I don't think he said it was a problem, exactly... just more inquiring whether or not Vegas could be used as the capture software for his USB interface.

And in answer to that, of course, the answer is no. Vegas will capture from higher-quality firewire DV capture devices like the Canopus ADVC110 or 300, but it won't work with the cheaper, consumer-based USB MPEG2 encoders. With those, you're pretty much restricted to its own proprietary software.

Personally, I've always had awful experience trying to use them. You may be better off investing in an ADVC-110 if you think you'll be transferring a decent number of VHS tapes to your computer.

I have a couple of questions regarding the Canopus ADVC 110 and 300.

1. Will they convert analogue video from a standard VHS player/recorder (ie not a professional deck or analogue video camera, but the sort of VHS player one would use with a TV)?

2. What is the main difference between the 110 and the 300?

1. Yes - you connect the video and audio outs from the vcr to the in ports of the Converter box, and this is connected to the computer via firewire. Remember to disable Device Control in Vegas capture.

2. The 300 has a Time Base Corrector which helps stability of picture from VHS.

Before you buy a Canopus, if you have a Mini DV or Digital 8 camera, most of these can be used as pass through devices.

1. Will they convert analogue video from a standard VHS player/recorder (ie not a professional deck or analogue video camera, but the sort of VHS player one would use with a TV)?

Yeah, provided the source tape doesn't have any kind of analogue protection system like Macrovision (of course, I guess a few professional VCRs bypass that).

2. What is the main difference between the 110 and the 300?

About $200, and digital noise reduction and image stabilization features on the 300.

A Time Base Corrector is all that's needed to remove Macrovision. Not that I'm trying to assist any pirates, I've only once had call to use that trick. It was a companies own tape and the only surviving copy was on VHS with Macrovision. They'd been locked out by their lock!

Anyway the ADVC-300 has a Macrovision detector that disables the output when it detects Macrovsion. The D8 cameras and VCRs do not. I believe the latest firmware for the 300 includes a back door for disabling the Macrovision detection. Probably because with dodgy tapes it could trigger for the wrong reasons.

I would have thought with V8s Smart Render the hardware mpeg-2 capture devices might now be viable. If you've got an aweful lot of VHS tapes to shift to DVD using a decent bitrate out of a hardware encoder could be an option if you only plan to do basic tidy ups on the footage. What's put me off them in the past is going twice through the mpeg encoding process but now maybe we don't have to do that. One advantage to them for those in NTSC land might be capturing directly at 4:2:0, not that VHS's chroma is all that great to start with of course.

Bob.

Thanks everyone!

I'll try the pass through trick with my PD150 first.

Should work with PD150 however be aware the camera doesn't have a TBC. I've just finised transferring 2 hours of VHS. Coming straight of the VCR it's got lots of rolls and line tears, after the D8's TBC, rock solid.

Bob.

My experience with capturing VHS without a TBC is that you will drop frames at every point where a recording starts. If there are any bad spots on the tape with wrinkles or just a lot of reversing and re-watching scenes, you may drop frames there too. Also if you used SLP, you may drop more than average.
For the most part, I use to pretty much only drop frames at a point where a recording starts, anywhere on the tape. My tapes were in good shape otherwise.
Then I bought a used Sony Digital 8 TRV-120 for $113. on Ebay and I rarely ever drop a single frame.
Cutting out the section with dropped frames, gets old fast.

My apologies for the newbie question, but to use my PD150 as a pass-through for downloading VHS onto my computer, do I have to record it onto mini-DV tape first? I couldn't seem to get Vegas' video capture program to recognise it any other way.

Nah, you don't have to record to DV first, just pass the analog signal through the PD, it digitizes the signal for you.
Vegas will have to encode it to output to a DVD, however.

I must be missing something. I've put the RCA cables from the VCR into the PD150, the firewire from the PD150 to the computer, set the mode in the camera to A/V->DV Out and... nothing.

I can hear the sound coming through the camera, but no image, and neither is showing up on the video capture program. I realise there is probably something simple that I am overlooking - as I said I am a newbie with video cameras.

Is the camera switched to VCR?

Is it possible the tape has Macrovision copy protection?

Bob.

The camera is switched to VCR, but it is possible the tape has copy protection. I'm trying to copy some of my old VHS tapes over to DVD.

If you can't see vision in the camer'a LCD screen I'd say that' your problem. Unless you've got a faulty cable or camera.
Try another tape would be the first thing to try. Or if the VCR has a tuner try something off air.

Bob.