:(

Next to last on third column.
Am I just not reading it right?

I see that statement all over the google searches I did when looking for steps to accomplish this but I couldn't find any steps for doing it, only that statement in hundreds of google search results.

j razz

I just found the HVR-A1u owners manual on the Sony Pro web site, it confirmed that it does not do analog to digital conversion. Once again, I don't think that any HDV camcorder will do this. That one little thing on the Sony web site that says it does is wrong. Here is a link to the manual:

http://ws.sel.sony.com/PIPWebServices/RetrievePublicAsset/StepID/SEL-asset-127528/original/HVRA1U_OM.pdf

Maybe you need to figure out what change you made to your computer that caused the Pyro to start acting up. Although possible, it's unlikely that the Pyro hardware has failed.

I have the manual but I couldn't find anything either but everything online says that it does... confusion. Anyways, thanks for the confirmation.

Yeah, I started looking at the switches on the back to ensure I didn't change anything.

The VCR works fine on its own hooked to a TV. The firewire capture works fine when capturing from a camera. The reason I think it is the pyro is that it lags during capture. It will capture, the time will stop on the capture and then speed back up to catch its place. Everytime it does this, it will loose whatever it lagged on.

I haven't used the pyro since I was running xp 32. I attempted this on Vista 64. Perhaps that is my issue. I have another computer running xp 32- I will try it there to see if that can be ruled out.

Thanks again John.

j razz

I tried it on my xp machine and it did the same thing but it also showed dropped frames (my other machine did not show dropped frames). I tried it on both Vegas 7 and 8 on the xp machine.

Looks like I need to look into a Canopus.

j razz

Are you trying to ingest VHS or some old consumer format tapes? The sync signal on these old tapes is incredibly shaky and can certainly cause dropped frames. Heck, even when they were new recordings the sync signals were less than "crisp." Also, televisions are extremely forgiving when it comes to sync issues.

If you have a live composite video source, like the downconverted SD video output of the A1u, you could try recording a few minutes of that and see if the Pyro drops any frames.

I just found the HVR-A1u owners manual on the Sony Pro web site, it confirmed that it does not do analog to digital conversion. Once again, I don't think that any HDV camcorder will do this.FWIW, and just for the record, my Sony FX-1, which is an HDV camcorder, has analog pass-through and I use it all the time, although it has always had a glitch where it loses the first ten seconds of audio.

Don't know about the A1.

Interesting. Good to know. Thanks, John!

This tape is a compilation from a client who filmed his daughter's dance class and performances. They took several tapes and dubbed them over to one tape, but just the parts they wanted to keep. They then gave it to me to put on DVD.

I used my DVD recorder/VCR combo to get the job done this time and it worked without issue- I just can't edit without losing more quailty.

I will try your thought and see if that makes any difference coming from the cam out from composite. Thanks for the suggestion.

j razz

They took VHS camcorder tapes and dubbed them to another VHS tape? Yikes! The only way this would be worse is if they made a copy of that tape!

jr,

once it's in mpg (via dvd recorder), you could always use something like womble to re edit losslessly. mind you as jc noted, vhs>vhs isn't the best to be starting off with anyway....

I've had clients do this thinking they were being helpfull and yes, YUCK!

For anyone who does capture VHS for a buck, the ADVC-300 is the only way to go. An old Digital8 camera or VCR is not such a bad option either if you want to save a dollar and don't mind the hassle of power, video and firewire cables all in knot connected to the device.

As for the ADS Pyro, I still have one at the back of the bottom draw. I could never get it to work reliably with anything with remotely wobbly sync e.g. VHS. I learned a lot trying though :)

Bob.