You might find to get to the menu option the camera has to be switched to VCR.

That said the FX-1 does not include a Time Base Corrector which can make quite a difference in the quality of captures you'll get from analogue tapes, more so with VHS. To get really good conversion you need either the right Digital8 camera, any Digital 8 VCR or a device such as the ADVC 300.

Bob.

It looks like you live here in the USA (Wisconsin?), so you have a U.S. FX1. I have the FX1 and it definitely has pass through. As already pointed out, you must be in the VCR mode and not the camera mode. I have my FX1 sitting on the bench next to me. I just turned it on and set it to VCR on the On/Off switch. I then pressed the Menu button. I scroll down to the fourth icon on the left (a left/right arrow). The menu items are:

In/Out Rec
VCR HDV/DV
Rec Mode
Component
i.Link Conv
TV Type
A/V -> DV OUT

The last setting is what you want. Change that to On and it will work.

Also, make sure you are using the correct cable which came with the FX1 (yellow, red, white RCA jacks on one end and a miniature three-lead jack on the other). Then, make sure to plug it into the correct jack on the FX1. There are quite a few places you can plug this cable, and only one which works. The correct jack is on the right side and is labeled Audio/Video and has a yellow ring around it.

Cool...so you can use the FX1 to pass the VCR signal through and into the PC via iLink? I did not know that. Well, I have had the Dazzle for two years, so the issue never crossed my mind--but I'd rather use the Vegas vidcap application than Windows Movie Maker. I'll have to give that a try.

But hey Dave; I live in Wisconsin and also own an FX1. Neat. I didn't see exactly where you lived from your website, but we lived in LaCrosse for a while while I was in Residency...GREAT city. We liked it there very much, other than the living-in-a-two-room-apartment-and-eating-mac-&-cheese-and hot-dogs part of the experience, lol.

TB

And I still have a one-season summer cottage near Oconomowoc ...

Only about 90 minutes away from Green Bay--sounds like we have enough people for a "Madison Vegas Users Group" or something like that.

TB

You may also have to change your preferences. Go Options>preferences, and under the general tab, uncheck enable dv device control (the first box) Now you will have to start you vcr manually and hit record on the Vegas screen. Wait until Vegas recognizes your camera.

Lynn

Yes, I live in the hills of Wauzeka, WI - ten miles from Boscobel, 60 miles south of La Crosse and yes I love La Crosse as well.

Yesterday, before I posted, I followed all the steps outlined so well by John Meyer and it didn’t work. However I went through everything again today and it works! The only thing different was, I followed Lynn1102’s suggestion and unchecked the DV Device control along with going to the camera menu (last item - Data Code) and under Disp Output, set it to LCD Panel. This seems to be important. These old VHS tapes loaded fine.

There is just one tinny weenie problem left. I rendered the video in Vagas and went to Architect and brought in the video. I usually just double click the green video icon at the far left and the audio comes in automatically. Not this time. I can’t get the audio to come in no matter what I do. So the video tape has gone back to the silent move era. Any thoughts?

So the video tape has gone back to the silent move era. Any thoughts? You have to render the audio from Vegas as a separate operation. You first render the video using the appropriate DVD Architect template (NEVER use the "default" template ... never). This will only encode the video. Then, encode the audio as a separate step, using the AC3 template. There are some batch scripts that let you do both of these things with one click.

On a related note, something I forgot to mention: make sure to enable the "dub" mode of your VCR. Sometimes this is called "edit" or something similar. The really cheap VCRs don't have this, but it is essential to getting a good capture. If you don't do this, you will lose lots of detail. You can search my user name for dozens and dozens of post about various other hints on how to transfer VHS tapes.

John:

I always render the audio separately, but this time, even though the file is in the folder, along with the video, it won't load. I'll search for other info Thanks.

I always render the audio separately, but this time, even though the file is in the folder, along with the video, it won't load. If the file name is not 100% identical, it won't load automatically, but you can double-click on the video file and then click on the media tab (in the right-hand window) and manually specify the audio file.

The Dazzle had gotten some bad history a few years ago, but you cannot beat the ADVC-300 which includes a TBC.

John:

That was the problem, I got sloppy about file names. I'm now able to load both video and audio. It seems to work fine.

I'm sure the ADVC-300 would be a better approch, but for the few VHS tapes people are asking to convert now, I think using the FX1 and Vegas will work nicely.

Thank you again for all your help.

Dave

Don't forget to recheck the dv device control when you finish.

Lynn