|
Having just received a video of my niece all the way from the
UK, I relocated my video player next to my iMac ready to use iMovie and iDVD
to convert the video into a DVD... it was only then that I realised there were
no analogue inputs in my iMac! Once the blushing had subsided I did some research
and eventually decided on the "prosumer" device from Canopus.
Setting up
The user manual is very sparse (8 pages) but there is not much to actually
do to connect up. The device comes with a Firewire cable with 4-pin and 6-pin
connectors on either end. The device itself has a 4-pin socket at the front
and a 6-pin socket at the back. The large button on the top of the unit is
used to switch between analogue and digital input. A number of DIP switch
are on the bottom which allow various modes to be selected....
 |
"...the ADVC-100 takes the VHS video
and creates a DV stream.....the image is pretty good considering how
low quality VHS really is." |
- Video format: NTSC/PAL
- NTSC setup level: 0 IRE/ 7.5 IRE
- Locked audio mode: Locked/Unlocked
- Audio mode: 48kHz/16-bit / 32kHz/12-bit
- Power-on input mode: Analogue/Digital
- Input select mode: Manual/Auto.
When switched on the unit uses a very cool blue LED to indicate
which input mode is being used. The status light blinks when the unit thinks
it is getting a Macrovision-like signal. This causes the unit to fiddle with
the video signal making it darker then lighter. After a Google search I found
this can be disabled (luckily I can understand German!). I later found that
same information in the ADVC-specific forum on the Canopus web site.
So, I ran a long cable from my receiver to the ADVC-100 using
the tape audio out for the audio feed and one of the video outputs. The unit
has the DIP switch for video format set to NTSC by default so I switched that
to PAL as I was capturing a PAL video. Set the audio mode to 48Hz/16-bit and
locked audio mode to locked.
Firing up iMovie2 with the unit switched off meant the project was assumed
to be NTSC; with the unit switched on a PAL project was created. I was ready
to go!
 |
Sound Studio helps when wanting to input audio
only from a video source |
Capturing video using iMovie
iMovie believes that the ADVC-100 is a video camera and reports that the camera
is connected when the unit is on. There is no way to control the ADVC-100
via iMovie which is not really surprising. So to start the process I pressed
'play' on the VCR. If you click on the play button you can see what is coming
via the video input. Capturing started when I clicked on the import button
and stopped when I clicked the stop button. Nothing hard about that. The
image is pretty good considering how low quality VHS really is. So the ADVC-100
takes the VHS video and creates a DV stream at a resolution of 720x576 .
Audio only capture using Sound Studio
Things get more interesting if you only want to capture audio and not video.
Contrary to what you would think, you still need a video signal if you want
to record audio only; the signal is used as a trigger by the ADVC-100. If
you have no video feed then you get no audio.
The other issue is finding an application that knows about the
DV input device. Cranking up the Sound Preference pane reveals that the System
does not know that there is an extra audio input; only the internal microphone
is recognised. As many of the audio applications only seem to know about audio
inputs from this panel they have no idea that there are more inputs available
via the Firewire interface. Luckily I found a very useful application that
does the right thing: Sound Studio.
It recognises that there is a DV Audio input device and gives
you 3 options: First 2 channels, Second 2 channels, and Mix 4 channels. The
first 2 channels are the inputs at the front of the unit; the second 2 are
at the back. I have only used the 2 channel mode. In this mode the audio can
be either 48kHz/16-bit or 32kHz/12-bit; when in 4-channel mixing mode the main
and sub-channels are mixed at 50% each at 32kHz/12-bit.
To get the necessary video signal I connect the output from
my Sky decoder directly to the ADVC-100; the audio is connected to the tape
output of the receiver. This way I get the line-level inputs that are necessary
to prevent audio clipping, have the ability to record audio from any source
from the receiver, and have a video signal needed to trigger the device. I
originally had my video recorder connected directly to the ADVC-100 but found
that the audio level was too high for Sound Studio and meant the audio was
clipped. Going via the receiver fixed it.
Once you have the DV file what did I do with it ?
a) captured video from home-video PAL VHS tapes and Sky decoder analogue output:
create (S)VCD or DVD.
 |
Captured audio, ready to use however you want |
iMovie and Toast make a great combination. Having both allows
the captured files to be saved as MPEG for the creation of VCDs. Toast installs
some settings in iMovie that make the MPEG creation easy. The resulting MPG
files can then be placed into a very useful application called VCD Builder
which allows you to create VCDs with menus and sequences. Once finished VCD
Builder can fire up Toast to burn the VCD. A very cool app! You can also
create Super VCDs. Of course iDVD can also be used to create a DVD. VCDs
are definitely the best option for preserving TV recordings since the resolution
of the video closely matches VCD. DVD resolution is overkill! I burnt my
video to DVD because my sister's DVD player couldn't handle the VCD I sent.
Shame.
b) captured audio: create MP3s, and burn CDs.
The audio is saved as the default AIFF file. This is then
dragged into iTunes, converted there via the Advanced Menu option into an
MP3. Simple. The audio quality is excellent. There was no discernable difference
between the radio broadcast and the MP3. I typically record a 6 hour show;
the only real issue is the 2GB file limit in SoundStudio, so I record to
video tape in NICAM stereo first then capture into 2 files onto the Mac.
Conclusions
The ADVC-100 is very good for capturing old video footage that needs to be
preserved or take home videos and burn to CDR or DVD. It is easy to set up
and use with very little that can go wrong other than a dirty signal making
it think it has a Macrovision input and that can be fixed too. Audio capture
is good too although harder to set up as you still need an arbitrary video
trigger.
Review machine : iMac 800Hz 17" LCD display 512MB RAM 80GB
hard drive. USB wheel mouse.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
