Analog transfer unit(s)

CTJ schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 14:13 Uhr

I am interested in transferring some VHS, but mainly 8mm Camcorder ( I do not have pass thru) tapes to my computer then edit them in VV6c whereas needed. I have been reading reviews pursuant to:
ADS Tech USBAV-701 USB 2.0 Interface and ADS Tech API-555 IEEE 1394 Interface PYRO AV LINK which both have received mixed reviews. Albeit, I would suggest some are due to its user(s) or hardware deficiencies.

I realize garbage in will yield garbage out…but, I am trying to ascertain which would be a better unit for what I want to do – moreover, I realize fire wire is more pure than USB, but are we talking about that much of a difference in the output (clarity), etc.?
One is priced 2x more than the other.
Please provide me with as much in-depth and precise info. you have at your finger tips.
Feel free to enlighten me if you know of other options…

Thanks in advance for your professionalism, time and intuitive knowledge.

CTJ

Kommentare

douglas_clark schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 14:48 Uhr

I don't know these two units, but USB or Firewire doesn't have anything to do with the quality, just the connection between the box and your computer. Either will work fine (as long as it's USB2 and not USB1.1). USB uses more CPU, but this shouldn't matter for capture, because you can't do anything else on your PC during a capture anyway. The 2x difference in price must be due to other features.

Vegas video capture works only with firewire devices. I don't think Vegas will talk to the USB box. Anybody else know?

Be sure to look at Canopus ADVC and ACEDVio converters. They work well with Vegas, and the capture quality is very good.

JohnnyRoy schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 15:04 Uhr

> I don't think Vegas will talk to the USB box. Anybody else know?

Yup, it will. Vegas sees both my ADS Pyro A/V Link (firewire) and my Instant DVD 2 (USB) capture devices. It also recognizes and captures from my USB web cam.

I would get the A/V Link. Earlier models (API-550) had some problems but the new API-555 is very solid. IMHO, it is the best box for the money.

~jr

Jacksmyname schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 15:45 Uhr

Using the Canopus ADVC110 here; works great.
Jack

johnmeyer schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 16:18 Uhr

USB and Firewire are not the issue; resolution and frame rate ARE the issue. You want to transfer at 640x480 or higher, and you definitely want to transfer at 29.97 frames per second.

My strong recommendation is to get a DV or Digital8 camcorder and use its passthrough capability. I don't think you'll find anything much cheaper (you can get these for $250 or less), and the DV video you get from either is by far the easiest thing to edit. You get full 720x480 (if you are NTSC, i.e., in the US/Canada/Japan). These connect via Firewire.

CTJ schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 17:51 Uhr

...if I used USB (DVD Xpress unit) would it transfer at 640x480 or higher - 29.97 FPS?

Also, if I was to go with the pass-thru method would it dump or capture my video at a higher or better qulaity than the ADS DVD xpress unit and ADS DVD Pyro AV link unit?

TIA,

JohnnyRoy schrieb am 14.02.2006 um 18:42 Uhr

> Also, if I was to go with the pass-thru method would it dump or capture my video at a higher or better qulaity than the ADS DVD xpress unit and ADS DVD Pyro AV link unit?

I’m not sure why John Meyer thinks that a camera on passthru is a cheaper option at $250, but...

The ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link is only $160 retail and has greater input capabilities than a DV or Digital8 camera or the Canopus ADVC-110 (Composite, Component, & S-Video) and is cheaper as well. It will give you the same DV25 720x480 29.976fps quality. IMHO the A/V Link unit is much simpler to use and more convenient than using a camcorder just for capturing analog input. That’s why I bought one.

The ADS DVD Xpress 2.0 captures MPEG not DV. It’s great for going straight from analog tape to DVD without any editing. In fact, with the included software you can record direct from tape to DVD bypassing your hard drive! If you don’t want to edit, and you are just archiving tapes, this is a good option but I would get the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 instead. It’s a better unit than the DVD Express.

I’ve been through this and I bought the ADS A/V Link for analog to DV, and the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 for analog to MPEG/DVD. I am very happy with the performance of both units and use the A/V Link on footage I want to edit, and the Instant DVD for just archiving analog tapes (unedited).

~jr

johnmeyer schrieb am 15.02.2006 um 01:09 Uhr

ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link is only $160 retail

Oh, I thought they were a lot more expensive than that.

farss schrieb am 15.02.2006 um 02:02 Uhr

Even at that price it I think it lacks a TBC. Depending on the quality of the tapes that may or may not make a HUGE difference.
Cheapest and quickest way is a set top DVD recorder and the better ones do have a TBC. No way to do CC though and you're stuck with basic menus.
You can also get cheap boxes that do A/V to mpeg2 and as noted these do a half decent job.
All in all, you gets what you pays for.
With top shelf gear and a lot fo time you can get DVDs that look better than the VHS tapes ever did. If you're not careful you can get DVDs that look worse than the VHS tapes did!
Bob.

s k r o o t a y p schrieb am 20.02.2006 um 05:51 Uhr

i just posted needing help on this subject and then found this thread!

so no one else has anything under $100 that will do the job the Pyro A/V Link will? why doesn't Sony doesn't have something out there?

also, what is "passthrough" on a camera?

and what is TBC?

thanks.

farss schrieb am 20.02.2006 um 07:37 Uhr

TBC = Time Base Corrector. Used to resync a video signal, put simply, get the wobbles out of it.

