning to ask you this, but don't you actually have a PC? I recall you saying the only thing holding you back is the lack of a monitor. Perhaps you could make use of your PC for video tasks after all (provided you could see what you were doing, haha). I can't remember if there was another reason this wouldn't work...

But the last part of what you just said sounds promising. If you can at least make partial use of the various programs and trick it when necessary (I know what you mean), maybe there is a workable solution. Again, sorry if I haven't been very helpful. The last time I worked on a Mac (many years ago) I couldn't even figure out how to use the recycle bin. I got frustrated and haven't touched one since!

It will be interesting to see what pans out for the both of us in the next days... For me, it will be one of the following:

:smt041
:smt073

japanesebaby

good news that you found out that about canopus ADVC300! :D  :D  
and just when i was secretly hoping that i would find the greatest VHS->DVD transfer method in the universe & so i could proudly just recommend you to get a Mac  :wink:  :wink:  :wink:
a joke... but i have to say that now you've made me reeeeally nervous...  :(  :?  :smt087
i mean all that picture enhancement info  :shock:  now i really can't believe i missed it/had somehow completely forgotten it - i guess i must have dismissed ADVC300 in the very early stage simply because of it's price (well it's about double compared to ADVC110), and that i have more or less intentionally tried to go along the lines of 'basic converter-fancy capturing/editing software' idea so far. but now i'm really starting to sweat with fear that it should've been the other way round: to get a more advanced converter like ADVC300 & save the strain to the computer by maybe using some lighter software... oh no...
this noise reduction thing actually makes me doubly nervous now, because like i said i should have found that included on FCP's Compressor filters. it should be there i know, but the Compressor's filter list is actually completely empty on my "Limewire purchased" FCP... now i thought i probably just forgot to install something but looks like the filters are really missing... surely something to think(panic?) about...  :smt120  

i became curious & checked the Canopus site for ADVC300's technical specs just a minute ago to see what it might have for me. i found out that it actually doesn't say if it's compatible with iMovie like ADVC110 is. so i might still be forced to use FCP - which causes me some trouble as we know. i actually emailed Canopus support a question about this (god it's a curse to live where i live in the situations like this: the closest they have to finland is UK...  :(  so i don't know when or if i get answered...).
anyway, the noise reduction & TBC are really built-in, hardware features? did the canopus guy you talked to give you more info about what's left to the picture enhancement CD-ROM that comes with the package then? this is probably a stupid question but i've just gotten a bit careful of all this sort of things because i've unfortunately found out that in some cases the CD-ROMs are often Windows only and Mac users must try and purchase the same software by their own, the best they can... sometimes this happens even when the device itself has been stated as 'Mac compatible' like here - the same doesn't always apply to the software. now i'm not saying this is how it is with Canopus but i'd like to be sure before i even start imagining planning anything further.

hmmm, in any case i cannot help feeling that i've made nothing but bad choices all along so far. i already wasted too much time & money on hassling with those standalones alone, now i might be stuck with a possibly unideal converter(?)... :cry:  but i guess that's the way it goes like you said...

about PCs: any rant about them is always enjoyable for sure  :wink:  and of course i don't expect you to find the answers for me so no worries if you have no tips for mac to share - in any case i find this conversation very useful.
and switching my iBook to my old PC? well the only thing holding me back was not the fact that i funnily don't still have a monitor ha ha (but that was the reason why i couldn't print you the video list sooner some time ago). that computer is simply not up to the task here - even thinking about starting to update it (both hardware and software) for this makes me see an endless flow of 100 Euro bills flying by my eyes, because that computer is really a way too much in a stone-age for any serious usage here (now you would laugh if i gave you the specs on it so i'll save you ha ha  ;-)). and to be honest i really want to stick to my faithful mac...  ;-)  :wink:

finally, about the possible reasons behind my iBook's freezing problems with FCP: after so more thought i actually agree with you now that it shouldn't be the stream separation that causes too much strain - after some more conversation with the guy who suggested it i think he's actually a big jerk so i probably never should have listened to him in the first place  :smt042  but there's a new reason that i've thought of which is simply connected to the current 'capture now' presets of FCP and the amount of available disc space on my hard drive: it looks like FCP clearly  works best when one uses DV cam with timecode addressable tape (that's what it was designed for i guess): with that the system knows exactly how much stuff it needs to capture & how much space is needed. since this capturing option cannot be used with analog VHS transfers, the system is more strained because it doesn't always know how much disc space is going to be needed and keeps searching for more all the time. there's an option where you can pre-program the capture-time which should ease the strain on the system. it's an option that i only just found (= stupid me, i should have thought of that before  :smt115 ). i haven't had time to check it yet but i believe(hope?) it'll make some difference.

