Good external analog capture devices?

[MS]

I currently have the Dazzle DVC80, a lower-end unit. I'm not too happy with
the quality of the captured video, and the video and audio are often out of
sync. I would guess that that's probably true with most of the units well
under $100. (I think the DVC-80 usually sells for about $69.) So, I'm
thinking of getting something better.

As my computer is a laptop, it needs to be an external device, USB (I have
2.0) or Firewire. (I have 4 USB 2.0 ports, only one Firewire port, which I
likely would have my large (180GB) external Firewire HD on while capturing,
so probably USB 2 would be best for the capture device.) (I've read
something about daisy-chaining Firewire, but not sure how well that works.)

I've been looking mostly at products in the $100-$200 range, a step up from
the product I currently have. (For instance, the Dazzle product in that
range would be DVC-150.) I don't really need an analog output on the unit,
as my laptop already has a video out port. I just need the analog inputs,
video and audio, and the USB connection to the computer. I don't really need
a tuner in the unit, as I can connect it to my VCR. (Or, is there an
advantage, in recording from TV, for the capture unit to have its own
dedicated tuner?) (Also, any advantage I'm not aware of in the unit having
an analog out?)

What I do care about is getting a better quality of captured video than I
have been with my current unit. Obviously, in recording old VHS analog tapes
to digital video, or from a television broadcast, with not-too-great cable
reception, the quality is not going to be too great anyhow. But I certainly
wouldn't want the capturing process to make the final result worse than the
original in quality. Also, I've read in the specs of some products that they
are supposed to have "noise filters", etc., to improve captured video from
an original that isn't so great. Are such filters built into the hardware,
or only in the accompanying software? Do they really help?

I see several products available by different manufacturers--ADSTECH,
Adaptec, Pinnacle, Dazzle (now owned by Pinnacle, but still a separate
product line), Hauppauge, Averkey, etc., etc, etc. (I'm sure I've missed
some.) Are they all about the same (per price range), or do some get a
better signal than others? Anyone reading tried models of more than one of
these brands, and could compare them? Anyone know of good comparative
reviews of recent models? (There was a recent comparative review in PC
Magazine of a few models, and although I normally find that a good magazine,
I found that review rather disappointing, as the reviewer mostly compares
the software bundles that come with the units, which software he likes
better, etc., not the quality of the hardware. I don't buy hardware based on
which "limited-edition" or "special edition" software comes with it.)

I have read a little on newsgroups about another brand, that one doesn't see
often in stores, called Canopus. I looked at their web site. Their products
cost much more than products with similar features by different
manufacturers, such as those mentioned above. For instance, it looks like
their lowest-priced model that is an external device, is their "100" model
(I forget the letters, it might have been something like "ADV100.). It costs
almost $300 dollars! And it is just firewire, no USB I believe. (If I were
to use that, daisychained into my firewire external hard drive, where the
video was being captured to, would that be a problem?) Is the Canopus
capture device really so much better than the other brands, to be worth
twice as much? Is the quality of the captured video much better? Even when
one is capturing old VHS tapes, and not-so-great TV reception, is the
difference in the result really noticeable?

Thank you for your input.

 

[luminous]

I currently have the Dazzle DVC80, a lower-end unit. I'm not too happy with
the quality of the captured video, and the video and audio are often out of
sync. I would guess that that's probably true with most of the units well
under $100. (I think the DVC-80 usually sells for about $69.) So, I'm
thinking of getting something better.

As my computer is a laptop, it needs to be an external device, USB (I have
2.0) or Firewire. (I have 4 USB 2.0 ports, only one Firewire port, which I
likely would have my large (180GB) external Firewire HD on while capturing,
so probably USB 2 would be best for the capture device.) (I've read
something about daisy-chaining Firewire, but not sure how well that works.)

I've been looking mostly at products in the $100-$200 range, a step up from
the product I currently have. (For instance, the Dazzle product in that
range would be DVC-150.) I don't really need an analog output on the unit,
as my laptop already has a video out port. I just need the analog inputs,
video and audio, and the USB connection to the computer. I don't really need
a tuner in the unit, as I can connect it to my VCR. (Or, is there an
advantage, in recording from TV, for the capture unit to have its own
dedicated tuner?) (Also, any advantage I'm not aware of in the unit having
an analog out?)

