OT: VCR that will work with ADS Pyro...

jrazz wrote on 5/14/2006, 12:56 PM
I have a Zenith vra421 4 head hi-fi VCR. Plays well and no problems stand alone or outputting to a cheap mpg encoder pci card that I have. My problem comes with trying to capture from it using the Pyro A/V Link box (API 550 rev E). Dropped frame after dropped frame. Doesn't matter the tape. For every 1 frame it captures it drops about 200. Again, I can capture perfectly to the pci card, but it encodes direct to mpg which is not what I want. The Pyro can capture fine from 8mm or camcorders hooked up to it, just not my VCR.
Any suggestions on VCR's that you know will work with the ADS Pyro? Thanks.

j razz

Comments

Former user wrote on 5/14/2006, 1:13 PM
Were these VHS tapes recorded at slow speed?

DaveT2
farss wrote on 5/14/2006, 1:18 PM
My advice, get a better converter.
Either using the A->D conversion in the older D8 camcorders or a converter such as the ADVC-300. You may even find you get a better result from your 8mm tapes.
jrazz wrote on 5/14/2006, 1:35 PM
What Speed?

I'm not sure- I didn't record them, they are a client's. The same tape has clips on it that cover a 6 year period but it is under 2 hours worth of footage. I have also tried other tapes, but they all do the same thing... and they all work when recording to the mpg pci encoder card.

Better Converter

I don't have that option right now. Just forked out my allowance on another A1u and it will be several months before I am able to build back up my "equipment fund" and even then, I have some software I am looking at buying (not that this has any bearing on the topic at hand). As for the D8- I don't own an 8mm cam, I just use the client's to tape from into the Pyro A/V link so pass through is not an option for me either. Although, I might need to purchase a cam with passthrough just for the feature.

j razz
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/14/2006, 1:44 PM
Well, I've used a Panasonic AG-1270P which a local school junked. Worked perfectly. I also use RCA VCR+TV 8" combo that, again, was junked. :) No problems with eigther (one tape was ~10 years old & a few other were between 6-1 years old).

No dropped frames, no nothing. The only "issue" I saw was when a 10 year old recorded tape had a fade to black it dropped frames, but that was it.

What drive are oyu recording to anyway? Even though DV is less intense (CPU wise) then encoding an mpeg in RT it uses much more disk throughput. You coudl just be accidently recording to C:.
jrazz wrote on 5/14/2006, 1:56 PM
What drive am I recording to-

I have tried 2 sata drives, 2 firewire drives and 2 internal EIDE drives (not the OS drive) and no difference is made. I did think of that as my default capture drive is a 500 gig firewire drive and I thought maybe there was a problem there.

j razz
JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/14/2006, 2:05 PM
I use an old Panasonic PV-8661 to capture my VHS tapes via a Pyro A/V Link without any problems. If the tapes are of very bad quality you may need something with Time Base Correction (TBC) like the Canopus ADVC-300 as farss said. If it’s dropping that many frames it sure sounds like an inability to maintain sync.

~jr
jrazz wrote on 5/14/2006, 2:28 PM
I just did a search on that model and can't find one for sale. Searched google and ebay to no avail. I found some past entries that listed it for 29-39 dollars but they don't have them anymore.

Any other VCR suggestions are welcome. I might just have to buy one and try it out and if it doesn't work- take it back. Thanks.

j razz
jrazz wrote on 5/14/2006, 4:51 PM
I pulled an old Emerson mono VCR out of the attic and it worked fine- no dropped frames. It will work fine for this project as i'll just turn the mono into "stereo" and go from there. Thanks.

j razz
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/14/2006, 5:45 PM
Just to double check.... what OS are you using? The dip switches on the back of the pyro may need to be flipped (I flipped mine for Win2k & WinXP would constantly drop frames).

Unless you need something specific just see if you can borrow someone else's VCR to test it out.