(locating the recycle-bin on MAC OS  8)  it's funny because i've actually always thought that the operating system on Mac is much easier and more user-friendly than Windows... but well i guess it's a personal preference of course)

now i will go and sweat some more with fear... maybe the probable option left for me at the present is to

:smt073
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Sorry to hear you're getting nervous. I know the feeling, but in the last few weeks/months I think I've become numb. I'm so used to disappointment. When I reformatted my computer and reinstalled the MVR-D2200V.... I opened the program up and started it, and of course it crashed immediately. I just laughed and laughed. I knew it was going to happen. I really was expecting it. Not to say I'm happy about it, but you just get to that point where it doesn't seem to matter anymore...

But for now, I'm quite happy again with the prospect of success. I'm quite afraid for some reason my system won't like this one either, but as it's a completely different type thing. And to answer your questions... Yes, the card itself is capable of doing noise reduction and time base correction during the capture. This can all be adjusted with the Picture Controller software that comes with the device. And I always make sure to ask them now, "Does it work with Mac?" They said it definitely does. The ADVC-300 is the only AVI card they make that does these sort of pre-filterning processes. Even the "out of this world" priced 1000 and 2000 models can't do this. Again, I think it's crazy Canopus logic at work there, but I'm not going to complain. The salesperson insisted that the quality of these super expensive models is really no better than the 100-300 range. Rather, it's the strange connectors and outputs that make these units have that command such a high price. I don't completely understand it, but I'm not going to complain about saving money and getting the best thing! I think the true greedy salesman would say, "Oh yeah, there's a huge difference with the ADVC-9000000 (or whatever it is). It doesn't have any special features, but you won't need them, especially for your purposes. It's way better 110 or 300." I can almost picture it. Can't you? :smt013

So apparently (well, obviously), there are some big advantages to the 300 after all. This was contrary to what one of the tech guys said before. He made no reference to the addition of onboard effects. I guess this one isn't his specialty. So what was explained to me is: The Picture Controller can set up all the main parameters (color, noise reduction, Y/C separation, auto-gain, and some other things), and then you can still use any other capture device of your choise, and these settings will be retained during capture. I couldn't believe it, but he assured me it was true. I honestly think there must be some cheapo Apple program out there that simply does basic capture. I know there's plenty of them for Windows. The capture program shouldn't really matter. The quality is coming from the ADVC and the DV chip built inside of it. The capture program is simply a way of relaying that information into the computer. He suggested I could even use Windows Movie Maker, which I'm guessing would be like the the Windows equivalent of iMovie.

So unless I'm missing something, I think you could do this. Let's just pretend an ADVC-300 magically appeared on your doorstop tomorrow. You could plug it into you Mac, set up the parameters with the Picture Controller, and capture it into a DV AVI with iMovie. If you get all the settings right ahead of time, you won't have to do any editing. In that case you could use the QuickTime encoder feature that FCP uses to make your MPEG-2. And then whatever authoring solution you choose to use would be next. It seems rather simple. I really don't see why the capture program itself should affect the quality of your results. I could be wrong, but as long as you're using the native Canopus DV codec that the ADVC is designed for, I can't see how it would matter at all.

Now with the ADVC110, if you really want to clean up those VHS tapes, I don't know what in the world you would do! It's just mind boggling to me that all these "professional" editing programs have conveniently left this ever-so-crucial filter out. It's just so typical of my experience though that maybe I shouldn't be surprised. There are some rather odd and absent-minded people out there. I know a couple programs for Windows that do good noise reduction, but you've assured me that your PC is far too ancient to be up to the task, and I'll take your word for it. It wasn't so long ago (about a year and half) that I had stone age machine that I refused to upgrade (out of pure moronic stubbornness, looking back on it).

