I've been reading posts in this forum until I'm bleary... I'm decided I should splurge on the ADVC-300. The stepup from the ADVC-110 seems to be the Time Base Correction. I don't fully understand it but it sounds like it would give me rock-solid image quality. The critical step is the actual transition from VHS to digital, and I want to do this right. But I don't understand what "bidirectional" is all about-- doesn't sound like something I need. Am I right that the 300 gives me an absolute improvement in A/D conversion over the 110? Once this box is putting out a digital version of my VHS, I want to preserve all the bits. I'm still not clear on which file formats involve no loss. Some loss at a later stage might be OK, but I want the bit stream from the original conversion preserved with no loss. I think it's been said that compressed AVI has no loss. Is this true of any of the MPEG types? Are there any other possibilities? I intend to edit these files, and then put them on DVD. Please advise on how this affects my choice of file formats. Thanks for any help. Chris Brewster
The ADVC-300 is one the Best Devices you can get for doing VHS to PC Transfers....The Video gets Filterd and stabilized before it gets Digitized and Compressed to DV Format and Transfered to your HD... The DV AVI format that you capture is Compressed But not Compressed a Lot (about 4 to 1) Like most other Compression formats and this Format is especially Created for editing..... No Matter what Format you eventually use you will Loose some Quality unless you Keep it in it"s Native DV Format or Uncompressed AVI or use a Lossless Codec Like HUFFYUV but these Formats use up "HUGE" Ammounts of Disk Space which isn"t Practical for Archiveing.... The actual Key to not looseing a Lot of Quality is to Not compress your Video files Over and Over again and allways use the Best Encoder you can get.... If you really Need to save every Last Bit and not loose any Quality you could allways output the Video Back through the ADVC-300 and out to a DV Camcorder which will record the Video to Digal Video tape but that can get expensive at about $5 per 90min DV Tape..... I suggest that you Simply Get a Good Editing Program with a Good Mpeg-2 Encoder and DVD Authoring Program and Put everything on to DVD.... A good and Inexpensive Editing Package is "Sony Vegas Movie Studio+DVD Platunum Edition" which is only $129 and is Based on Sony Vegas Video 6 and DVD architect which is a $700 Package.... http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=983 It has a Good Built in Mpeg-2/DVD Encoder and has Lots of Filters and effects and Transitions ect and since you are doing everything in the Same Program you only have to render your Project Once so there will be Minimal Quality Loss, Probably not Noticeable as Long as you use the Highest Quality rendering settings..... Cheers
Thanks. A couple of follow-ups... First, I still don't know how big a jump-up in quality I get with an ADVC300 over a 110. You say: "...you could always output the video back through the ADVC-300 and out to a DV camcorder". Why does it need go through the ADVC again? Can't I write from the computer straight to the camcorder? And is this what the ADVC description is talking about when it says "bidirectional"? About file formats... does a camcorder create compressed AVI? If so, I assume if I wrote uncompressed AVI on a tape, it would hold only a quarter the number of minutes. If MPEG-2 is the format that goes onto a DVD, I have two obvious questions: 1) Is this format compressed? 2) Is it possible to edit? I assume at least one of those is a "no". All of these have probably been answered somewhere, but this subject is an awful muddle for people just getting into it. Thanks again.
Well the ADVC-110 doesn"t have the Hardware Image Filters and Line Filters and the TBC(Time baced correction) that the ADVC-300 has so even though the ADVC-110 does Produce very Good Quality the ADVC-300 Produces better quality even better than the Source sometimes as it filters the Image before compressing it and also lets you do Color Correction before Capture.... The "Bidirectional" feature means that it can also Convert Digital to Analogue so you can output to VHS or another Analogue Source useing the ADVC-300.... If you have DV AVI on your PC you don"t need the ADVC to output to your DV Camcorder but you can use the ADVC without your PC to Convert Analogue to Digital and output it to DV Tape on your Camcorder or the Other way arround... You can not Write any other Formats accept DV out to your Camcorder because DV is the Industry standard Format for DV Camcorders and tapes and is only Compatible with that format.... And decompressing something that is allready Compressed doesn"t Affect it"s Quality so you can"t improove the quality of a Compressed File by Decompressing it because you can"t regain Data that has allready been Lost.... Yes Mpeg-2 is a Compressed Format and is the Industry standard for DVD Video and Part of the Standard for the New HD-DVD and BlueRay DVD Formats... And Yes Mpeg-2 is editable but not useing most Editors that are Geared Twords editing DV ,Well the editors Can edit Mpeg-2 but they have to re-encode the Video to output it which degrades the Quality because it is being Compressed again.... To edit Mpeg files properly without any or with Minimal Quality Loss you have to use a Native Mpeg editor or an editor that Uses Smart Rendering Like "Womble Mpeg Video Wizard 2005" or even "MagiX Movie Edit Pro" can edit mpeg 2 files and even add effects and Transitions ect to Mpeg-2 Video without re-encodeing the whole File (it just re-encodes the Frames that have been Changed by any effects).... If you aren"t going to be going a lot of Editing and are going to be strictly going to DVD you can also consider getting a Good hardware Mpeg-2 encoder card, They won"t produce the quality you will get from the ADVC-110/300 but they are Cheaper and convienient if you aren"t doing a lot editing and are going straight to DVD..... Cheers