"Passthrough " refers to the camera being able to pass video between its analogue and digital ports, most cameras can do this, but certainly not all/

I'm certain Sony has something out there that'll do this in their broadcast line if you're after a dedicated unit, I don't want to hazard a guess at what it'll cost though, almost certainly more than several copies of Vegas and the PCs to run it on.

The Sony DVD recorders do have these smarts built into them I think. For a quick VHS to DVD job they're hard to beat but no adjusting the video before it goes to DVD.

johnmeyer schrieb am 20.02.2006 um 17:58 Uhr

Cheapest solution is often a "broken" Digital8 camera on eBay. Many camcorders break because the tape mechanism jams, etc., but the electronics are still good. Many of these have passthrough and many have a form of a TBC. A little bit of a pig-in-a-poke, for sure, but if you are trying to do this on the cheap, that's a pretty good way to go. Here's a link:

eBay Sony Digital8

logiquem schrieb am 20.02.2006 um 19:57 Uhr

You can also buy a small Canon ZR camcorder for such task. They all have pass thru.

I tried a PYRO AV LINK unit a couple of years ago but found it rather buggy and unresponsive and returned it...

JohnnyRoy schrieb am 20.02.2006 um 21:29 Uhr

> I tried a PYRO AV LINK unit a couple of years ago but found it rather buggy and unresponsive and returned it...

Yes, that was a couple of years ago. The API-550’s must be Rev C or greater for this problem to be fixed. The API-555 works flawlessly. If you have a pre Rev C API-550 you can send it to ADS Tech free of charge and they will update the firmware to fix the problem. I had one of these and they fixed it for me for free. I also have one of the newer API-555’s and both work great!

~jr

s k r o o t a y p schrieb am 21.02.2006 um 01:49 Uhr

has anyone tried or heard anything about the Plextor convertors? they have these 2 reasonbly priced models.

Plextor DIGITAL VIDEO CONVERTER-USB2.0 ( PX-AV100 )
$69.99

Plextor ConvertX Digital Video Converter (PX-M402U)
$127.99 (firewire out? USB out? don't know.)

saw them at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/002-3467220-4207212?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-alias=electronics-aps&field-brandtextbin=Plextor

i saw that Johnnyroy said in a post that is now over a year old that
"Whatever you do, stay away from USB capture devices because they just won’t give you good quality and very often have audio sync problems."
does this still ring true? is firewire the safest?

also can anyone give a definite answer on whether the Canopus ADVC55 picture quality is noticably better than the ADS Tech Pyro A/V Link. API 555. or just Canopus vs. ADS in general?

thanks so much for your time.

s k r o o t a y p schrieb am 21.02.2006 um 03:06 Uhr

well i found a site with everything i could ever want to know about the Plextor PX-M402U (USB out). the thing is...i need an interpretor: ( perhaps someone could scan this page and lay down a lowdown : )

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=10154

one thing i saw was that the formats that it converts to are:
MPEG-1 (VCD)
MPEG-2 (DVD-Video)
MPEG-4
DivX®
from the threads it sounded like m-peg wasn't ideal for editing. shouldn't AVI ideally be among the formats in a decent converter? (please remember i am a layperson here).

thanks!

s k r o o t a y p schrieb am 21.02.2006 um 03:23 Uhr

further observations from the Plextor convertor test page:

"We tested the device on several computers, to ensure that the minimum requirments are correct. The device produced audio/video synchronization problems with CPUs lower than 800MHz. We also tested the device with several Pentium IV systems, but the results were the same, regardless of CPU speed. We decided to use the recommended configuration that Plextor suggested, i.e a Pentium IV at 1.6GHz.

In order to perform our tests we used:

WinDVD Creator 2
Cyberlink PowerDVD 5.0
WinDVD Platinum 6.0
VirtualDUB 1.5.10 (18160)
AviChecker 2.0
MovieID 1.02
Nero Burning Rom v6.3.1.17"

hmmm.

JohnnyRoy schrieb am 21.02.2006 um 04:35 Uhr

USB 1.0 devices were notorious for audio / video sync problems. The newer USB 2.0 devices don’t seem to have this problem. The ADS Tech USBAV-701 (DVD Xpress) is only $85 and captures MPEG via USB. The ADS Instant DVD 2 that I have is also MPEG via USB 2.0 and I have no problems with audio sync. But as you alluded to, MPEG is not great for editing.

You can get a cheap AVI captures card but be forewarned, you get what you pay for. This Pinnacle Studio 9 AV/DV is only $45. Half of the reviews say it works great, and the other half say it’s a piece of junk. You have to ask yourself, are you feeling lucky today? It will only capture with the included Pinnacle Studio software which is very buggy. I would never recommend buying it but if you could get it to work, it will give you great results. (I have an old Pinnacle Deluxe A/V card and the captures were outstanding, but the included software was too buggy) If you can buy it somewhere that will take returns, you might want to try it as long as you can take it back if it doesn’t work.

This card might also work with scenalyzer live ($39) so the two combined might make an inexpensive option that works reliably. You can download a trial of scenalyzer and try it with the card and then bring the whole thing back to the store if it doesn’t work.

~jr