I would like a little help with this device. I am finding out I don't know a lot about how these devices operate. From the Canopus site: -- Convert VHS, S-VHS, Hi8 and 8mm analog tapes to DV in one simple step using ADVC100. ADVC100 connects with all analog and [bolb]DV video[/bold] equipment and is compatible with editing systems for Windows and Mac OS. -- and -- Canopus's proprietary DV codec chip provides the industry's highest picture quality preservation DV means Digital Video, doesn't it. It always fakes me out when I see "DV video" - see bold above I don't need a capture card if I use this device, right? I understand that no software comes with this card, so - what kind of software is used to capture the video? Is the video spooled directly to disc, - and how? - and in what format (is there a choice here)? Using this card, will the captured video be at least equal to the quality of the VHS tape being captured? What's the Proprietary DV codec chip mean - is this good? - is this limiting in any way? Can someone give me a short tutorial here, explaining how this device would work, and answer my questions above. Thanks.
General idea, the Canopus ADVC-100 goes between your analog source, VCR for example, and your PC's firewire port. Using free software such as WinDV, you'll end up with a compressed, type 2 (video and audio) .avi file on your hard drive. You can then do almost anything you want with this .avi file. For example, VirtualDub supports dv files. You could use software like TMPGenc Plus to convert the .avi to a DVD compliant mpeg-2 file if you wanted to burn the video to a DVD. The Canopus ADVC-100 does a good job of converting analog video to a digital format. After that it's up to you and the software you use to take the next step. "DV means Digital Video, doesn't it. " Yes, but no need to worry so much about the naming. "I don't need a capture card if I use this device, right? " Right, no capture card needed. "I understand that no software comes with this card, so - what kind of software is used to capture the video? " The Canopus ADVC-100 isn't really a card, it's an external box. Use this free, very good software, WinDV, to save the Canopus output to your hard drive, http://windv.mourek.cz/ "Is the video spooled directly to disc, - and how? - and in what format (is there a choice here)? " Video lands on your hard drive as an .avi file. It is a compressed, type 2 (video + audio) .avi in the dv format. "Using this card, will the captured video be at least equal to the quality of the VHS tape being captured? " No. It will be very close though. Any analog to digital conversion will lose some quality. You can never get an exact copy. The Canopus devices provide exceptional quality. "What's the Proprietary DV codec chip mean - is this good? - is this limiting in any way?" The DV codec is the software used to compress/decompress this specific format of .avi file. Use the Panasonic codec for DV .avi if necessary. http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=193
moonrocks - Thanks for the help. I am slowly catching on. I am doing some research for my father-in-law because he has a bunch of old VHS tapes that he(we) wants to get onto CD so that they can be saved and passed around to the appropriate family members. Now, I'm getting excited myself, because I like learning new things -- and this video preservation and editing is a challenging subject -- and now my wife says her organization has a bunch of VHS tapes that they would like to get onto DVDs -- so I may be doing a 2-fer here. OK, enough of that. Is the Canopus about the best I can do for transferring the VHS files to DVD -- are there any other ones that are better (without spending outrageous sums of money, of course) -- if I am going to do this, I want to do it right. I assume that if I take the AVI file on the hard drive and then copy it directly to a DVD (in MPEG format) via some encoding program like the TMPGenc program you mentioned, that this would be the optimal way to get the VHS to DVD, because there would only be one compression step and then one encoding step. What I would end up with in this case is a DVD that contained everything that was on the VHS tape and the quality would be "almost" equal to the quality of the original VHS tape. Any quality lost will more likely be in the analog-to-digital conversion more-so than in the compression or encoding passes. moonrocks, I don't want to double up on you/Minion, because I am having a discussion with Minion in my other Thread about video editing, and he is helping me out a lot -- in fact, I could not have asked a couple of the above questions without his help -- but I understand from him, the fewer the translations from one format to another, the better --hence the above approach. As far as video editing is concerned, I could either do it now on the AVI files, or do it later on the MPEG files, again, for optimal quality (i.e. no additionals conversions). However, I don't know the editing capabilities of MPEG editors. Most editors don't seem to take MPEG as source -- so do I have a delima here. And am I overemphasizing this quality issue -- I mean, how much quality is lost in going from one format to another, or does a lot depend on the formats used. For instance, suppose I just wanted to accomplish just the copying/saving of VHS to DVD first and worry about the editing later, as per my plan. So, could I come in in AVI format, copy the files to DVD (MPEG) perserving the quality, then convert the MPEG files back to AVI, edit them (break them up, add titles, text, sound, etc.) and then copy the resulting project file back to another DVD (MPEG). Would the quality suffer very much with this process. (The reason I want to take this approach is that objective #1 is to get all of the "many" VHS tapes copied to DVD first, and then edit them at leisure. To stop and do the editing before producing the DVD could mean all of the tapes with never get copied.) Again, thanks for your help. Edit: typo errors.