I'll tell you my specs here. Maybe you'll be better than me after all. Try 300 MHz Pentium II, 64 MB RAM, and an 8 gig hard drive. Fancy, huh? I don't see how I managed with it all this time. I must have been crazy, and no way I could go back now.  It's still sitting in my basement collecting dust. I assume maybe someone would buy it for about $25... Do I hear a bid? :-D

Finally, I kind of figured you wanted to "show me how it's done" with a Mac, but it looks like I'm going to put up a fight (hahaha, don't take this too seriously). I really pressed the guy for all the info I could think of about the ADVC-300 and its abilities with different fucntions and operating systems, so I'm quite sure all I've said is accurate!

Here's the manual if you're curious to know more (and perhaps for all the silent people out there who seem to be enjoying this topic):

http://ftp.imaginary-lemurs.com/Canopus%20ADVC-300.pdf


I'd assume you can read Adobe Acrobat with a Mac. I hope so!

I really do wish you the best in whatever you decide to do and hope you can figure it out soon. No one said this was going to be easy... :smt009

japanesebaby

hmm my "see how i do it with mac!" was really just a joke - i have no illusions whatsoever that i'd crack this any sooner than you since i only just got started here & i'm up to my neck in all this wonderful world of analog-digital transfer (more or less 'pretending to swim' at the moment...  :smt083 ). but what i meant was probably that i am confident that if it all can be done properly with PC then i should be able to do it with Mac, switching the system shouldn't be the option since there really are so many possibilities still left, just have to find the right one....
...which might very well be ADVC300. thanks for all the info you bothered to look up - it must feel silly to you that i even worried about those compatibility issues but like i said i've been let down before so i've became a bit careful. (i still find it weird that they don't list iMovie in their technical specs since it's the basic program and i've noticed that on some other occasions not mentioning it means it simply won't work.) i also just got a reply to my inquiery from the Canopus UK support too (so they were actually pretty fast, sometimes one has to wait for days and days) and they pretty much confirmed everything you already said.

i really hope you are happy once you get your ADVC300 running - no more crashing i hope! & i'd surely be interested to know how it turns out.
i think that i need to sit down and think about this over now, in any case there's nothing i can do until monday. i can't reach my ADVC110 seller before that if i decide to start negotiating a change or something. anyway maybe a few days off are welcome...

and about my dinosaur-PC: well it looks like after all i'm doing somewhat better than your "basement unit", so maybe i won't start bidding just yet...  :wink:  i might start updating it someday,  so it's not just that i'm a stubborn mac-freak here (regardless of my caferully chosen avatar ha ha ha  ;-) ), but right now it'll just have to wait for some more favourable time.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Well, I guess I should be celebrating. :smt030 :smt041 I know I've been rather quiet lately, but I didn't want to speak too soon and later realize that I had another disaster on my hands. This has happened already! :oops: I've had the ADVC-300 for a few days now, and everything is going great. No crashes or other strange hangups, and better results than I've had with the previous 5 units I've tried!

I must admit that all this torture and trials has taught me a lot. It's given me an eye for details and a better knowledge of the whole editing process. I don't think I could have ever fully appreciated doing it the "long way" without seeing how much better it is compared to the the quicker methods. I've heard this way is better all along, but I didn't want to believe it. I always thought, "If I get good enough equipment, it won't matter." Well, I was wrong. The MVR-D2200 is close, but the "on-the-fly" nature of it can screw things up a bit. After all, it is rushed in that is has to encode everything in real time. I was comparing the skin tones of it versus the ADVC, and those of the latter look much more natural. The MVR gives a pinkish tone to everyone (you can see this in the "Friday" screenshot. And there's no real way to fix this with the basic color settings. I don't have a good screenshot at the moment, but I'll put one up eventually for you to see what I'm talking about.