What I do care about is getting a better quality of captured video than I
have been with my current unit. Obviously, in recording old VHS analog tapes
to digital video, or from a television broadcast, with not-too-great cable
reception, the quality is not going to be too great anyhow. But I certainly
wouldn't want the capturing process to make the final result worse than the
original in quality. Also, I've read in the specs of some products that they
are supposed to have "noise filters", etc., to improve captured video from
an original that isn't so great. Are such filters built into the hardware,
or only in the accompanying software? Do they really help?

I see several products available by different manufacturers--ADSTECH,
Adaptec, Pinnacle, Dazzle (now owned by Pinnacle, but still a separate
product line), Hauppauge, Averkey, etc., etc, etc. (I'm sure I've missed
some.) Are they all about the same (per price range), or do some get a
better signal than others? Anyone reading tried models of more than one of
these brands, and could compare them? Anyone know of good comparative
reviews of recent models? (There was a recent comparative review in PC
Magazine of a few models, and although I normally find that a good magazine,
I found that review rather disappointing, as the reviewer mostly compares
the software bundles that come with the units, which software he likes
better, etc., not the quality of the hardware. I don't buy hardware based on
which "limited-edition" or "special edition" software comes with it.)

I have read a little on newsgroups about another brand, that one doesn't see
often in stores, called Canopus. I looked at their web site. Their products
cost much more than products with similar features by different
manufacturers, such as those mentioned above. For instance, it looks like
their lowest-priced model that is an external device, is their "100" model
(I forget the letters, it might have been something like "ADV100.). It costs
almost $300 dollars! And it is just firewire, no USB I believe. (If I were
to use that, daisychained into my firewire external hard drive, where the
video was being captured to, would that be a problem?) Is the Canopus
capture device really so much better than the other brands, to be worth
twice as much? Is the quality of the captured video much better? Even when
one is capturing old VHS tapes, and not-so-great TV reception, is the
difference in the result really noticeable?

Thank you for your input.

There are two new canopus models (go the the web site) but they are $495.00,
not 300. They are also superior.

I have tried several, and find the ADS and Adaptec USB2 versions to be the
best for me--Don't even try USB1, and if that is all you have give up.
YMMV, since many factors influence this. I much prefer to use Canopus or
the Pinnacle PCI version devices. By the way, all Pinnacle software
sucks....without exception.

 

[Nomen Nescio]

[Crossposted Groups Trimmed]

I currently have the Dazzle DVC80, a lower-end unit. I'm not too happy with
the quality of the captured video, and the video and audio are often out of
sync. I would guess that that's probably true with most of the units well
under $100. (I think the DVC-80 usually sells for about $69.) So, I'm
thinking of getting something better.
[snip]

I've been looking mostly at products in the $100-$200 range, a step up from
the product I currently have. (For instance, the Dazzle product in that
range would be DVC-150.) I don't really need an analog output on the unit,
as my laptop already has a video out port. I just need the analog inputs,
video and audio, and the USB connection to the computer. I don't really need
a tuner in the unit, as I can connect it to my VCR. (Or, is there an
advantage, in recording from TV, for the capture unit to have its own
dedicated tuner?) (Also, any advantage I'm not aware of in the unit having
an analog out?)

Don't worry about getting a product with a built-in tuner. One of the
only advantages is you can sometimes use the bundled software to
control the tuner and change channels for scheduled capturing -- and
this **usually** only works with analog TV, not satellite TV/digital
cable, etc.

What I do care about is getting a better quality of captured video than I
have been with my current unit. Obviously, in recording old VHS analog tapes
to digital video, or from a television broadcast, with not-too-great cable
reception, the quality is not going to be too great anyhow. But I certainly
wouldn't want the capturing process to make the final result worse than the
original in quality. Also, I've read in the specs of some products that they
are supposed to have "noise filters", etc., to improve captured video from
an original that isn't so great. Are such filters built into the hardware,
or only in the accompanying software? Do they really help?

Some products have hardware filtering (e.g., Canopus ADVC-300 at $550
<http://www.canopus.us/US/products/ADVC300/pt_advc300.asp>), while
NLEs (e.g., those with Sony's Vegas v4.0
<http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=808>
or Avery Lee's VirtualDUB <http://www.virtualdub.org/>) can use
software filters to clean things up.

I've seen lots of these results from captured dirty sources, and the
improvements to me have always been only mediocre at best. Also, any
time there is "lossy" capture, there is going to be some degradation
in quality relative to the source, that is essentially unavoidable --
what you want to do is to minimize this quality reduction as much as
possible.

