Capture From VHS Tape

BJI wrote on 6/10/2007, 9:15 PM

I have a ADVC300 Canopus Capure Device and I want to convert some older VHS movies that I have to DVD before they wear out. Every time I try to capture them the picture turnes considerably darker about 5 seconds into the capture process. Tried some other tapes which work fine. Why do some VHS tapes record properly and others darken during the recording process. I adjust the brightness in the Canopus editing software but when I save it doesn't stay that way very long. You can see the picture but it's really dark. Any suggestions. Thanks.

Comments

farss wrote on 6/11/2007, 12:25 AM

Could be those tapes have Macrovision on them, out of the box the ADVC 300 respects Macrovision. If they're commercial tapes this is quite likely the problem.

Bob.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/11/2007, 5:54 AM

That's interesting... the ADS Pyro A/V Link ignores Macrovision.

But it could also be that the tapes are just going bad.

baysidebas wrote on 6/11/2007, 9:02 AM

Good call, in fact, the ADVC300 manual clearly states that Macrovision protected tapes will transfer with very dark video.

Of course, there's nothing to prevent you from stripping the MAcrovision before the video is fed into the Canopus. And here's where the old, mothballed, Beta VCR can come in very handy.

gordyboy wrote on 6/11/2007, 2:54 PM

Isn't there some undocumented sequence of buttons you can press on the Canopus ADVC series converters to defeat MacroVision?

Of course I wouldn't know about that sort of thing.

gb