well, without going to the level of professional video equipment, the Canopus products are probably the best quality (in my humble opinion anyways) for the home user. I have a Canopus ADVC-100 and I've been very happy with it. It gives great captures and you'l never have audio/sync problems with it. The ADVC-100 costs around $300 though. There are cheaper alternatives that give pretty decent results as well. Hauppauge makes some very nice PCI capture cards that will capture analog video directly to mpeg-2. I also use a Hauppauge PVR-150 which probably retails for around $60-70. http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvr150.html It's a hardware mpeg encoder, the work is done on the card itself and not the CPU, which is nice. The PVR-150 (or 250 if you want to spend a bit more) will also give you very clean captures from an analog source. I use mine very often for capturing from live TV or from store bought VHS tapes. A lot depends on how much you want to spend. If you want to save money then for everyday use and routine captures you might consider a PCI capture card like the Hauppauge. I use my PVR-150 75% of the time because of the convenience of capturing straight to mpeg-2. For rock solid performance and eeking out that last couple of percentage points of quality you'll want to consider a Canopus. I notice that my Canopus ADVC-100 will give great results on very old, poor quality tapes that my Hauppauge PVR-150 struggles with. I'm not sure if Canopus still sells the 100 though, I think you'd have to purchase the 110 or 300, unless you shop for the 100 or Ebay. It's more time/work to use the Canopus because you capture to .avi then convert to .mpeg then burn, but the quality on the Canopus captures can't be beat. Don't worry about the "doubling-up" as you say with Minion. I've been reading his posts for quite some time and he's a professional when it comes to analog to digital conversion. His expertise far exceeds mine so heed his advice closely. I'm just adding my personal experiences with VHS captures to the conversation. "could I come in in AVI format, copy the files to DVD (MPEG) perserving the quality, then convert the MPEG files back to AVI, edit them (break them up, add titles, text, sound, etc.) and then copy the resulting project file back to another DVD (MPEG). Would the quality suffer very much with this process." If the goal is a burned DVD then going from mpeg back to avi is going backwards. The general workflow would be avi to mpeg2 to DVD. Every conversion from one format to another costs you quality. I'm not sure what "editing" your needing to do. The adding of titles or menus etc. is what authoring software does, no need to re-encode the video for that. "The reason I want to take this approach is that objective #1 is to get all of the "many" VHS tapes copied to DVD first, and then edit them at leisure. To stop and do the editing before producing the DVD could mean all of the tapes with never get copied.)" If by "copied to DVD" you only mean to archive the captured file to a DVD disc (not in DVD playable format) that's one thing. I suppose you could capture, archive to disc, then deal with the captures at your leisure. That might work with mpeg captures but not .avi captures which will be quite large. Most people capture, then process the video the way they need to, then burn to DVD.
moonrocks- Thanks a lot for your help. I am getting turned on to this Canopus converter approach. You mentioned something I hadn't considered -- that is, saving/archiving the tapes in a non-MPEG format. And I guess I need to find out more about the capabilities of the DVD authoring packages. I haven't read any tapes in yet, but I get the impression that the AVI files, even though compressed by something like the Canopus device, are huge (I think you mentioned that). What would the AVI file sizes be like for a 1/2 or 1 hour VHS tape -- would they even fit on a 4.7 GB DVD -- could they be saved in their raw format on a DVD. Is there any kind of intermediate format that would be good for archiving -- saving and preserving the original video in as close to the original AVI files as possible. As for authoring programs, typically, as far as I know, I would like to do at least the following: 1. Insert title/text pages (whatever they are called in authoring) at the beginning of the VHS tape/file to identify places and times. 2. Insert title/text pages at specific places in the tape/file, identifying people, places, dates. 3. Also, I would like to insert text "on" the video, at selected places on the tape, again to identify people, ages, etc. 4. I would also like to have the capability to add naration and music (probably multiple audio clips) to the tape/file. 5. Fading and transitions would also be nice, but I would expect that to be part of a good authoring package. Can all of that be done with an authoring program manipulating MPEG files -- I figured they would handle 1 & 5, but don't know about 2,3,&4. Do most authoring programs work with MPEG files, or do they use other file formats as their source. Thanks again.