Just got your e-mail. I think you did a wise thing. Looks like we're going to be "300 twins"! :-D Before I forget, let me give you a tip about the noise reduction feature on that. The unit features two types of NR: 2D and 3D. All my previous Canopus units had only 3D, which seems to be a more advanced method. But the default settings in the Picture Controller have both kinds selected. I thought "the more the better", so I did my first captures like this. I took a few screenshots and compared them to my MVR and was surprised that the image wasn't quite as sharp. How could this be? It then occurred to me that 2D noise reduction is a rather crude technique. I had read about this before. And what's more, straight out of the ADVC-300 manual itself: "2D noise reduction - removes noise by blurring the entire image uniformly by using the built-in feature". Blurs the image? Wow, that's great. Sadly, it's true, and I could really tell. This technique can smoothen a rough or grainy image, but it also erases the detail. Definitely not ideal for a lot of material. I always make sure to uncheck this option from now on! :smt017

3D noise reduction, on the other hand, is a more conservative process and simply removes noise by some sort of calculation. It really does a nice job of cleaning up VHS tapes. The "weak" setting will do just fine ? best not to overdo things, or you can end up destroying the original image. Other than that, the default settings seem to be generally quite fine, but I find that moving the color saturation up 5 notches really brings up the richness of the picture. This may vary from source to source, but it seems to look right on everything I've tried so far.

I hope I'm not boring you with technical details, but another great thing for me is that I can adjust the IRE black levels. As you live in a PAL region, you will probably never have to worry about this. Just set your unit for PAL and go. But for me, I'm discovering all kinds of crazy discrepancies on how these NTSC videos I have are mastered. I was analyzing some of my Japanese laserdiscs, and the levels are completely out of standard (way too bright so far). I have to go into my trusty VirtualDub program and re-edit them to look correct, which means creating a HUGE AVI file. VirtualDub doesn't understand the Canopus codec, so you have to use the standard AVI formats for it. Anyway, I don't mind doing this sometimes if it means a better final product. But for the standard PAL tapes you will have, I doubt there will ever be a problem ? especially for your purposes. :smt110

So to sum it up, the ADVC-300 is one fine piece of gear. I just hope you can find a program to easily capture with. Beyond that should be a breeze!

I guess Canopus ain't so bad after all... But whoever designed the MPEG capturing software for the MVR-D2200 needs to go back to training school!  :smt102

japanesebaby

simply great news! :D  :-D  :smt023  i'm glad to hear that you're completely happy with the 300 model, i believe there's been enough frustration for you already (and to be honest i'm also relieved because if you had said it s*cked i'd have had a "slight mess" in my hands soon too as we know...  :wink: the only thing for me is that my seller is in germany & the shipping the previous unit back & the new one here takes some more time (once again...  :oops: ) than it generally would. but i guess one additional week is bearable now...

thanks for all the noise reduction & color tips - that 2D noise reduction sounds like a bit too heavy thing to use for sure. and about what you said about the colors on ADVC300 captures compared to those of MVR-D2200. if the raw capture of ADVC300 looks the same as what i saw with ADVC100 (i guess they use the same technique at that point) i believe you, since i was especially happy with the colors on ADVC100 captures, like i probably mentioned (what i mean is that it looked "ok for my purposes" of course :smt043 )

about the capturing software i tend to use: if i can just teach my DVD Studio Pro to accept and read my iMovie HD capture files i shouldn't have any real worries left (i have an idea how to do it but i still haven't tested it fully, must do that on weekend). and if i cannot do that, well i'll use FCP then. it's still unnecessarily heavy tool but actually i already managed to get it much more stabilized by updating it to FCP 4.5 HD, so it really should do ok this time - i hope!.  

so, have fun with the 300! i'll be back again with some news from the "twin" later....  :smt006
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Well, I think it's passed the test. :-D

I tried some PAL capturing with my VCR last night. At first I had some problems, but they had nothing to do with the unit. I learned that my Pinnacle Studio software that I use to capture DV doesn't support PAL, so I ended up using Windows Movie Maker. It's the free program that comes built into Windows. I never really thought to use in all this time I've spent doing video-related stuff, but it's not a bad program so long as you have a decent capture device.

So I had that up and ready to accept PAL, and then I needed to adjust a setting on the bottom of the ADVC-300. Yes, there are some switches on the bottom of the unit (strange, I know). And when I did that, I had accidentally unplugged the firewire cable from the front of the unit. For a few minutes I was convinced that my unit had broken. I was almost freaking out. Then I discovered my error. :oops:

I finally ran a capture test on the PAL tape, and it was very good. As always, the 3D noise reduction on the weak setting did a beautiful job of cleaning up the picture. It must be the exact same thing they use as for the MVR series. You'd be surprised how many capture cards (and software!) lack something like this. It's fairly common for standalone recorders, but I guess we're both a bit afraid of those. :wink:

By the way, what did you ever end up doing for an external drive? I myself better start cleaning up my hard drives a bit so I can start loading it up with huge AVI files.

