curious about the ACEDVio and the ADVC 300

[Christy Savage]

Hi!
I'm currently building a new NLE system and have a quick question...
For the last 5 years, we've been running Premiere 6.0 on a PC NLE system using the DV Raptor RT2 and the ADVC-100 converter and have overall had great success...producing a feature film, commercials, shorts and all sorts of stuff for broadcast and theatrical projection.

Now, of course it's long past time to upgrade...
We're planning to upgrade to Premiere Pro CS 2 or even 3, but want to stick with Canopus for the capture because it's worked well for us.

My question is this...
For our budget, we are looking at the Canopus ACEDV io capture card as well as the Canopus ADVC 300 converter. I've always believed that it is better to have the hardware, but is this true? Could I JUST have the ADVC 300 converter into a firewire and have comparable quality? Should I get both or will the ACEDV io do everything I need? Are there incompatibilty issues I should know about with either? Will the system freak out if there are too many firewire ports? How does the analog cleaner in each work? (we do a LOT of analog to digital converting for our film festival). Will only the ACEDVio go out to my TV from the timeline?

I guess the bottom line is this...I want a new, more powerful system to be as dependable and friendly as my old one...I do a lot of broadcast and theatrical projection, so we need the best quality for our budget.

Any advice is truly appreciated...thanks!

[Zorro]

Could I JUST have the ADVC 300 converter into a firewire and have comparable quality?

Yes, both units are A/D converters which use Canopus technology.

[GrassValley_KH]

ACEDVio and ADVC300 have the same conversion chip.

The difference would be that the ACEDVio is a self-contained board, and the ADVC300 is external and needs FireWire from somewhere (motherboard typically).

ADVC300 also has the additional analog input enhancement technology, to clean up noisy, problematic analog footage.

[Christy Savage]

Thanks.
I'm leaning toward getting the ACEDVio and just contuniing to use my ADVC100 till it breaks...I haven't had any issues with it so I'm not in a rush to upgrade...someone else told me that if my 100 works, there's not a lot of point to also getting the 300 for what I'm doing right now.

I guess than the only other question I have before I buy the ACEDVio is just if there are any compatibilty issues with hardware, etc. or Premiere software that I should take into consideration...I've been so happy with my Canopus products overall that I'd hate to ruin it. I did have a concern with multiple firewire ports though...has anyone had trouble with that?

I got a lot of useful input from other users through forums and articles prior to buying my old system, so I super-duper appreciate any suggestions, advice, etc.

[GrassValley_KH]

ACEDVio is extremely compatible with just about anything - Mac/Windows, NTSC/PAL, any NLE that supports OHCI FireWire...