DVD to VHS then VHS via Canopus ADVC 300 back to MPEG-2

BillyBoy wrote on 1/22/2005, 1:00 PM
Here's the deal. I have lots of early DVD's I burned without much or any editing just to get them off of video tape before the tapes broke.

I didn't want to tie up a camera or PC for a long time to go digial to analog then back again, so instead I found this method faster and effective.

1. get a dubbing VCR/DVD player. I picked up a Zenith XBV442 for just under $100 at my local Circuity City, can be found for as low as $75 or so on the web. The nice thing is you get one button dubbing. Simply put a blank VHS tape in one side of this player and the DVD you want to copy in the other and just press the front panel copy button. That's it!

2. Once you have the VHS copy, rewind, then set up the Canopus with firewire to your PC and the VHS/DVD player as composite out. That's not a typo. You don't want to use "S" video or component because both those signals already have the luminance (Y) and chrominance (C) seperated and you want the Canopus A/D converter to use its circuity to seperate Y and C and thereby remove video noise which it does rather well, results depend on source material.

As a bonus the ADVC300 also can help with Black expansion and the dreaded whiteout (where whites are too hot). While Vegas can help with these things too, it seems in the limited tests I've done so far it does it much better.

Summary

While you are going from digital to analog and then back to digital from analog the benefit of the noise reduction more than offsets that issue in what I've seen so far.



Comments

JJKizak wrote on 1/22/2005, 3:15 PM
VHS? I just recorded a DVD thru Matrox Parhelia tv out to "S" video to Mini-DV then captured back into V5 through ADVC 300. I could not see any degradation, but then again I'm getting old.

JJK
RalphM wrote on 1/22/2005, 3:44 PM
I'm missing why you just don't go from the component outputs of a DVD player thru the Canopus into your PC?

BillyBoy wrote on 1/22/2005, 4:09 PM
I could use the composite out, but then I couldn't use the Canopus at the same time to hook up to my external monitor (using component out) to work on another project while the other is getting converted.

It is just me or does anyone else find the digital/analog LED's ln the Canopus extra bright blue?
farss wrote on 1/22/2005, 5:10 PM
VERY bright LEDs there, we have a Wendt field mixer with blue LEDs in the level meter, I feel sorry for the sound guy, even on Dim they'll burn your retina for sure.

I'm slightly confused about the rest of it, I've got the ADVC300 and can see no difference between going in composite or Y/C, noise reduction works on both. We've got a S-VHS deck with Y/C outputs and feed that into 300 and capture into Vegas and the same time running the Canopus utility to tweak things. We take the output from the back of the 300 to the monitor so we can see the changes that the procamp is making, Very neat setup.

Bob.