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I am considering purchasing the 300 (or 110 if that will suffice) to transfer old video tapes to Mac imovie. I want to be able to control the capture in imovie (like with the DV camera, to pause when I don't want something). What controls the converter? Does imovie open when it is attached to the computer and a video tape inserted? Can I control what I want to capture (pause, etc)? And if I understand correctly, I have not seen this thing to understand it fully, it is just a box that needs to be connected to a VCR on one end and computer on the other, right? It is not a self contained thing that you put the video tape in it. So it would need to be connected to the OUT terminals of VCR? And does it work with every VCR? I have a newer Panasonic DVD/VHS recorder. I had purchased a mini DV camera that was supposed to be the "pass thru" but the Panasonic wasn't sending the right signal or something when I had everything hooked up right with firewire, signal still wasn't going to mini DV camera to transfer tape to mini dv. I would love something that lets imovie control the transfer so I don't have to capture a whole tape and then delete after the fact what I don't need. If this is possible, can I do it with the 110? Or do I need the 300? Thank you in advance!
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Both the 110 and 300 are designed to appear as a DV camera to your editing application, so should respond to a pause command, although I must admit I have never tried to do this. I'd rather just start the capture, go away and do something else, then come back when it is finished. You will most likely be doing further editing anyway, so it's no harder to quickly chop out a large chunk than it is a small chunk.
The difference between the 110 and 300 is that the 300 has extra noise reduction features which can give a better capture, particularly for older tapes.
I am surprised the pass-through on your DV camera did not work. It should have given you some sort of output when connected correctly. However if your VHS tapes are prerecorded ones they may have Macrovision protection which will prevent you converting them. In any case, even if you did get it to work you will find that the 110 and particularly the 300 will give a noticeably better conversion. Have a look at this forum post for samples which show the extra quality obtained using the ADVC-300 compared to a straight pass-through converter.
Ken. -
Thank you for the reply. I still don't know if this thing is something that needs to be connected to a VCR on one end and computer on the other? Or do the tapes go into the converter itself? If it is connected to VCR, it goes to the OUT terminals in the back of it? The tapes I am trying to do are family movies, so I have no idea what Macrovision protection is, doubt that it has it. I was surprised too when the signal didn't transfer. Must be something with the Panasonic Recorder's output signal, tho I was using firewire cable.Comment
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The ADVC-300 is just a small black box about the size of an outstretched hand. You can see some nice pictures here. You connect the output of your VCR to the input of the ADVC using composite video and audio cables (or better use S-video cable if your VCR has S-video output). Then connect the firewire cable from the ADVC to your computer.
If the tapes are your own recording they won't have Macrovision.
Ken.Comment
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OK, thank you for the information. Do you know anything about the 100 version? Does it do the same thing?Comment
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The ADVC-100 is an older device in the same product line, which was replaced by the ADVC-110 in 2004ish. It is not the same as the ADVC-300 as it does not have the correction and enhancement capabilities of the ADVC-300--no other device in the ADVC product line has those capabilities.Comment
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Thank you for the reply, so is the 110 an analog to DV going from VCR to computer without the enhancement capability, just straight pass thru?Comment
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That is correct.Comment
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