"You mentioned something I hadn't considered -- that is, saving/archiving the tapes in a non-MPEG format. And I guess I need to find out more about the capabilities of the DVD authoring packages. " I probably didn't express myself the right way. I was responding to your desire to get your tapes copied to DVD first, then edit at your leisure. Most people wouldn't do it that way though. It's much easier to leave the captured video on your hard drive until you have finished editing/authoring whatever, then burn it to disc. If you captured directly to mpeg-2, you *could* probably fit the original captured video stream on a single 4.7 gig DVD. Depending upon your capture settings you'll get somewhere around 1-2 gig per hour. But with Canopus forget about it. Your DV .avi is going to be close to 12-14 gig per hour. But again, best strategy is capture to hard drive, do what you want to do with the video, then the last step is to go to a burned DVD. If you're talking about inserting text onto the video istelf, adding narration, music, multiple audio clips you are now doing serious video editing. Simple authoring packages like TMPGEnc DVD Author won't do that. TMPGEnc Author will take the mpeg-2 file and allow you to create DVD compliant files, with menus if you like, so you can burn it to a playable DVD. I don't do any of the involved editing of my captures because I just capture TV and old VHS movies and all I need is simple DVD menus. TMPGEnc Author is all I need. I do use VideoRedo to edit my TV captures but only to remove commercials. If you're planning on doing involved editing you'll need the advice of Minion and others who are experienced at this.
moonrocks- Well, the real problem here is volume and expertise. My father-in-law (amature photographer, who has done a little professional work doing weddings and stuff) has a "bunch" of VHS tapes. The family wants to get these VHS tapes onto DVDs before they turn to dust (I imagine some are 10-20 years old). I am in Texas and he is in Wisconsin -- so I can't help him all that much, at least hands-on. He doesn't have a lot of computer expertise and I was going to teach him how to do all of this when we visit him for about a week around Thanksgiving. After looking into all of the options for doing this, I am pretty sure he will have a hard time picking up all of this in a week. It took me about a week to produce a movie, actually 150 pictures of his 80th birthday party with Movie Maker 2 -- adding titles, transitions and music, etc. Maybe, at a minimum, I can teach him how to split his movies (AVI on the hard drive), insert titles in at appropriate places and then save the updated file, still in AVI format -- and then get it copied to a DVD (MPEG format) -- but now I am even worried about that. So if that doesn't work, I am back to just teaching him how to import the movie to a hard drive and then exporting it to a DVD so that it could be played on a DVD -- I will have to see. I updated my Nero software to the level I can now burn a DVD (my OEM version would only burn CDs). OK, Nero is going to be too complicated for him -- may be even too complicated for me. OK, enough of that -- let me get back to the Canopus device. Is the Canopus device and import process an easy thing to do. and Is the TMPGenc an easy to use program. These are the only 2 steps I REALLY need to save the VHS movies to DVD, isn't it. And what would be the simplist video editor to use -- would Movie Maker fit there or are there editors that are even more simple. I am thinking now that I may have to do the authoring -- which I could do if he gets this stuff on individual DVDs and sends them to me to be combined onto a reduced number of DVDs.
The Canopus ADVC-100 is very easy to use. However it is a little more time consuming than using an mpeg2 capture card like the Hauppauge PVR-150. With the Canopus you are capturing to DV .avi, but then you have to use an encoder like TMPGEnc (also easy to use) to encode the .avi to DVD compliant mpeg2. That step could add an extra hour or so to the process. Then use TMPGEnc Author on the encoded mpeg2 file to create the DVD files and menus to burn. The PVR-150 will save the step of encoding the .avi to mpeg2 because it captures straight to mpeg2 so all you then have to to is use TMPGEnc author. The PVR-150 gives pretty decent results so you may want to consider that option if you want to keep things as simple as possible for your father-in-law. As I don't do the kind of video editing that you're wanting to do, adding text over video, adding music etc. I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending an editor if I've never used it. You might want to check with other members on the forums to see what they use.