I have read a little on newsgroups about another brand, that one doesn't see
often in stores, called Canopus. I looked at their web site. Their products
cost much more than products with similar features by different
manufacturers, such as those mentioned above. For instance, it looks like
their lowest-priced model that is an external device, is their "100" model
(I forget the letters, it might have been something like "ADV100.). It costs
almost $300 dollars! And it is just firewire, no USB I believe. (If I were
to use that, daisychained into my firewire external hard drive, where the
video was being captured to, would that be a problem?)

It could be, but I doubt it.

Capturing DV25 requires 25Mb/s of bandwidth and writing that data to
the external Firewire HD requires 25Mb/s of bandwidth. A good quality
Firewire card/cables specs at 400Mb/s of bandwidth, so you going to be
using around 13% of the available bandwidth. You gotta factor things
like overhead in there, but I think you'll be well under 25% of the
theoretical bandwidth so you should be fine, I'd imagine.

Is the Canopus capture device really so much better than the other
brands, to be worth twice as much?

(First of all, you need to decide if you want a device that will
capture in DV25 AVI or MPEG. I prefer the former.)

I think so. I paid $199.99 for mine
(<http://www.academicsuperstore.com/q...etdisp/v/604707-canopus/canopus/ADVC-100.html>),
which is much cheaper than is normally available on the street
(<http://castle.pricewatch.com/search/search.idq?qc="ADVC"*+AND+"100"*&cr=advc-100>),
but is still more expensive than some other competing products such as
the ADSTech Pyro A/V Link
(<http://castle.pricewatch.com/search/search.idq?qc="PYRO"*+AND+"LINK"*&cr=pyro+link>)
or a DataVideo DAC-100
(<http://castle.pricewatch.com/search...+"100"*+AND+"DATAVIDEO"*&cr=dac-100+datavideo>).

I've used a Hollywood Dazzle DV bridge (appears to be discontinued,
which is no surprise to me) in the past, which is supposed to perform
the same function, but I found it to be very unreliable. There was
A/V synch issues and the device would just "stop capturing" randomly.
This was totally unacceptable.

I have heard of great things about the discontinued Sony DVMC-DA2 and
the Datavideo DAC-100, which you can find for cheaper and may be
equally as good, but I just got a Canopus ADVC-100 because of its
well-deserved reputation.

Is the quality of the captured video much better? Even when one is
capturing old VHS tapes, and not-so-great TV reception, is the
difference in the result really noticeable?

I think when you are dealing with poor quality sources, then often
times that is the limiting factor rather than whether you pick one
capture device or another.

The thing about the Canopus ADVC-100 is you just plug it in and it
captures perfectly. No hassles and no problems.

I see devices coming out all the time, such as the ADSTech Pyro A/V
Link
(<http://www.adstech.com/products/API_550/intro/api550intro.asp?pid=API-550>)
which look superior to the Canopus ADVC-100 on paper: It has
component in/out and less money. This looked great and I was thinking
about getting one, but then read stuff like this:

<http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain>
<http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain>

while other people think that product works just great.

I didn't want to experiment, I just wanted to buy something that was
high quality and I know would work.

 

[MS]

There are two new canopus models (go the the web site) but they are $495.00,
not 300. They are also superior.

I didn't say "new" model. I mentioned the ADVC-100, which sells for about
$300. The ones cheaper than that (I believe the ADVC-50 and ADVC-1394)
require a PCI connection, which I don't have. (The latter has a Firewire
connection to connect to a digital camcorder, but doesn't connect to the
computer with Firewire, it requires a PCI card slot.)

I have tried several, and find the ADS and Adaptec USB2 versions to be the
best for me--Don't even try USB1, and if that is all you have give up.
YMMV, since many factors influence this. I much prefer to use Canopus or
the Pinnacle PCI version devices. By the way, all Pinnacle software
sucks....without exception.

I do have four USB 2 slots, as well as one Firewire, as I mention. Did you
notice any difference between the ADS and Adaptec models? Which of their
models did you try?

Have you also tried Canopus? If so, what differences did you notice in the
output compared to the ADS and Adaptec? (I know you wrote that Canopus was
"superior", but I don't know if that was based on what you read, or whether
you have used one. Also, I don't know if you were referring to those $495
models.)

 

[misfit]

i have the advc-100.
happy as a clam.

i use it with Pinnacle Studio 8.
worth the money

 

[Aussie Infidel]

I currently use a Canopus ADVC 100 and external Firewire drive on a single
port. The daisy chaining works fine and I have no dramas capturing on a
lowly old P3 1gig lappy. The ADVC 100 gives great results and is very
portable.

Aussie Infidel