Anyway... I think you might be pleased with your new unit. :-)

lostflower4

Here's my latest test captures. I know, the same boring old pics (well, one new one)... But I'm so used to seeing these that it's a great reference. Refer back to the ATI screenshot if you want a good laugh. Unfortunately, I deleted a bunch of others I had. Just imagine a bunch of dull, dark, blurry images. :wink:

MVR:



ADVC:



MVR:



ADVC:



ADVC:




What do you think? I think the skin tones look much more natural with the ADVC. At least I know it's good enough for "our purposes". :oops:

japanesebaby

very interesting to see the captures! i certainly agree with you about the skin tones: i've probably said this already before but that was one of the things i liked about the ADVC110 captures. a shame that i haven't got the unit with me anymore so that i could set up these appr. same images to check the comparison. but compared to the results i previously got with the standalones the Canopus captures were/are a pleasure for the eye: a few standalone models that i tried all seemed to have a more or less noticeable tendency to go towards yellow/orange... well you can imagine what that looks like  :roll: even my old standalone did that, although i generally thought it was pretty good unit - i just didn't even realize the amount of this yellowish-ness until i got a chance to compare them with the Canopus captures! (a shame that i didn't save any of those comparison images, just looked for them on my drive because i thought you might have wanted to see some of them but it looks like i've deleted the whole thing...  :oops: hmmm maybe i didn't want to keep any unnecessary remembrances of those cursed standalones...  :wink: )

about the other differences between ADVC & MVR here: i don't know if it's just something caused by slight differences in your contrast preferences, but judging from these it also looks like the ADVC capture is slightly brighter & clearer. if that's so then it might not be bad, considering that lots of the live material is shot under rather insufficient light conditions.

in any case you bet i am getting a bit anxious here, sitting and waiting for the postal service to do their job & bring my unit...  :smt090  :wink:

about the external drive: i was already giving up with that seller since they seemed to be the slowest of the slow with their delivery, but thankfully i got the unit yesterday. it was a bit more expensive model than i had planned (pppffff....) but so far i think i made a good choice, since it's amazingly silent and beautifully optimized for my operating system, one of these 'just plug it in and go' type of things. and it has both USB and FireWire connections, so if the first one turns out to be too slow with DV files then the FireWire should do it. USB 2.0 is said to be sometimes as fast as FireWire but i learned that this applies only to PCs, and it's actually somewhat slower with Mac.
anyway it feels good suddenly to have 200+ GB  FREE !!  ;-)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Well, hmmm... Still no unit? :(

I think we may have solved our problems. I'm not sure there's much more I can say, except that it would definitely help if you had something to use! :?

I'm not sure if the difference in those screenshots could be a contrast issue. Although I can't scientifically explain it, brightness and contrast have always been very similar to my eyes. Contrast is the one control I usually never change. The strange thing is that on some devices, the image gets brighter when you turn it up, and on others (such as Canopus), it gets darker going in the positive direction. Very weird, to say the least.

Color is a really complicated thing when it comes to video. There are so many variables, and most of them aren't really controllable during the capture process. You're pretty much left with the saturation control on your recording device. Everything else is built into the unit. I suppose that's where the ADVC excels. It pretty much gets it right without a lot of adjustment. I don't know if you'e ever looked at the color correction filters in some of these programs, but sometimes they are just a little bit more than I care to understand or bother fiddling with for hours.

I'm not surprised that the standalone recorders you've experienced produced some strange looking colors. All this on-the-fly stuff is prone to error because of its "rushed" nature. Even a Canopus rep admitted that aboutt the MVR units I had, but I didn't want to believe it at the time because of the faster way in which I could make things with it.

It would have been nice to see those old screenshots you had, but it's really just as pointless and me showing you my old ATI screenshots. Maybe good for a laugh. Robert with a yellow or orange face ? That would some something to see! Or maybe blurred and dark Robert. Oh wait, you can see above for that... :-D

I still haven't done much with my unit yet, but I should. And I hope you get yours soon! :D